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Improved streaming for K-State videos, plus tips to improve performance

by Information Technology Services

Many courses at K-State include an online media component, so it’s important that our video streaming is the best it can be. Information Technology Services (ITS) is happy to announce that, with recent hardware and software changes, K-Staters will notice improved performance on their video playback.

Some K-Staters using AT&T U-verse or CenturyLink as their Internet provider had experienced a consistent buffering problem during video playback. In response to this problem, ITS has added a Wowza Media Server to the video-streaming process and replaced our old video player with a responsive Flowplayer.

All these changes have been done behind the scenes, and will not require K-Staters to make any changes in how they view videos.

If you are still experiencing some problems with your video playback, you can do a few things to improve performance.

  1. Install the newest version of Adobe Flash Player. Adobe Flash Player is available online as a free download.
  2. Change your Internet browser. We recommend using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox for optimum video playback.
  3. Run the K-State Online Readiness Test to make sure your computer has the appropriate specifications.
  4. Use speedof.me to run a free HTML5-based speed test that works directly in your browser and iOS, Android, or Windows 8 smartphones without third-party plug-ins. The minimum download speed needed for quality viewing of online video is 2 Mbps.
  5. Ensure your computer meets K-State’s minimum system requirements.

If you are still having trouble viewing the video in your courses, contact the IT Help Desk and they will help you troubleshoot your video problem.

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