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Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 3 Login ........................................................................................................................................................ 3 BROWSE: ................................................................................................................................................. 5 Save ......................................................................................................................................................... 6 Link .......................................................................................................................................................... 6 Embed ..................................................................................................................................................... 6 Clip Start – Clip End. ................................................................................................................................ 6 CommBox DVC Player basics................................................................................................................... 7 To play a file ................................................................................................................................ 7 To seek ........................................................................................................................................ 7 SEARCH:................................................................................................................................................... 7 TV GUIDE: ................................................................................................................................................ 8 NEWS: ..................................................................................................................................................... 8 MY FILES: ................................................................................................................................................. 8 LESSONS: ................................................................................................................................................. 9 LOGOUT: ................................................................................................................................................. 9 HELP: ....................................................................................................................................................... 9 Settings: .................................................................................................................................................. 9
www.commbox.com.au Support: 02 9938 4811
Introduction DVC is a browser based player and will work on the majority of up to date browsers (Chrome, Internet Explorer 9 +, Safari etc). Your IT department will give you the web address of your DVC system. You must put this address into your browser to access DVC. It is a good idea to bookmark or keep a shortcut on your desktop for this player.
Login When you first browse to the DVC player you will receive the below player page. You will need to log on using your existing user name and password that you use for your school PC or laptop. Technical point: DVC integrates with ELDAP systems including Active Directory. E Directory and Open Directory.
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Once you have logged in you will see the below page.
www.commbox.com.au Support: 02 9938 4811
BROWSE: The browse button allows you to browse through content in DVC. Pressing browse will take you to the DVC content where you will be presented with a list of folders. Your school content administrators decide on folder structure and names. You can browse through folders to find whatever content you wish to play/view. Supported content types are: Video, Documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF etc), Images, Music.
You can click on any of the folders to drill down to CommBox DVC content. When you click on a file you will be presented with a content page (see next page over) where you can choose to play the file with the normal media controls (play, stop, seek forwards backwards etc), or you could choose to download, link or save.
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Save will download a copy to your local device. Note that iPads do not support download. This is a limitation of the iPad and not CommBox DVC. Technical point: The file type is Mp4 (H.264 Video & AAC Audio). You do not need DVC to play this saved file back. Most modern media players will play this format including up to date versions of Windows Media Player, Apples Quicktime and VLC. VLC is a free media player and can be downloaded from www.videolan.org.
Link will put a path address of the file on your clipboard. You can paste this link into third party software such as Moodle, Studywiz, Blackboard, PowerPoint, Word etc. If a user is to click on that link, it will launch the file for them.
Embed is the same as link – except it embeds it in its own player (video in window). Note that security of file remains intact when using link and embed (meaning a younger student cannot get access to a linked or embedded file if permission has not been set in CommBox DVC.
Clip Start – Clip End. A student or a teacher can mark the start and end of a clip of content that they want to use. When clip start and end are used, the link and embed address reflect these ‘start and end times’. Note that if 20 teachers all selected their own ‘clips’ of a file, this would not be 20 duplicates. This would just be 20 ‘bookmarks’, so will not take up any extra storage space nor alter the integrity of the original file.
www.commbox.com.au Support: 02 9938 4811
CommBox DVC Player basics
To play a file – Press the play icon in the video. To seek forwards or backwards drag the seek bar.
Pause. Volume. Full screen.
SEARCH: From here you will be able to enter a keyword which DVC will then use to search all of the metadata fields. If you wish to narrow your search you can use the drop down box to select which metadata fields or subject you wish to search.
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TV GUIDE: Selecting this will display a filtered TV guide showing one week of content from free to air and Foxtel that has been matched to the Australian curriculum. You can even request a recording from your administrator by pressing the ‘Request recording icon : When selecting the Request recording icon , your email program will be launched and a new email will be created prefilled with your librarian’s email address and includes all information relating to which program you would like recorded. All you need to do is click the ‘Send’ button.
NEWS: This will link through to a web based news page or your school generated newsletter. Technical point: Your content administrators decide what this news button links to by inputting a URL into the DVC Administration software.
MY FILES: The best way to think of My Files is as a ‘My Favourites’ folder. From here you can bookmark (link) and play any of your favourite or bookmarked files. These are links and not actual files so there is no limit or excess storage used. First create a folder or folders that you wish to store your content links in. Then when you browse or search for content, you will see an add to my files selection in both the list of content and in the files meta data fields (you can use either of these input methods). To add to your own ‘My Files’ area, simply drop down the ‘add to my files’ box and select your folder.
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LESSONS: Lessons allows you to bundle content together and allow access to that bundled content for students or other teachers. To use, you first need to add your desired ‘Lesson’ content to my files. Then simply tick the boxes of the content you wish to add to your lesson. Once all desired content is ticked, click the create lesson button. This will take you to the bundled lesson along with its unique lesson number. You can give this lesson number to a student or another teacher who can then log onto that lesson.
LOGOUT: This will log you out of DVC player.
HELP: The help button will present you with a list of help documents and videos including this manual.
Settings: Only CommBox DVC administrators will have this button. This area allows you to add the school logo to your DVC player. Note that recommended height is 128 pixels and recommended maximum width is 400 pixels.
We hope you enjoy the all new CommBox DVC system and player. For further support, please contact us on 02 9938 4811.
www.commbox.com.au Support: 02 9938 4811