Extended Beta Opportunity for the New Canvas Media Player

[AkosFarago]

Update (March 5th) - The new player will be deployed and enforced in Beta environments on March 19th, with a production rollout scheduled for April 19th. Key updates include a redesigned media player, enhanced accessibility, and overall usability improvements. No new functionalities requiring additional learning will be introduced. Early access to new features will remain available through the closed beta group, which you can sign up for here.

We’re excited to announce that we’re inviting more users to join our closed beta and explore the latest ideas for the new media player in Canvas and Studio.

Our goal is to gather feedback and refine our approach through ongoing discussions every 2–3 weeks. Recently, we asked for input on a variety of different audio layouts designed to enhance the course page experience in Canvas. We also tackled another important topic—how videos function as intellectual property and what safeguards we should implement to help protect them. Primary focus was on watermarking, its content and how to avoid overlaying a watermark on top of certain copyrighted materials.

The feedback we received was invaluable and with the group continuing to share their thoughts, we’ll be able to implement things more quickly.

One of the audio layouts we had discussions about including the course page design and accessibility aspects

Looking ahead, we have a few more exciting topics to discuss, including:

• Automated captioning (one of our top priorities at the moment)
• Rolling transcripts next to the player as an additional learning aid
• Private student notes to personalize learning
• The value of video chapters, automatically generated with AI
• Custom branding for your media player, so it feels tailored to your institution
• Many more!

Later in April, we’ll run a prioritization round, where we’ll gather all the discussed topics and determine which ones are the most important to tackle first and which can be pushed to a later phase. If you want to influence this, then we are happy to add you to the group. Please submit the form below by March 5th, and we will send the invitation the following day. We plan to keep the form open for a few more days before closing it.

Sign up here

Some frequently asked questions:

1. Who needs to sign the form?
   Root LMS admins.
   
   
2. Can I join as a teacher?
   Absolutely! Reach out to your Admin, and we’ll add both of you. This is essential since we cannot enable the player at an individual level—it will be activated for your Canvas beta instance.
   
   
3. When will the new player be available in production?
   We plan to launch the new player in Canvas and Studio as part of the April 19th Canvas release. It will be the default media player with no feature option.
   
   
4. What will happen to the group after the release?
   The group will remain active even after the release. As we are going to add some of the aforementioned solutions throughout the year, group participants will always have early access to those! We will quickly iterate based on their feedback and be able to catch bugs early!

See you in the group,

Akos

[Maeve_McCooey]

Will this be an enforced release or an optional release?

[AkosFarago]

@Maeve_McCooey, the April 19th release will enforce the player for everyone.

[MaryaliceDavis]

That is great!  I can't wait to see it!

[dbrace]

@AkosFarago, if we submitted the form, will we receive confirmation that we have been "approved"?

[hesspe]

@AkosFarago Will documentation be released along with the Beta deployment on March 19th?

[AkosFarago]

@dbrace , all invites have been sent out on Friday, which should be your confirmation that you are approved in the group.

@hesspe , as per our current documentation process, we will update documentation only on April 19th, however the release notes that will be published on March 19th should cover everything that needs to be known for this release. As aforementioned, updates include a redesigned media player, enhanced accessibility, and overall usability improvements with no new functionalities requiring additional learning will be introduced at the April 19th release.  

[jsowalsk]

@AkosFarago Will the previous player still be available?

[dbrace]

Thank you for replying back, @AkosFarago.

I guess my institution was not approved because we did not receive a confirmation on Friday after previously submitting the form.

-Doug

[AkosFarago]

Hi @dbrace ,

looks like there was an overlook on our side, you should be added now to the group! The new media player was already enabled in your beta instance. Let me know if you still don't see it!

Best,

Akos

[dbrace]

Thank you, @AkosFarago. I received the message and we look forward to testing the experience in beta.

-Doug

[dbrace]

Hello @AkosFarago,

While I was invited to the group, I still do not see the new (beta) Canvas Studio media player experience in our beta environment. Can you please double-check on it?

-Doug

[AkosFarago]

@dbrace currently, this is not yet enabled for Studio, we are testing the media player for Canvas media. It will be rolled out to everyone in their Beta instances today. Please let me know if you still don't see the player!

We are super close with testing the new player in Studio, so please be on the lookout for my post today! 

[dbrace]

Thank you, @AkosFarago. I will reply back to you in the other blog post.

-Doug

[cheryltice]

Accessibility Concerns with New Canvas Media Player

I've been testing the new media player and identified several accessibility issues that I believe need to be addressed:

Screen Reader Compatibility

• Windows 11 screen reader jumps erratically across the screen in my tests in my Chrome browser
• Media player controls aren't announced properly by the screen reader
• Locating the media player controls requires mouse interaction in my testing, which would create a significant barrier for visually impaired users who rely on keyboard navigation

Captioning Issues

• No auto-captioning for videos uploaded through the rich content editor
• Manual SRT file uploads are required for captions, creating an additional technical hurdle for educators
• Canvas Studio currently offers auto-captioning, and, given my initial tests, it seems to still have that capability. Why isn't auto-captioning available with the new Media Player?

Implementation Concerns

• The new Media Player is not yet available in SpeedGrader comments, so I cannot test it.
• Without auto-captioning capabilities, video comments would be inaccessible to users with hearing impairments, so I'm interested in having this capability in the RCE and SpeedGrader comments.

These issues present serious barriers to creating a learning environment that is beneficial for all learners. I'm concerned about the planned rollout on 4/19 if these accessibility issues aren't addressed beforehand. I'd appreciate any information about plans to address these accessibility concerns before full implementation.

Thank you for your consideration,

Cheryl

[AkosFarago]

Hi @cheryltice ,

Thank you for your feedback!

Screen Reader Compatibility - We are working on the remaining accessibility issues before the 4/19 release, we appreciate you for sending over these!

Captioning Issues - Regarding auto-captioning, we are following our original plans that it is going to be rolled out over the summer for Canvas videos. Until then, it is only supported in Studio.

Implementation Concerns - We have enabled the media player everywhere in Beta environments by now, so that should show up in the Speedgrader comments as well. Just to clarify, are you referring to the media comments in the Speedgrader? That has auto-captioning support since last year in Canvas.

Thank you,

Akos

[cheryltice]

Hello, @AkosFarago,

Thank you for your reply. In beta, I used the comment feature in SpeedGrader to record a video of myself, but did not do a screen capture as part of the comment (which was featured in the guide you shared). The video comment does not include closed captions. I waited over 50 minutes, and the captions are still not available.

The player I see in SpeedGrader comments in beta is not the most current version of the media player. See the image below.

Old media player and no captions

The media player in Canvas Studio embedded in the same assignment is the new one and does have closed captioning:

New Media Player with CC

Let me know if I am missing anything. Thank you for your help.

Cheryl

[ProfessorBeyrer]

Hi @AkosFarago. Can you update if the new media player will have a different display size for audio files? An instructor at my college likes to include a voice recording of the page contents at the top of the page, and they recently shared that their students are confused over the size of the player window (this is with the current RCE media player). The screenshot on this page looks like a good option but I don't anything mentioned about audio files in the April 19 release notes.

I found a question about this elsewhere in the Community, and the helpful response from @chriscas mentions accessibility as a reason. If that's true, would you let us know and also include that information in the Canvas Guides document on uploading and embedding media files in the RCE.

Thank you. 🙏

[AkosFarago]

Hi @ProfessorBeyrer! As per the 4/19 release notes say, there won't be an improvement in that release for the audio only player.

However, we had quite a discussion on this recently in the beta group and found some good solutions that we will include later on this year, with the mentioned accessibility concerns in mind. Today, those concerns are not present because we don't have a simplified audio-only player.