Panopto Lecture Capture
The Panopto lecture capture service enables you to record, edit, share, and stream video, audio, PowerPoint presentations, and screen capture content for various audiences, including your staff colleagues, students, and other third parties or the general public. It manages your recordings for you using a cloud-based content management storage system. You can also record from within Blackboard (mymodule.tcd.ie) and post directly to your module.
Who can use this service?
- Trinity staff who are already set up as instructors on modules in Blackboard and who wish to make a recording available for their module(s).
- Trinity staff who will not be using Blackboard but wish to record, edit, and share a screen capture or video recording.
- For non-Trinity events that require recordings, the event must have a sponsor from Trinity who will take responsibility for recording and distributing the recording.
- Trinity students can use the Panopto Video Assignment service within Blackboard to submit a video assignment that a lecturer sets up as an assessment.
Requirements
- Full requirements are listed on Panopto's support site. (The Panopto Capture Web Browser Recorder usually works on all devices.)
- All necessary hardware and software are already set up in lecture theatres managed by IT Services.
- Ensure you have a microphone (usually built into laptops) and a webcam if you want to record video on your own laptop.
Additional Information
The Panopto video hosting service enables you to record, edit, share, and stream video, audio, PowerPoint, and screen capture content for various audiences, including your staff colleagues, students, and other third parties or the public. It manages your recordings for you using a cloud-based content management storage system. You can also record from within Blackboard (mymodule.tcd.ie) and post directly to your module.
Currently, this service is available on all Senior Lecturer Area PCs and Macs, as well as on all Macs in St. James's lecture theatres, the TBSI Tercentenary and Quek Theatres, and the Trinity Theatre in Tallaght Hospital. Trinity staff can also use Panopto on their own device (PC, Mac, iOS, and Android) to create recordings or upload pre-existing video files.
Click here for a listing of Senior Lecturer Pool Rooms
Panopto Video Creation Options:
When you click the Create button in Panopto, you will see several options available to you. A useful comparison table of Panopto Capture and Panopto for Windows or Mac is available on the Panopto website
- Panopto for Windows or Mac (Record in Application): This option allows you to record using the full features of the Panopto recording tool, including live streaming, and requires the client to be downloaded and installed. If you need help with this process, please see our guides on the IT Services website
- Panopto Capture: This option lets you record Panopto videos directly from your web browser (Google Chrome is recommended), but not all features are available (such as automatic PowerPoint chapters). Panopto Capture is recommended for staff new to using Panopto, as it is the simplest to use; it is also a useful option if you need to record from a mobile device. Visit the Panopto website for guides on using the Panopto Capture feature.
- Upload Media: This option allows you to upload existing video files, such as MP4, Camtasia, and Zoom, to your Panopto folder. You can also upload multiple files at once. Visit the Panopto pages on uploading files for more details.
- Playlist: This feature allows you to create a shareable playlist of videos, which is useful for organising content if your module includes a lot of video content. More Details.
- New Folder: Allows you to create a subfolder to help further organise your videos. These appear as small icons at the top of the Panopto main folder.
Panopto video captioning is a service that adds artificial, machine-generated captions in English to all new Panopto lecture videos, with the exception of a select number of videos in specific Panopto module folders, as previously agreed upon with schools.
This service is in collaboration with the Trinity Disability Service to support Trinity's mission to make online content as accessible as possible and to meet legislative requirements at both EU and national levels. For information on making content accessible online, please contact the Trinity Disability Service.
The Panopto machine-generated captions achieve an accuracy rate of approximately 85-95%, which may vary depending on the audio quality of your recording and the topics being presented. Some medical or scientific terms may not transcribe as well as general English language commentary. In instances where you are providing important instructions or guidance (especially when student safety is concerned), please review the captions to ensure accuracy, so that no words transcribed in error can lead to misinterpretation or incorrect guidance for students.
Machine-generated captions can be edited using the Panopto editor. Any pre-existing captions that staff have already imported into their Panopto Blackboard recordings and edited to 100% accuracy will not be affected by the Panopto automatic captioning service.
For recordings that are not in English, IT Services will, where possible, disable machine-generated captions centrally. However, in some instances, the creator of the non-English lecture may have to disable the captions manually at the folder level or delete the captions at the individual recording level.
How the process works
After the recording has finished and been transferred to the Trinity Panopto website, Panopto will begin the process of adding machine-generated captions to the recording, which can take 8-24 hours. You can continue to edit your recording during this process.
Once the process is complete, a CC (Closed Captions) icon will appear beside the lecture recording icon. In the video playback window, closed captions are turned off by default. However, the viewer can enable them by clicking the CC button, which displays the captions at the bottom of the main presentation window.
Please note that Panopto does not provide real-time captioning for live Panopto webcasts. Captioning is only applied after the recording is uploaded to the Trinity Panopto website.
Editing the machine-generated captions via the Panopto editor
The Panopto video captioning service is machine-generated, and while the accuracy level is quite high, some caption errors may need to be manually edited. You can click on the Captions section when editing a video to correct errors where needed.
Further Information
For further information on the Panopto video captioning service, visit the IT Services page.
Panopto Recordings Archiving and Restoration
Introduction:
IT Services has implemented a content retention criterion for all recordings, whether stored in a Blackboard module or Panopto folder(s) or in your personal Panopto folder on the TCD Panopto Lecture Capture site.
This allows IT Services to manage the storage of older recordings, which are not regularly viewed, more efficiently, thereby addressing storage costs and enhancing data protection.
What will be archived?
Any Panopto recording with a last-modified date older than five years and a last-viewed date older than two years will be moved to the Panopto archive.
This applies to recordings stored in Blackboard module Panopto folders or in Panopto personal folders held on the Trinity Panopto Lecture Capture website.
The archiving process will occur on a quarterly basis, starting from August 1, 2024.
What impact does this have for me (as a staff creator of the recording)?
Any recording that matches the above criteria will be moved to the archive area, which means that the recording cannot be edited or viewed in real time by you.
Staff or students who try and access that recording will have the option to request the recording to be restored to its original location by Panopto if they need access again and this process will be completed within 48 hours.
How to restore an archived recording?
There are two locations where you may encounter a recording that has been archived.
1. From within the Trinity Panopto Lecture Capture website
For instructions on restoring a recording from within the Trinity Panopto Lecture Capture website, see the Panopto How to Restore Archived Content webpage.
2. From within a module in Blackboard Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)
Option 1: Restore content via the Panopto embedded viewer within a module content area:
If you have an embedded Panopto video recording within the content area of your module, and it is archived, it will display as follows:
To restore the video recording from the archive back into the Blackboard module, click the "Restore from archive" option. Student viewers and staff creators who are enrolled in the module have the right to request the restore from the archive.
You will see the following message: The restore from the archive has been initiated, and it may take up to 48 hours to complete.
Once the restore is complete, the embedded video recording is accessible and can be played back. Panopto will send an email confirmation (your video is ready) to the Creator of the recording and the person who requested the restore when the restore is complete.
Option 2: Restore content from within the Panopto folder within your module:
When you click on your Panopto Folder link in the left-hand table of contents menu in your module, in this example, it is called My Lecture Recordings. Still, it depends on what name you give it. When you set up Panopto with your module, it will open the Panopto folder, where all your recordings are stored within the module.
The Panopto folder with the recordings within the module is shown here.
You can click on "Show archived videos" to view the videos for this module’s archived Panopto folder.
You can now switch back and forth using the eye icon (ready to view videos) and the archive (File box) icon (archived videos) beside the clock icon at the top of the module screen.
To restore a video, click on the square with the up arrow symbol (restore button) to initiate the archive restore process. It may take up to 48 hours for the video to be restored.
You will receive a message under the video advising when it will be accessible again.
Once the video has been restored, it will be displayed under the 'eye' button view – videos ready to view- and will have been removed from the archived button view (File box). Panopto will send an email confirmation (your video is ready) to the Creator of the recording and the person who requested the restore when the restore is complete.
