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Microsoft Video and Office Mix to Retire This Summer
Posted April 2, 2018
By: Emily Keener
This summer, Microsoft will retire two of its applications: Office Mix and Video. Many of the options offered by these programs will be integrated into other Microsoft products, namely Stream and PowerPoint. However some of the features, such as Office Mix's quizzing and grade integration with Blackboard, will no longer be available.
Office Mix
Microsoft is retiring Office Mix on May 1, 2018. The company recommends that users sign into their Office Mix accounts before that date and choose to "Migrate" all videos currently stored on the platform to avoid losing content. The videos will be migrated to Microsoft's newer video platform, Stream.
Faculty using Office Mix should be aware of the following:
- After migrating videos to Stream, interactive elements, such as quizzing, will be lost. Migrated content will run like a video, with play/pause/stop options. (Microsoft says they are working to rebuild interactivity into the Stream platform, but has no date for when that feature will be available.)
- For faculty who have recorded lectures using the interactive features of Office Mix (e.g. quizzes, hot spots), ITS suggests editing the original PowerPoint file, deleting the interactive slides, and saving another copy of the PowerPoint as an .mp4. The new .mp4 can be uploaded to Stream, YouTube, SIUE's streaming server, or another video sharing site.
- Microsoft contends the recording and annotating features once available in Office Mix are now built in to PowerPoint's Recording tab (for Windows PowerPoint 2016 users).
- According to the Microsoft Office Mix help site, as of April 6, 2018, "You'll no longer be able to upload new mixes or update existing mixes by using the Office Mix add-in."
Video
Microsoft is in the process of phasing out Microsoft Video and transitioning to its newer video platform, Microsoft Stream. Both applications can be accessed through SIUE's Office 365 portal. Content stored in Microsoft Video should begin transitioning to Stream by mid-2018, according to Microsoft's website.
After content is transitioned to Stream, the existing Video links should automatically redirect to the new location. Assuming the promise holds true, this would mean faculty currently using Video to share lecture content in Blackboard would not need to edit or re-link their files after the Video application is retired and replaced by Stream.
One important feature that will be lost in this conversion is access to video statistics. Microsoft says view stats, such as the average length of time users watch the video, are not yet available in Stream.
Questions? Please contact ITS at 618-650-5500 or help@siue.edu.
Suggestions for Microsoft? Visit the Microsoft Community page.
