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. If enabled, the button to download is visible to viewer in the following locations:
- On the media page after clicking on an entry in a Canvas Media Gallery
- On the media page after clicking on an entry in a MediaSpace channel
- On the MediaSpace page that users land on when they click an unlisted link
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
- Flavors: "Flavors" is the term that Kaltura uses to describe alternate quality versions of a video. 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.
- Source: a Kaltura entry's "source" refers to the original file that was uploaded. It's almost certainly the highest-quality version that you can make available for download.
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 and unlisted videos only. The only way to access these download links is to click on the video in a Media Gallery, visit it in a channel, or visit the page for an unlisted video. 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 anyone who can access the page. Everyone in a course is permitted to look at the Media Gallery and thus download the video. Same thing with channel members in MediaSpace. And an unlisted video is visible to anyone who has the link. Basically, if a user can see your video's media page, they'll be able to download it.
- Enabling downloads for a Kaltura entry makes it downloadable everywhere - Canvas Media Galleries, MediaSpace channels, and unlisted pages. It doesn't matter where you enable downloads - it will be downloadable everywhere.
- You may want to alert folks that it's downloadable and send instructions. It's easy to overlook how to download a video in the Media Gallery. Feel free to send your users (e.g. students) instructions:
- 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. When you enable downloads, you're able to select what flavors (quality levels) you want to make available for download. We recommend that you either only select the source or select all flavors. The front-end process for enabling downloads isn't aware of what flavors have actually been generated on the back end. (Kaltura's algorithms determine what flavors to produce based on a variety of the source 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 few 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.
- Locate the video whose captions you want to edit, and click the pencil icon in its row.
|
- 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 in question, click the kebab on its row (three dots), and select Edit.
|
- 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.
- Select the flavors you want available for download. As we mention above, we recommend selecting either the source by itself, or all flavors.
| 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.