Haivision Supplies Zayed University with End-to-End IP Video System

Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates is now equipped with the Haivision Network Video’s Furnace IP video system, 91 Makito HD encoders, and 10 Stingray set-top boxes (STBs), which together power the university’s new lecture-capture system. The end-to-end IP video system makes lectures from 90 classrooms available across the whole of Zayed University’s brand-new Abu Dhabi campus.

The new lecture-capture system encodes course lectures with Haivision’s HD Makito encoders at the lowest possible latency, 55 milliseconds. The Makito is a high-performance encoder that combines the efficiencies of H.264 video compression and the image quality of full 1080p60 HD video. These encoded video streams are handled by the Furnace IP video system, a complete infrastructure that streams live lectures throughout the campus, while also recording, storing, and cataloging the lectures onto the university’s network for future access.

The Haivision IP video distribution system allows students, faculty, and staff to access the content and view the lectures either with Haivision’s “zero footprint” InStream soft player on their desktops and laptops, or via Haivision’s Stingray STBs on televisions. According to Haivision, the system requires very little effort from the university’s IT staff, providing ease of use for all users from anywhere on the new campus.

Once a recorded session is archived, all of its catalog references are published in HTML onto the university’s network in a simple, intuitive Web catalog, which staff and students can access at either high or low quality — depending on the user’s network connection — thanks to the Makito’s HiLo-Streaming feature.

“We’re excited to be a part of Zayed University’s modern, new campus project — helping bring lectures to students on such a massive scale,” says Mohammed Ghafari, VP of Haivision for the Middle East. “This grand project is a prime example of what Haivision can supply to the education market in the Middle Eastern region.”

In addition to providing flexible, secure, and easy-to-use video delivery of classroom lectures, Haivision’s equipment was easily integrated with a variety of other services that were deployed on the new campus. These include Zayed University’s new translation system, digital signage system, large format LED screens, and video conferencing/distance learning systems.