PRODUCT UPDATES

Collections enhancements

The content is no longer centred, it is now better distributed in the available space
'Created' and 'Edited' dates are labelled and sit side by side
The Collection status doubles-up as an ACL editor button
You can perform more functions from the Collections page, like 'Run workflow on all records
You can choose to show the total playback time of a Collection and/or the total file size of a Collection. To do this navigate to:
- Admin > Manage Collections > Collections Settings > select your options
You can reorder and choose what to include in your Collection download zip filename when batch downloading from a Collection, to do so navigate to:
- Admin > Site configuration > Global Settings > Collection download file name format

With the numerous enhancements to Collections the standalone Collections page has become an integral part of the platform, that’s why we’ve decided to remove the Collections navigation from the accounts page.

Collections - anonymous sharing

Please note: this functionality is designed for admins only so media is not made public unintentionally. If a user is the owner of a collection they can still collection share, but if they see the simple editor and 'anonymous' isn't already in the ACL, then they would have to contact a site admin to add it for them.

To enable this functionality, navigate to:

Admin > Manage users/groups> Manage Groups > Select group > Select ‘Share Collections’

AWS Deep Archive – restore days are in your hands

Please note: this is only for those who have intelligent tiering enabled.

Previously, if you tried to download something in Deep Archive you would get a message saying, ‘You do not have your number of restore days set, please contact your administrator’. Now you can set the number of days you would like media to be restored in hot storage for.
Navigate to:

Admin > Services > Imagen > Management > Storage service > Location > Choose AWS bucket > Edit > Intelligent Tiering and Glacier > Number of Restore Days > Input the number of days and click ‘Save’.

Upload your font with ease

This feature is for the Material theme only - Callisto, Dark, Lunar and Solar.

Navigate to: Edit panel > Manage Styles > You’ll see there’s a new section called ‘Manage fonts’, here you’ll have two options to update your site’s font, ‘Upload a font’ or ‘Use a hosted font’.

Please note: We only currently support woff2 file formats.

🔄 OPTIMISATIONS 🔄

Smart Clipping
Admins can now use the 'enable smart clipping' button within the IW Admin interface, this means you won't need to view the field facets page (as was required previously).
Live
SRT streams should use srt-live-transmit on the live server and srt data will be logged.

🔧 FIXES 🔧

Collections
‘Order all download’ was not working as intended, this is now working.
Clips
For a segment record with no renditions, the clip icon now redirects to the parent record so a clip can be made from there.
Live
Resolved an issue where live stream fails trying to copy codecs it doesn't understand.
Data
We've added a new column on the orders table for 'bulk orders'.

19 JULY 2024

🚀 WHAT'S NEW 🚀

Record Preview Optimisation
We’ve overhauled the preview panel for records on the search page. This not only makes it easier to surface the moments you’re looking for across multiple records, but it also accommodates future smart clipping functionality.

…in the ‘list’ and ‘gallery’ view you couldn’t preview the record, when you clicked on the thumb it would take you directly to the record page.
…in the ‘flex’ view the preview panel appeared below the record, this did not work well on smaller screens and did not make it easy to navigate quickly between records.

Skip redacted content

Previously, rights-restricted content didn’t take it out of the sequence – so, when a video was played there would be sections with a blank screen. Now, you can make sure these sections are skipped by navigating to the records ‘annotations’ tab and selecting ‘mute’ and ‘fuzz’ – making for an improved viewing experience.

🔄 OPTIMISATIONS 🔄

Search queries just got quicker...

Previously…

If a users’ language is set to ‘French’ – fields returned included English fields, i.e, category_en and athleteName_en – thus lots of individual customer requests were slowing down the platform.

Now…

If a users’ language is set as ‘French’ – fields returned only include category_fr, athleteName_fr etc. This has improved the speed of search queries.

Additional language
We’ve added Bosnian to our language pack.

🔧 FIXES 🔧

Subtitle parity
There were issues uploading and ingesting ITT files into the Imagen platform, this has now been fixed so SCC, ITT< SRT files all perform in the same way, and they can be ingested as documents.
Collection pagination
Pagination for collections with >255 records is now fixed.
Clip thumbnail
The thumbnail for a clip was displaying the thumbnail for the whole record, this has now been fixed to display the clip thumbnail.
Annotations truncating
If the annotations had more than 200 lines, everything beyond the 200^th line was not visible, this has now been fixed so all annotations for a record can be seen.
Japanese language
There were some issues with translations in Collections, this has now been corrected.

8 MARCH 2024

Live Clipping

Live connect now allows for users to clip whilst a live stream is being transcoded. Developed the capability for the live HLS rendition to persist as a viewable, clipable video while the archiving of the file occurs. Previously a user could not clip between the time a stream ended and when it had finished transcoding.
Themes

Imagen now provides the ability to hide the collection item date for both views – list and grid. This adds the ability to remove the date shown for a collection. *Contact Imagen support for configuration
New Language Packs

Imagen supports many ‘System Languages’ via our language packs - now including Japanese - which translate the standard platform UI.

Site admins can also provide custom translations for bespoke fields (such as metadata). The option to use languages for custom translation fields which are not supported by the ‘System languages’ has been provided.

🔄 OPTIMISATIONS 🔄

Track new SSO users. Admins can now track new SSO users who have yet to access the site and completed their registration. They will have a new status displayed in the admin user panel.
Record title now available on concatenated output file name. When user is concatenating multiple media objects of a record using run workflow from the search page, the output filename now includes the Record title.
Enquiry form has been updated to link the question mark section for readability.
Language pack has now updated translation corrections for the Italian and Japanese languages.
Clip Order workflow when enabled can be restricted to users who can only download media objects
Event scheduling. Track a user’s journey across the platform for optimisation analysis. For every event we now store in the Event Service:
- IPaddress
- SessionID
- Useragent

🔧 FIXES 🔧

For the 'Overview storage' doughnut chart on the User Intelligence page, fixed an issue where the total number wasn’t visible in the centre.
When editing record page templates, the code no longer gets indented when saved.
Reinstated the ability to modify clip captions, remove clips from a collection and change in/out points after adding a clip to a collection in a collection for users who only have ‘view’ permission on the media.
Arabic translation corrections.
Datepickers on forms using the site global setting and consistent across language selection.
UI issue resolved for the Timecode entry for annotations being invisible when not selected with the mouse.
Within the upload modal, mandatory multiselect fields are now clearly shown as being mandatory.
When trying to bulk download content that has a credit value, users were getting a download box which is blank with only cancel option available.
Fixed an issue where the basket was displaying the Enquiry messages in all situations, whereas it should only display for defined enquiry responses.
Smart collection sort order now saving correctly for selected sort order.
Importing annotations from one record into another no longer merges the Player/Participant data and retains the separate lines of data.
Fixed an issue where items selected and added to a new collection via a collection were not added even when correct permissions were granted.

26 OCTOBER 2023

Upload Interface - A new and improved design!

The upload experience has been redesigned to make the process of adding media to Imagen easier and more intuitive, building a faster and better upload experience.
- Upload multiple media formats simultaneously
- Improved schema layout
- Staged process: reduce cognitive load for an easier and more intuitive experience
- Notifications: progress bar and success notification
Live Connect Updates- New Features to support global scaling!

Retrieve the Worker URL immediately
Once a stream is created the Worker URL can now be retrieved by the user immediately, where previously this was only available 30 minutes before the stream start time. This allows for quicker scheduling and organisation of your events prior to their launch.

Stream multiple events in their region
Live Connect now supports the configuration of multiple live farmer regions allowing for the ingest of simultaneous live streams from multiple geographic locations.

Now accepting Listener and Caller mode
Input and output worker parameters have been added as advanced settings/options for live streams configured in ‘Listener mode’.

For further information, please refer to our ‘Live Connect’ knowledge article>>
User Intelligence

Analytics at your fingertips!
Building on the recent update to the User Intelligence dashboard you are now able to export Analytics as a CSV file. This functionality allows for instant reporting on user activity, downloads, clip order downloads and plays.
Enquiry Forms

New channels of communication for your userbases
Imagen now supports the ability to add multiple enquiry forms so different use cases can be accommodated without the restriction of a single form. With each form, ACL options are provided so only the appropriate form type is provided to a user or group.
Access & Find Your Media Faster Than Ever!
- PDF Indexing & Search - words and phrases contained in a document are now searchable with our PDF Viewer. *Requests will be made to Account Manager for configuration.
- More Metadata! - Metadata on a media element derived from ffprobe is currently viewable within the upload interface. The option for admins to extend the visibility to non-admin users has been provided by allowing ffprobe metadata to be placed into the record page field template. *Requests will be made to Account Manager for configuration.
- Users anxiously awaiting new media? - A new setting is available that states "Show media if not yet archived". This means that if media is taking a long time to ingest (for example if you are using an Azure video indexer) then you can still view your HLS and thumbnails for the media on ImagenWeb as soon as those are ready.

🔄 OPTIMISATIONS 🔄

Collections
- Download clips and full records together. When the user orders all items in a collection, they have the option to include full records. When downloading, the collection name can be added to the batch download zip folder from the collection page.
- Curate your perfect list! Media within a collection can now be reordered via a drag-and-drop.
- Download all! The 100-item maximum limit for downloading has been removed. Consistent naming. The Zip folder title for any bulk download is now based on the Collection name to improve consistency when exported.
- More to display. Admin users can now display the full email address for collection owners allowing easier access to a user’s contact details for external communication.
More configurations!
- More formats. Users can add .SCC and .VTT subtitle files using SetSubtitle and now store them as an original subtitle media element.
- New video for audio tracks. The Audio waveform tracks in the player are now collapsible improving the ability to view clips and the media player without scrolling the window. The performance of the Audio Digest loading .adig (waveform) has been improved. The requests will populate in parts rather than wait until the full track can be displayed, allowing faster access to the clipping tool.
- More language options. Imagen supports many ‘System Languages’ via our language packs, which translate the standard platform UI. Site admins can also provide custom translations for bespoke fields (such as metadata). The option to use languages for custom translation fields which are not supported by the ‘System languages’ has been provided.
- Users can share records via a simple Access Control Level.

🚀 MOVING FORWARD 🚀

Smart clipping

We’re currently in the scoping phase. We envision this functionality reducing the time taken to produce highlights packages for onward distribution. Using data feeds to enrich the asset’s metadata, Imagen would be able to pinpoint the moments you need across your whole library of content even faster.

🔧 FIXES 🔧

New users signing up via their organisation will not see the 'Register Now' link when it is disabled in admin.
Anonymous users can now download media when given the right permissions.
Collections now use the site-wide date format setting.
Site admins can either use the "System Languages" which are fully translated for the site or "Additional languages" at their own discretion.
The 'Browse' button opens 'File Explorer' in the admin pages.
Search by voice is submitting the recorded search term
If the user cannot clip a file, the ‘Create clip’ option does not show in the context menu.
The Live ingest player window shows in full on the record page.
If a user has View access to a record only, they are not given the option to Edit the record from the collection.

26 JUNE 2023

Live Connect: Now you can create API calls to set up, monitor, and update your live feeds. To use these please refer to our ‘Live Connect’ knowledge article>>
Live Connect: Previously the creator of a live stream received a platform notification when it had started or failed. Now you’ll receive an email notification too, so you don’t miss the latest. You can edit these templates by following: Admin panel > Site configuration > Email > Templates > Live stream status.
Usage analytics: We have switched our data source for usage analytics from Google Analytics (GA) to Imagen’s Event Service data. The event services data has feature parity, plus we’ve added a couple of new graphs:
- Downloads tab: ‘Download location’ graph, this shows if the download was on the record or from an order.
- Plays tab: Additional ‘Most watched’ preview pane, and ‘User retention’ graph, this shows at what points viewers are most engaged.
- PLEASE NOTE: We are still supporting the GA integration, so you can display Imagen analytics in GA.

🔄 OPTIMISATIONS 🔄

HLS workflows: Previously our default workflow for HLS used dimensions that resulted in a bitrate that was too low. These dimensions have been changed so you get the appropriate bitrate and result.
Additional media support: We now support media types: .ttf, .ase, .jsx.
Additional languages: We’ve added Italian to our list of language packs.

🔧 FIXES 🔧

Downloading a Clip or Collection with an apostrophe in its name was causing an error, this has now been fixed.
You can now create segments from an Audio file as intended.
In the Collections view, if you opened up a menu for a record and then navigated back or forth a page, the pop-out menu persisted until clicked off, this has been fixed.
Google Image AI recognition workflows now work on the full image dimension.

22 MARCH 2023

Live Connect:

From camera to cloud, Live Connect ingests and automatically stores multiple live feeds via SRT (secure reliable transport) or RTMP (real time messaging protocol). So, you can give Imagen users permission-based access to download, edit, enrich, repurpose, and share live content as it’s happening.

Take control with time-restricted access:

Giving permission to see a record/media/collection – now you can add date ranges, i.e. Can view from DATETIME to DATETIME.

Uploading zip files:

Previously a zip file record appeared blank, which was somewhat confusing. Now a zip file record has a clear icon displaying it as such, showing there is content to be downloaded.

Get more information from your registration moderation emails:

Often there are multiple people on the distribution list for moderation emails. So, we’ve updated the email template to include the sign-up’s name and email address, so it’s easy to identify who needs to approve them.

Metadata comes in first:

[Material theme]: The info pane to the right of a record will default to show metadata on the first tab.

Google Identity Services:

Google has updated its authentication services, as such you’ll need to sign in again on our Business Intelligence pages. P.s. make sure you don’t have pop-ups blocked.

Collections:

You can now multi-select assets in a Collection by using the Shift+Left Click command.

Annotations API: API calls can be created to extract annotations to another platform.
Collections API: API calls can be created to automatically add media to a collection.

Collections: Thumbnails for Collections, records & segments now display correctly on the Accounts page.

30 JANUARY 2023

‘On this day’ calendar widget

We’ve created a widget that shows the content that has been added to your site over any given week. This makes it super easy to highlight a particular event or date in time. Watch the video to find out how to add this widget to one of your pages. If the video isn’t loading, watch it here >>

RECORD: When navigating the tabs on a record, the session will remember which tab you are on.
ACL: If a user has logged in via an SSO org and is subsequently added to a download profile, their SSO username is added instead of their email. Now their email will be added to make them easily identifiable and searchable.
CLIPS: As an admin you can change the clip download name format. Navigate to > Site configuration > Global Settings > Clip download file name format.
ORDERS: Additional spacing between the icons on an order card has made them easier to read.
COLLECTION: Previously if a bulk download failed, the following message would be displayed ‘All the media objects selected can’t be downloaded’. This message did not help the user move toward their desired outcome. Now the message will state:

‘You are unable to download the selected media. All the items selected have a cost associated with them so can only be downloaded individually.’

‘You are unable to download the selected media. You may not have access to the required download profiles. Please contact your site administrator.’

COLLECTION: The Collection URL in the enquiry form was encoded, as such the URL was not forwarding to the right place. The URL now shows as plain text, so it forwards correctly.
COLLECTION: The live media preview now works in the new collections layout.
ACL: If selecting ‘Default settings’ when creating upload profiles for a group, it wasn’t saving. This has now been fixed.
DOWNLOAD: The downloads modal was not always showing the correct number of records being downloaded, sometimes showing “undefined”. This has now been fixed.
TRANSLATIONS: Not all lines in a notification were translating properly. This has now been fixed.

14 OCTOBER 2022

We’ve got Apple ProRes Certification…
We now support Apple’s implementation of ProRes, read more about Apple ProRes >>
You decide how your Login page looks…

We’ve added lots of custom options to your Login settings, so you can achieve the look and feel that’s right for your organisation. Watch the video to set this up >>

22 August 2022

If you have any questions about how to use any of the new features or optimisations, please contact your Account Manager:

Save time with batch downloads: Select a record in your Collection > ‘Select all’ > ‘Download’.
Better access to your record data: We’ve redesigned the record page with you in mind. If your site is built on the Material theme your record tabs are now aligned to the right of the record, so you can access tabs without scrolling down the page.
Use accelerated upload, so you don’t have to wait around: You can now specify accelerated upload to Amazon S3 Storage Service, even better, you can make this available only to the organisations you specify.
Better search functionality: Do you search for assets using a date/time filter? Your search results will now account for your local web server time, so the date/time field will display in your time zone.
Keep your collections looking high-res!: For clips added to a Collection, the thumbnail was taken from the nearest video still. Sometimes that video still is of poor quality, and in that case, the Collection can now be configured to use the record thumbnail instead. Navigate to: Admin Panel > Manage Collections > Collection Settings > Tick ‘Use thumbnails for collection clips (where your video stills are poor quality)’.
Retrieve and use clips with ease: We’ve introduced ProRes Partial File Restore, so you can quickly retrieve and utilise segments of large media files.

The error message “There is no media associated with this record” was generated when uploading some social URLs this has now been fixed.
The date field for a record was defaulting to ‘today’s’ date when left blank, this has now changed so that the field will stay blank if a date isn’t inputted.

11 JULY 2022

Annotations: Make your annotations easier to digest. Now you can specify the time-grouping when exporting annotations, for example, 2, 5, or 30-second groupings.
Metadata: You can now enable IPTC metadata to map from your original record to your renditions. This means any rendition downloads will have the original record IPTC metadata. The fields you want to embed can be specified when setting up the workflow.
Metadata: Upload content more efficiently – your Media Object Name will now default to the Original File Name, so there’s no more unnecessary typing out of file names (unless you want the title file name to be different).

Integration: The Adobe Premiere Pro extension was not appearing, this has now been fixed and works as designed.

31 MAY 2022

Google Analytics: We’ve added a GA4 option in the admin panel so you can connect and log information with your GA4 account.
Delete: You can set your recycle bin to ‘keep forever’.
Cloud storage: If you’re working with AWS or Wasabi, you can now use direct upload. Get in contact with your Account Manager to set this up.
Analytics: You can now search by month in the media viewer widget.
Password policy: We have increased the password minimum length to 12 characters, by increasing the search space the risk of attackers being successful is reduced.
Security: We’ve updated to the latest Apache Version 2.4.53 to provide a secure, efficient and extensible server that provides HTTP services in sync with the current HTTP standards.
Integrations: We’re currently working on integrating with Elasticsearch and Panopoly, if these integrations are of interest please get in contact with your Account Manager.

Thumbnail: Some images were turning up blank when using a workflow to create a thumbnail image from a PDF, this has now been fixed.
Thumbnail: Some ‘Collection’ thumbnails were not populating, this is now fixed.

1 MAY 2022

Restore records: Accidentally deleted something? Now you can restore media records, phew!
Access controls: Instead of creating a lengthy blacklist you can now quickly add countries that can register to your site to a whitelist, simple.
Analytics: Your events log will now display media type where possible.
Banners: Prioritise banners so users see them in the order you want them to.

Batch download: Allow batch download using AFD even if downloading from records with a backslash or forward slash in the title.

1 APRIL 2022

With Imagen Pro, you can now you can see how uploaded media has been used across its lifetime all the way through to deletion. Helping you keep track of your assets.

Learn more>>

10 January 2022

Premiere Pro integration: Our integration with Adobe’s video editing software is now live, find out more here >>

Improved translations: Better translations for Hausa, Serbian and Chinese

01 December 2021

Language: Introduced Indonesian translations.

01 October 2021

Order on behalf of another: Set sunset dates for assets you order on behalf of another user.

Usage statistics: Usage statistics now include volume and numbers of assets that have been transcoded or used AI enrichment.

Banner message: You can now provide translations for banner text.

01 September 2021

Subtitle improvements:

Please get in contact with your Account Manager to take advantage of the subtitle improvements as you will need updates to your workflow editor.

New ‘Set Subtitles’ widget enables SRT files to be imported to the appropriate asset.

Closed captions: Ingest the appropriate file and attach to the relevant record.

Banner message: Added ability to use multiple language characters in a banner message.

01 July 2021

Social post thumbnail images: Specify custom thumbnail images for your social posts. [Via API only. Need to request for this to be configured, contact your Account Manager.]

Download analytics: Event log now specifies if a download event is a single download or batch download.

Verification email: System admins can now resend verification emails to users.

Order on behalf of another: Full media in a collection can now be ordered on the behalf of another. (Previously clip only).

Inline replies: Inline replies added for comments widget, making it easier to collaborate.

Section 508 compliance: Improvement made to better the access to the platform for people with disabilities.

‘Save & Add Another’ button now redirects to add another media item once the prior upload is completed.

Removed subscription tier options if the user does not have a subscription licence.

01 June 2021

Basket question logic: When displaying questions to users so as they can progress to the correct asset pricing in basket, you can now reorder the questions so they show based on previous answers.

Download analytics: Now when a user batch downloads from a search query this appears as one event instead of multiple.

Speaking the lingo: : The language picker now shows the native language for each option. Making it easier for your users to find their native tongue.

Clone user groups: Now you can clone a group’s permissions without cloning the users, simple.

Payment options: Users can enter coupon and discount codes when buying media.

Purchasing clips: When a user selects an asset to add to their basket and purchase, they will now see the in/out time points of the content they’re purchasing.

Filters now order by most popular first.

Player now resizes when pressing the player button.

01 May 2021