Frequently Asked Questions
- What new features will Mediastream® provide?
- How do these new features integrate with existing Media Monitors’ products and platforms?
- What are the differences between the various formats?
- How often can a Mediastream® clip be played after purchase?
- How does the Library in My Mediastream® Player work?
- I can’t see item summaries in the My Mediastream® Library; how do I tell what each item broadcast is about without playing it (or paying for it again)?
- What is an “Unlimited Access Mediastream® clip”?
- Is there a different My Mediastream® Player interface for NewsAlerts subscribers?
- How do I use the Player controls?
- Why are Instant Download clips only available to Mediaportal customers?
- What are the technical requirements?
Q: What new features will Mediastream® provide?
Mediastream® clip: A Flash-based, instant and streamed video or audio clip of a TV or radio item, available to your organisation for up to 2 hours after purchase. Mediastream® clips can be purchased via your HTML broadcast NewsAlerts or Mediaportal account.
The Mediastream® clips will be played using the My Mediastream® Player window, and the user must be connected to the internet in order to play it.
Instant Download: An Instant Download is a video or audio clip that can be saved to your computer in a variety of file formats, for indefinite use by your organisation after purchase. Instant Downloads can be ordered within your Mediaportal account, and are downloadable 24/7.
For detailed information about the different clip formats, refer to the item “What are the differences between the various formats?” in this Q&A.
My Mediastream® Player: the online environment where users can watch/listen to Mediastream clips, and view previously-purchased clips saved in their Mediastream Clip Library.
The Player window looks like this:
Q: How do these new features integrate with existing Media Monitors’ products and platforms?
Mediastream® instant streamed audio and video clips are available at just a few clicks from your relevant broadcast summaries in Mediaportal, or via your HTML NewsAlerts. The stream will play in the My Mediastream® Player window.
Instant Download clips can be purchased via your Mediaportal account, as an ordering option, and once purchased will allow you to save the file to your computer. It will also archive a copy in your Mediaportal Library.
You will still be able to order traditional Edited Clips from your Mediaportal or NewsAlerts.
Q: What are the differences between the various formats?
Mediastream® streamed clip:
Watch or listen to a Mediastream® streamed clip almost instantly online without needing to wait for an edited clip to be created and shipped to you, or for large files to be downloaded to your computer.
To ensure the entire and relevant item is played, the clip may include some lead-in material.
Mediastream® streamed clips that you purchase are played in the My Mediastream Player window, and can be played by other users in your organisation for up to two (2) hours. After this time, subsequent views are rebilled at the standard rate.
To watch or listen to Mediastream® streamed clips, your computer must have Adobe Flash version 7 or greater installed, and a broadband internet connection. You can install the latest version of Adobe Flash free from the Adobe website: www.adobe.com.
Instant Download clip:
Download and save a copy of a radio or TV clip to your computer, immediately. Instant Download clips are available in Windows Media (WMV) and MPEG video formats; or Windows Media (WMA) and MP3 audio formats, and can only be ordered within a Mediaportal account.
Like the Mediastream® streamed clips, Instant Download files may contain some lead-in material before the relevant material begins to play.
To purchase an Instant Download, click the ‘Order Video/Audio Clip’ button, and select ‘Instant Download’. You can download the clip to your computer, and additionally, a copy will be archived in your Mediaportal Library for all users in your organisation to share.
Edited Clip:
Order a precisely-edited version of the relevant clip. This is the traditional order ‘Video’ or ‘Audio’ option. Edited Clips typically take longer to produce and deliver.
To purchase an Edited Clip, click the ‘Order Video/Audio Clip’ button, and select ‘Edited Clip’. Edited Clips are delivered according to your instructions and are also available for download in your Mediaportal Orders Library.
If you have previously purchased an Instant Download version of the clip, it will be replaced by the Edited Clip version in your Mediaportal Library.
If you purchase an Edited Clip, users in your organisation can play the original Mediastream clip online indefinitely at no additional charge.
Q: How often can a Mediastream® clip be played after purchase?
A Mediastream® streamed clip can be played by anyone in your organisation, an unlimited number of times, for up to two (2) hours after the initial purchase. For access to the clip after this initial two (2) hours, the clip will need to be purchased again and will be billed at the original rate. Users will be asked to confirm this prior to re-billing.
An Instant Download can be viewed and used indefinitely within the organisation after purchase.
Q: How does the Library in My Mediastream® Player work?
The library displays the following items purchased by users in your organisation:
- Active (non-expired) Mediastream® streamed clips.
- Inactive (expired) Mediastream® streamed clips from the past 45 days (items beyond that timeframe will be automatically removed to adhere to copyright restrictions).
- Unlimited access Mediastream® streamed clips, which will be unlimited if an Instant or Edited Download of the item has also been ordered.
Q: I can’t see item summaries in the My Mediastream® Player library; how do I tell what each item is about without playing it (or paying for it again)?
To see a snippet of the summary for an item in the My Mediastream® Player library, just hover your mouse cursor over the item for a couple of seconds.
A yellow “tooltip” will appear, showing you the first few lines of that item’s summary:
Q: What is an “Unlimited Access Mediastream® clip”?
If a user purchases either an Instant Download or Edited Clip version of a Mediastream® streamed clip, we automatically provide every user in your organisation with the ability to play the original Mediastream® streamed clip online, indefinitely. Those clips appear in their Mediastream® Player library as “Unlimited Access Mediastream® clips”.
Q: Is there a different My Mediastream® Player interface for accessing audio and video clips via NewsAlerts?
Yes.
If you only subscribe to our NewsAlert service, you will see a simplified version of the My Mediastream® Player that does not include the library feature. You will also not have the ability to directly download purchased Instant Download and Edited Clips directly from the Player:
My Mediastream® Player is tightly integrated with our flagship Mediaportal platform and all orders can be applied to a particular user due to the username and password security credential required for login.
However, there are technical limitations that prevent us from being able to accurately track and monitor orders and time-based views of Mediastream® streamed clips via NewsAlerts, for which a username and password security credentials are not required. As such Mediastream® streamed clip orders may not be able to be attributed to particular people within your organisation.
Q: How do I use the Player controls?
If you are familiar with using YouTube™, you’ll find the Mediastream® Player clip player controls easy to use:
Q: Why are Instant Download clips only available to Mediaportal customers?
At this time Media Monitors only offers Instant Download clips to Mediaportal customers, and cannot be ordered via NewsAlerts. This is due to the fact that Instant Download files are larger than the streamed clips and NewsAlert (only) clients do not have access to a permanent library/ archive storing facility provided by Media Monitors.
Q: What are the technical requirements?
To play Mediastream® streamed clips:
- A computer with a broadband internet connection.
- A modern web browser, including Internet Explorer version 6.0 or greater, and Mozilla Firefox 3.0 or greater. Other browsers may support playing Mediastream® clips, but are not officially supported.
- Adobe Flash Player version 7.0 or greater installed. This is available as a free download at www.adobe.com.
To download and play Instant Download clips:
- A computer with a broadband internet connection.
- A modern web browser, including Internet Explorer version 6.0 or greater, and Mozilla Firefox 3.0 or greater. Other browsers may support the purchase and download of Instant Download clips, but are not officially supported.
- Instant Download clips are delivered in WMV and MPEG video formats; or WMA and MP3 audio formats – at the user’s discretion. The user will require compatible software to play these files on their computer once downloaded. Typically Windows users should download the WMV/WMA formats; users of other operating systems such as Mac OS X or Linux should download MPEG/MP3 formats for maximum compatibility.
