Canvas Upload Limits Explained
Canvas restricts the size of any uploaded file to 5Gb and just 500Mb for student video submissions. With video becoming an increasingly popular medium within Education, and technology creating higher quality video with bigger and bigger file sizes, this is becoming quite a big limitation for a lot of users. Especially with the increasing popularity of uploading directly from a mobile.
In addition, these large files take up a lot of storage quickly and some systems charge a premium for this and can often lead to hidden and ever increasing charges.
At an average bitrate of 100mbps, 1 minute of 4k video recorded on a mobile is roughly 7.5Gb, so this quickly ramps up, eating your storage surprisingly quickly. This is generally the default recording on a mobile device now, unless a user proactively changes their settings.
Ways to Reduce Video File Size
Most videos that we are recording and sharing are seen on a computer screen or mobile so would not be seen at 4k or possibly 1080p anyway, so why generate these massive files, it’s a waste of time (waiting for uploads) and storage.
There are steps that can be passed on so users can reduce their file sizes easily. This will not only help administrators from a storage perspective, but also hugely help the users themselves.
Students can get very frustrated when uploading from a mobile and the upload is interrupted because their screen automatically locks after a few minutes, or the internet momentarily dropped or swapped to 4G.
It is easy in the Camera Settings of a device to lower the default resolution (seen here on an ios device):
To something much more sensible, like:
This simple adjustment could make the recording up to x10 smaller!!
These files can be uploaded, but often it is quicker to dump them into something like Dropbox or Google Drive, they can then be downloaded on a computer and even compressed further. There are many tools out there, for example Miro Converter, which is FREE for PC or Mac.
Using an App to Store Large Files
Remember Canvas restricts file size to 500Mb for students, well MEDIAL allows configurable upload size within Canvas up to 100Gb per user or group as an overall, or can be set as a recurring monthly limit.
The MEDIAL app is easy to use in Canvas:
Check out how easy it is for teachers to add video to their assignments and student to their submissions in our Demo of the MEDIAL Canvas Video App
Here are the key features MEDIAL allows users to do with their videos in Canvas:
Upload new content
Search their existing library of previously added content, including Teams and Zooms recordings
Record - webcam, screen including tabs and windows and swapping between
Edit content - Trim, Chop or Export
View Analytics and individual Student Engagement per video
Generate and edit Captions (ASR and Human)
Manage content easily
With MEDIAL all content is secured and the user chooses which content they wish to share.
MEDIAL uses JWPlayer, which allows adaptive bitrate playback and allows users to control the colour and font of captions, making their videos even more accessible.
Administrators can easily manage content through the MEDIAL backend where all content is stored and so does not use up the Canvas storage.
This can be offered On Premise or SaaS where pricing starts with the Canvas app only from $195 a month.
See more pricing options here
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