Avalon Features for Previous Releases

Release 1 (R1), May 2013

Secure delivery of video and audio to desktop browsers and iOS (iPad/iPhone) devices
Implementation as a Hydra application to provide easy search via the Blacklight discovery tool and integration with a Fedora repository
Support for both Adobe Media Server and the Red5 open source media server for audio and video streaming
Integration possibilities for a variety of authentication systems, along with permissions management by user- or group-based authorization
Manual media ingest and description
Dropbox-based batch import capability

Release 2 (R2), October 2013

Unit level and Collection level (University Archives and Faculty Collection) support, to enforce access and editing management
Allowing specifications of section labels in batch (which is not in MODS) as well as access control
Allowing player change
Basic monitoring and troubleshooting
Migration tools to easily shift R1 content to R2
Custom thumbnail images for videos

Release 3 (R3), May 2014

Track master files and derivatives in Fedora, and support archiving workflow for masters
Campus and course-based access control via LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability)
Permanent URL support (Handle Server and PURL)
Method of importing previously encoded derivatives
Dropbox privacy between collections - LOW
Player embedding for public and restricted content
Player fixes and improvements
Streamlined release process

Release 3.1 (R3.1), July 2014

Automated Group Management - Support integration with external sources of group membership relevant to access permissions
Thumbnail generation from derivatives so master files can be immediately deleted or moved aside
Custom permalink specification - enabling reuse of pre-existing PURLs or handles
Import of previously transcoded files from the Avalon dropbox
Improved error messages for batch ingest failures
Improved SEO - public Avalon items show up better in search engines

Release 3.2 (R3.2), December 2014

Hydra 7 upgrade
Needed metadata fields added, such as original physical description, language, related links, terms of use (item and batch)
Easily navigate to dropbox subdirectories
Browse everything integration
Bulk publish/unpublish
Bulk delete
Bulk collection re-assign
Bulk actions for access control

Release 3.3 (R3.3), January/February 2015

Release 4 (R4), September 2015

Migrate structural metadata from Variations to Avalon
Importing new items with an existing structure file that is created outside of the system
Navigate metadata by structure (jump to point on the timeline)
Create metadata structure (via resource description form and batch; structure can be added at the file level or what is now called a section), this includes segment label, hierarchy, and time offset
Edit metadata structure via resource description form
Create a transcoding API to support use with alternative transcoding engines
Wowza integration
Hydra 8
Navigation of web page elements with screen reader and tab key
Using player controls with keyboard
Add Notes field
Index Notes field
Providing LTI urls for direct access to item or sections when used with a Course Management System
Embed support

Release 5 (R5): June 2016

Support IU MDPI/Large collection management. Support for moving from Variations to Avalon.

Adding clips of media items to playlists;

Edit, re-order and move playlist items to other playlists

Create public or private playlists

IP based access control

Leases for access control (Start/end dates for user and group access on items)

Support for ingesting/delivering captions in VTT and/or SRT files

Section labels able to be searched

Release 5.0.1: July 14, 2016 - Bug fix release

· Inconsistencies in Avalon’s media player on some mobile device browsers

· Captions intermittently failed to appear on the media player when enabled

· Users would occasionally encounter error screens when searching

Release 5.1: July 28, 2016 - Feature improvements release

· Added functionality for playlists: markers

o Create and edit specific time points on scrubber

o Visual list (in chronological order) and scrubber points

· Variations import for playlists

· Various bug fixes

o Apostrophes in media objects causing a load failure

o Various smart phone display bugs

o Error handling for users clicking multiple times on upload

Release 6: March 2017

Avalon 6 is the first full release of Avalon running on Fedora 4 and has feature parity with the latest Avalon 5 release.

Updated to use current releases of Hydra components
New installation methods, including official images for Docker
Preview version of Avalon 5.x to Avalon 6 migration tool (full migration tool release coming soon)

Playlists:
- Adding clips of media items to playlists
- Edit, re-order and move playlist items to other playlists
- Create public or private playlists
Playlist Markers:
- Create and edit specific time points on scrubber
- Visual list (in chronological order) and scrubber points
Content ingest API
Access control enhancements:
- IP based access control
- Leases for access control (Start/end dates for user and group access on items)

Accessibility
- Support for ingesting/delivering captions in VTT and/or SRT files
- Section labels able to be searched
Variations Playlist Import
- Import a Variations playlist file into Avalon