Overview
By default, if you publish a Kaltura video to either a Media Gallery in Canvas or a channel in MediaSpace, viewers aren't able to download it. You can change that, however, and essentially add a "download" tab below your video. The download tab is visible to users in the following circumstances:
- In a Canvas Media Gallery
- In a MediaSpace channel
- (MediaSpace) On the page that users land on when they click an unlisted link
- (MediaSpace) On the page that users land on when they view a video in a public channel
While these instructions will most often apply to instructors, technically any Kaltura user can make their videos downloadable, so these instructions apply to all UCSD community members.
Critical Concepts
Definitions
"Flavor"
The instructions below refer to "flavors." This is the term that Kaltura uses to describe alternate quality versions of a video, in contradistinction to the "source," which is the original file that was uploaded.
Every video ingested into Kaltura is processed so that lower quality levels are generated. This helps Kaltura provide a better viewing experience for bandwidth-constrained users by presenting them a lower-quality version of the video if poor internet speeds are detected, helping to ensure that they don't continually experience buffering or stuttering.
Prerequisites
- You must be a media owner or a co-editor. The ability to enable downloads for a Kaltura entry is only available to these two roles.
- These instructions are for published videos. The only way to access the download links is to click on the video in a Media Gallery or a channel. If you're talking about a video you embedded on a page in Canvas, we have separate instructions on how to enable downloads for embedded videos in Canvas.
Things to Keep in Mind
- If you want to download your own video, there's a different way. See our tutorial about downloading your own videos. Though you could technically download your video by following the steps below, it makes it possible for ANYONE who can view the video to download it.
- Your video is downloadable by any member of the course or channel. Everyone in a course is permitted to look at the Media Gallery and thus download the video. Same thing with channel members in MediaSpace. Basically, if a user can see your video in a Media Gallery or channel, they'll be able to download it.
- Enabling downloads for a Kaltura entry makes it downloadable both in Canvas Media Galleries as well as MediaSpace channels. It doesn't matter if you enable downloads within Canvas or MediaSpace - it will be downloadable in both instances (again, within Media Galleries, channels, if you send an unlisted link, or if you have a public channel).
- You may want to alert your folks that it's downloadable. It's easy to overlook how to download a video in the Media Gallery. Feel free to send your users (e.g. students) these instructions on how to download a video in a Media Gallery if you've enabled it.
- You can only do this on a video-by-video basis. You can't make a bunch of videos available for download in bulk, unfortunately.
Known Issues
- The flavor download options presented don't necessarily represent what's available on the back end, so just check the box for all flavors. When you enable downloads, you're able to select what flavors (quality levels) you want to make available for download. As you see below, we recommend that you select all flavors. While this is partly to maximize your viewers' download choices, it's also because this function on the front end isn't aware of what flavors have been generated on the back end. Kaltura's algorithms determine what flavors to produce based on a variety of video characteristics, such as bitrate and size.
Steps to Take
Watch the video tutorial for how to do this in Canvas, or follow the instructions below.
Videos can be made available for download in a Canvas Media Gallery or a MediaSpace channel, so follow the first 2 steps based on where you want to perform the action.
| In Canvas | In MediaSpace |
|---|
- Log into Canvas.
- Go to https://canvas.ucsd.edu.
- Enter your active directory credentials.
- Within Canvas, click My Media in the left navigation.
|
- Log into MediaSpace.
- Go to https://mediaspace.ucsd.edu.
- Click the profile icon at the top right of the page and select Login.
- Enter your active directory credentials.
- Click the profile icon again and select My Media.
|
- Locate the video that you want students to be able to download, and click the pencil icon on the right side of its row.
- Click the Downloads tab beneath the video preview. The information below the tab will repopulate. You should see several options (which Kaltura refers to as "flavors") for downloads that you can enable.
- Check all the boxes to enable viewers to choose the quality level they prefer. See the "known issue" above to see why we recommend this, and see the table below for more information about each flavor. (Note that if you only want to select one flavor, then select Source.)
| Flavor | Description |
|---|
| Source | The highest-quality version that you can download. It's the original file that was uploaded. |
| Higher quality | Size: 1920 x 1080 ("1080p")
Target bitrate: 6,000 kbps |
| High quality | Size: 1920 x 1080 ("1080p")
Target bitrate: 4,000 kbps |
| Medium quality | Size: 1280 x 720 ("720p")
Target bitrate: 2,500 kbps |
| Low quality | Size: 640 x 360
Target bitrate: 900 kbps |
| Audio only | Size: N/A (only contains audio)
Target bitrate: 128 kbps
Note that this audio file is in an .mp4 container (with no video). |
- Once you've selected all of the quality levels for the video download, be sure to click Save at the bottom of the screen.
Your video is now downloadable when viewed in Canvas Media Galleries and MediaSpace channels.