Case Study: Rice University achieves flexible, scalable media infrastructure for media-rich teaching with Ensemble Video

Ensemble Provides Flexible and Scalable Media Infrastructure at Rice University

Rice University, a top-ranked private research institution, faced growing demand for media-rich teaching and active-learning classrooms that its eight-year-old, homegrown media server could no longer support. The in‑house system was hard to maintain and could not keep pace with the variety of capture devices, automated ingest needs, scalable publishing, or distribution to learners’ devices and the LMS.

After piloting Ensemble Video and moving it into production in 2013, Rice replaced its legacy streaming server and separate encoder with a unified, scalable platform offering automated watch-folder ingest, integrated encoding, dynamic playlists, and Sakai integration. The change streamlined workflows, enabled faculty self‑service for lecture capture, flipped-class activities and MOOC production, and now supports about 130 libraries with nearly 3,000 videos and 162,000+ views while simplifying media management and future growth.

Rice University

Carlos Solis

EdTech Manager