Panopto

Panopto is a secure video management system that centralizes and allows streaming of your videos, create playlists, optimize playback, and measure viewer engagement. It also includes a powerful recorder that allows you to capture video feeds from multiple sources simultaneously, including document cameras, PowerPoint presentations, and shared screens. Panopto also allows users to search their entire video library and inside any video for any spoken word or shown. Finally, Panopto includes many interactive elements that can include video quizzing and discussions. 

We recommend a good laptop or computer with at least a Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor, 8Gb RAM, and 100GB free hard drive space. Panopto records at a rate of roughly 540MB per hour.

For more detailed information on system requirements, please go here.

There are two ways you can access Panopto, and both rely on your D2L credentials.  

Method 1: Through your course in D2L – if you wish to add video content in your course, please log in to D2L and select your desired course. After, click on My Tools > Panopto Videos to get access to your Panopto course folder. 

Method 2: Through Panopto directly – go to the following webpage: https://uscviterbi.hosted.panopto.com. Make sure that you select D2L in the Sign in to Panopto dropdown selection area. Click on the Sign In button. Use your D2L credentials to log in. 

You can create video content by Recording a new session using Panopto recorder application, the Panopto Capture web-based recorder, and you can also upload your own videos.

You can record sessions using the Panopto recording software (Windows or Mac). First you will need to install the software. Please view the instructions below on how to install the Panopto Recorder.

Panopto recorder for Windows installation instructions

Now that you have installed the software, go back to your Panopto home page, and click on Create > Record a new session. Click on either  1) Open Panopto or if a pop-up window in your browser appears click on 2) Open Panopto Recorder.

When you first log in to the recorder you will be prompted with three different tours that further explain the different settings of the Panopto Recorder:

• 3 steps to recording
• Primary source settings
• Secondary source settings

It is recommended to go through each tour prior to recording your first session, however if you wish to review them at a later time you can always click on Skip Tour. At any time you can click on the blue info buttons located next to Primary Sources, Session Settings, and Resolution toolbars to get to the tours once more.

Recording Folder and Session Name - if you’ve accessed Panopto through your D2L course, the recording folder will be the folder that was created for your class, otherwise the default folder will be My Folder.  To keep it simple for your students, record your videos to your course folder, not My Folder.

In the Name field, you can rename the session to your liking. By default, the session title will include the date and time that the session was created.

Primary and Secondary Sources

Video: To record video of a presenter, select a primary video source from the Video drop-down menu. If you only want to record audio select None.

Audio: Select the Audio drop-down menu. Select your preferred, connected microphone. For a successful recording, a primary audio source must be selected. After selecting your audio source, test your audio volume by talking in a normal voice. As you talk, a few green bars should appear. If the green bars don't appear, or if the red and yellow bars are highlighted, adjust the volume by using the slider located to the right of the bars

Using a Document Camera? If you would like to use more than one camera (e.g. USB document camera), you can add additional video source(s) under Secondary Sources.

PowerPoint: A presenter may include a PowerPoint presentation by selecting Capture PowerPoint, or through the recorder.

Capturing PowerPoint via Secondary Sources

Capturing PowerPoint via Recorder

Screen Capture - After you have selected your video and audio inputs, you can choose to capture what is displayed on your screen. To preview your screen before recording, select the checkbox Enable screen capture preview:

Starting, Stopping, and Pausing:

• Click Record to start recording
• When you are done recording, click on stop. You will then have the option of uploading the recording or starting again. The Pause button will automatically edit out of the final version. You can always get this content back by using the editor.

          The Record, Stop, and Pause buttons

Recording Status

Once recording is done you will be taken to the Manage Recordings tab.

• Offline recordings - do not have a folder selected in Panopto, so they are only stored to your computer. You can select Upload to Server to select a folder and add the video to your library
• Currently uploading recordings - will show the video that was just recorded and its upload status
• Uploaded recordings - will show previous recordings and their assigned folder. If you have access to the video in the library, you can open the video or settings using View, Edit, or Share. You can also continue recording to the same session by selecting Resume.

Important Points to Remember

• Once in the recorder, be sure that the correct folder is selected.
• Always make sure you have an audio source selected under Primary Source.
• We recommend that you always record at High
• If you choose to capture PowerPoint it does not capture animation or embedded video. Please share your screen or application with the PowerPoint for this.
• If you want to have the PowerPoint launch as soon as you select Record, select the checkbox Start presenting when recording starts, located in the PowerPoint tab on the Secondary Sources viewer screen.

To install Panopto for Mac, please use the installation instructions here: How to Download and Install Panopto for Mac.

Now that you have installed the software, go back to your Panopto home page, and click on Create > Record a new session. Click on either  1) Open Panopto or if a pop-up window in your browser appears click on 2) Open Panopto Recorder.

When you first log in to the recorder you will be prompted with three different tours that further explain the different settings of the Panopto Recorder:

• 3 steps to recording
• Primary source settings
• Secondary source settings

It is recommended to go through each tour prior to recording your first session, however if you wish to review them at a later time you can always click on Skip Tour. 

There are a few differences when recording a video in Panopto on a Mac.  In the recorder, only the Manage Recordings and Create New Recording areas exist.

Create New Recording

Folder and Session Name - If you’ve accessed Panopto through your D2L course, the recording folder will be the folder that was created for your class, otherwise the folder will be My Folder.  You should switch to your class folder in the dropdown.  Note that My Folder is in your Panopto account, not your local folder.  To keep everything simple for your students to find, always record to your course folder instead of My Folder.

In the Session field, you can rename the recording to your liking. By default, the session title will include the date and time that the session was created.

PRIMARY SOURCE

Video: You select primary sources the same way you would in Windows. To record video of a presenter, select a primary video source from the Video drop-down menu. If you only want to record audio select None.

Audio: Select the Audio drop-down menu. Select your preferred, connected microphone. For a successful recording, a primary audio source must be selected. After selecting your audio source, test your audio volume by talking in a normal voice. As you talk, a few green bars should appear. If the green bars don't appear, or if the red and yellow bars are highlighted, adjust the microphone volume in your Mac's audio settings. Tip:  For better audio quality, use a headset or microphone directly connected to your computer's audio jack rather than a wireless setup or the webcam's mic.

SLIDES

If you have a presentation file, click either Record PowerPoint or Record Keynote. After starting the recording, you must put your slides into presentation mode in order for them to be recorded. 

Note: If your presentation contains any motion on the slides, including mouse pointers, animations and embedded video or if someone is annotating over the slide, you must run it in full screen presentation mode on the Secondary source displaying your monitor (usually Secondary 1). Your slides will not be recorded if presented via cloud or a mirrored/remote machine. Slides must be opened locally (i.e. on the machine with which you are presenting).

SECONDARY SOURCES

You can also add up to two additional video sources if you want to record your screen or an additional camera. Select Secondary 1 or Secondary 2, and then choose from the list of screens and available cameras at the bottom.  In most cases, Secondary 1 will be your computer monitor.  You can leave Secondary 2 off or use it for a second monitor or a document camera.

Using a Document Camera? If you would like to use more than one camera (e.g. USB document camera or a second webcam), select your camera in an available Secondary source. 

Alternative tip: If you are using a document camera or a webcam serving as a document camera, you can choose to display it within proprietary software that enables zooming, panning and focus features.  Instead of selecting the document camera as a secondary source, display the camera inside the software on the desktop (which is probably routed to Secondary 1). Your camera should have its own free, proprietary software that you can download and install from the company's website.  

RECORDING SETTINGS

Go to your Panopto menu bar at the top left of your screen and select Preferences.

Primary Video Quality and Secondary Video Quality can be configured here.  The Local Recording Folder allows you to change the location of where your Panopto recordings will record to on your hard drive before you upload them to Panopto.  Note that this local recording folder is different than the Folder selected in the beginning inside the Panopto Recorder.  

*Important Note: Determine the highest video quality settings your computer can handle by referencing Panopto Mac recommendations. When configuring your video quality settings, it is also a good idea to select a motion setting for Primary and a resolution setting for Secondary.  Once you upload the completed recording to Panopto, you may delete the recording folder from the location specified in your Panopto Preferences.  Do not delete the local recording folder until after verifying that it has completed uploading to Panopto.  

STARTING, STOPPING AND PAUSING

• Click Record to start recording.  

Important Tip: Minimize (but don't close) the Panopto Recorder as soon as the recording has started. Since Secondary 1 is most likely displaying your monitor, you don't want Panopto Recorder to display during playback.  You can verify that recording has started by the red timer counting up:

• The Pause button will automatically edit out of the final version. You can always get this content back by using the editor.
• When you are done recording, click on Stop. You will then have the option of uploading the recording or starting again.         
     

AFTER STOPPING

Once the recording is done you will be prompted to either Upload or Delete and record again.  

Manage Recordings

Once everything has been recorded and you have stopped your recording, you will be taken to the Manage Recordings window.

• Offline recordings - do not have a folder selected in Panopto, so they are only stored to your computer. You can select Upload to Server to select a folder and add the video to your library
• Uploaded - Processing - will show the video that was just recorded and its upload status
• Completed - will show previous recordings and their assigned folder. If you have access to the video in the library, you can open the video or settings using View, Edit, or Share. You can also continue recording to the same session by selecting Resume.

Important Points to Remember

• Once in the recorder, be sure that the correct folder is selected.
• Always make sure you have an audio source selected under Primary Source.
• We recommend setting proper recording quality in Mac menu bar's Panopto Preferences. Choose the highest quality settings based on Panopto's Mac recommendations. Remember to select a Motion setting for Primary and a Resolution setting for Secondary.
• Minimize (do not close) the Panopto Recorder once recording has started.
• Do not delete a recording folder from your local hard drive until you have verified that it has completed uploading to Panopto.
• If your presentation contains any motion on the slides, including mouse pointers, animations and embedded video or if someone is annotating over the slide, you must run it in full screen presentation mode on the Secondary source displaying your monitor (usually Secondary 1).

Panopto has released a beta version of their web-based capturing tool. It is a very simplified version of the Panopto Recorder application, with recording tools for audio, video, and entire screens or application windows.

Requirements: Latest version of: Chrome, Edge (Chromium-based), or Firefox browsers on Windows, Mac, or ChromeOS. Note: Please make sure anti-virus exceptions are made for audio (microphone), video (web camera), and screen in your preferred browser.

From the Create button, click on the Panopto Capture option to open the tool in a new tab.

The Panopto Capture web-based recording tool

Select your microphone – click on the microphone icon  to bring up your available microphones in the preview area. Select the desired microphone. The vertical indicator bar at the left of each box lets you know how well the microphone selected is picking up your spoken voice. If yellow or red, audio may be distorted. If no green is showing, no audio is getting picked up by the microphone.

Microphone Preview Area

Select your camera – click on the camera icon to preview all available cameras for recording. Select the desired camera by clicking on it in the preview area.

Primary and Secondary Cameras - the first camera selected will be recorded as the primary video source and is typically a video of the presenter. Any additional cameras selected will be recorded as secondary video sources.

Camera Preview Area

Select Screen and/or Application Sources - click on the monitor icon  to select screen and/or application source to be shared. If you do not need to record any screens or applications you can skip this step.

A new window will open and you can choose what you want recorded:

Your Entire Screen - everything that happens on your screen will be recorded. Optional – you can also share computer audio.

Application Window - everything that happens in one application window only will be recorded

Chrome Tab - everything that happens in one browser tab will be recorded. Optional – you can also share computer audio.

Preview your recording - you will now see a preview of what will be recorded. You can make any changes here as needed. When you are ready to record, click on the record button (red circle), located at the bottom center area.

Once you are done recording, click on the stop button (red square), located at the bottom center area.

As soon as the video is stopped you will be taken to a new page that details the upload and processing status; the video will begin uploading to Panopto. You can also change the title and folder where you want the video saved. Once you see a message on the upper-left area that says Getting your video ready for editing: It's safe to close your browser window, you can close the window. Do NOT close the window/tab until you see this message.

You can upload your own video files to Panopto to take advantage of all the features of the player.

Support File Types: ASF(WMV,WMA), FLV, F4V, AVI, MP3, MPEG-2 PS/MPEG1, MPEG-2 TS, MOV, MP4

For more detailed information on file types please click here.

Click on the Create button, followed by Upload Media:

If you didn't already choose your folder, you can do that here. Then drag and drop the video file(s) or click inside of the box to select the file from your computer. You can drop multiple files into the video upload window at one time to create multiple sessions.

Wait for Uploading to finish, which depends on file size and type.

Once complete, you can now close the window and view the video within the Panopto folder it was uploaded to. You can also share or edit the videos as needed.

Panopto has an integrated editor that allows the creator to edit various video elements, such as the title, table of contents, captions, and trimming parts of the video.

To open the editor for any video, hover over the session you want to edit and click on the Edit icon.

This will bring up the editor:

The Panopto Editor

The left side of the editor includes editing tools for:

1. The video title
2. Primary video stream
3. The content area allows you to add text labels, quizzes, captions, YouTube videos, website links and more. You can also use this section to edit various contents attributes such as start/end times.

The right side of the editor includes editing tools for:

1. Secondary video
2. Undo/redo
3. Apply - If you're happy with the edits you've made, use Apply to make your changes go live.
4. Revert
5. Expand
6. Cut/Pointer tool- Use this to trim out sections from the beginning/end, middle or from individual streams. You can make trims by dragging your mouse, while clicking in the timeline allows you to seek around the video timeline. Since the editor is non-destructive, you can also use it to add sections back in.
7. Plus icon - Clicking this icon will allow you to add items directly to your timeline, such as streams, clips, quizzes, YouTube videos, and web pages.
8. Set thumbnail
9. Timeline - This is where you will edit your video. The 'Lanes' represent Primary Videos (P), Secondary Videos (S), Slides (SL) or Audio (P). If you have Primary and Secondary videos, Primary videos will be displayed in the upper left.

For more information on trimming your videos please go here.

You can embed individual videos in the content area using the Insert Stuff tool.

Within your module, click on New > Create a File.

Title your new file (usually same title as video)[1]. Click on the Insert Stuff icon [2] > Panopto Embed [3].

You should now see the video selection area. Check the box to the left of the video you would like to embed, then click on Insert in the embedded Panopto interface. In D2L Click Next to display a preview of your video and Insert in D2L once more. Finally click Save and Close to complete the process.

With the Panopto editor you can add an interactive quiz to a video. The quiz can be graded or not. If graded, the score of the quiz can be sent to the D2L gradebook.

The Panopto Quiz creator supports the following question types: True/False, Multiple Choice, Multiple Select, and Fill In the Blank.

First you choose the video you want to add a quiz to and open the editor. Then you click on the timeline to navigate to the place in the video where you would like to insert a quiz. The red vertical line indicates where the quiz will be located.

In the left navigation menu, click Quizzes, then click Add a Quiz.

A quiz window will appear in your secondary stream window where you can fill in the details for your quiz.

Panopto Quiz Question Editor

Once you are done adding your question and want to add another one click on the Add a Question button at the bottom.

Once you are done adding all your questions click on the Done button.

You will now be taken to the Quiz Options:

Panopto Quiz Options

Once you are finished, click the Save button. Repeat the above steps if you want to add more quizzes to your current video. When you are done adding all your quizzes, click on Publish.

To View Quiz Results click on the settings icon of the video where the quiz was created, then Quiz Results.

There is also a download option so you can export results to .csv file format.

Instructors can add a grade item for Panopto Quizzes through the Content area of a D2L course. If you wish to embed a video + quiz and not have a grade item associated with it you can use the “Insert Stuff” option (see Embedding Video in D2L Content Area section)

Note: The video + quiz should have already been created.

In your course, go to the module where you want to add the Panopto graded quiz. Click on Add Existing Activities > Panopto Quiz:

This will open a session chooser for you to select your Panopto video + quiz. Select the session you wish to add and click Insert.

This will add the quiz to the content module as a new external learning tool.

Panopto Quiz as D2L External Learning Tool

As always, you can edit the title of the video by clicking on the dropdown arrow to the right of the title and selecting Edit Properties in Place.

To add a grade item to your quiz, click on the new link to bring up the Panopto Quiz properties. In the Assessment section of the Activity Details, add a new gradebook item or select a current one if it is already created.

• If no gradebook item is selected, one will be automatically created once a student submits a quiz. By default, the quiz will be scored out of 100 points.
• If a gradebook item is selected, the quiz grades will be synced with the selected gradebook item. This may take a moment to update after submitting a quiz.

You can navigate to My Tools > Grades to see who has taken the quiz.

You can obtain statistics for any specific video (session) or folder. Find the video you want to look at statistics for and hover over it to click on the Stats icon or from the top right corner of a video session.

The Session Dashboard page will be displayed, showing statistics for this video session. You can change the time range for your report in the drop-down box, located at the top right corner of the Session Dashboard page. Options include Any time or the Last 7, 30, or 90 Days. You can also select Custom if you want a customized time range for the report. 

The first graph listed on the Session Analytics page is Views and Downloads by Day. This graph shows Views and Downloads (number of views and downloads of just this video), Unique Viewers (number of unique people who have accessed this video), and Minutes Delivered (number of minutes streamed and downloaded combined) for this particular video session. 

The second graph listed is the Viewer Engagement. This graph details the Views and Interactions a video session has had as well as the type of interaction (Views, Comments, Notes) and at what point in the video session it occurred. 

The third item is the Top Viewers table. It lists the top viewers of the video session and can be arranged alphabetically for Viewer or by number of Views and Downloads, Minutes Delivered, Average Minutes Delivered, Percent Completed, Notes, and Comments. 

Most laptops now come with an integrated webcam and microphone, and at the bare minimum this should suffice. In addition, we are providing some recommendations for additional cameras, microphones, and other hardware peripherals.

USB Webcams

USB Microphones

Some of the USB cameras, such as the Logitech C9xx models come with integrated microphones. Here are other options you can take a look at.

Headsets with Microphones

Writing or Annotation

A Tablet PC, such as a Microsoft Surface Pro or LG Gram 2 in 1 are examples of devices that you can already use for annotation. There are additional USB peripherals as well, such as a document camera or digital tablet display that can be connected to your current hardware.

Most, if not all USB Document Cameras provide software to allow viewing your document camera on your computer screen. In addition to providing additional camera functions, the quality of the USB document camera is displayed at a higher quality.

1. Open the document camera viewer application, and turn on/connect your camera. Make sure you can see it while running the software
2. In Panopto, under Secondary Sources, be sure to select Capture Main Screen. Do not add the USB Document Camera as an additional video source as it will not be displayed

If you would like to take advantage of the Panopto player elements you can upload your own Zoom video recordings. Although Zoom already includes a closed captioning feature you can take advantage of Panopto's tools:

• Use the Panopto editor to remove any unwanted pauses or other content
• Add a quiz
• View student commentary
• View student engagement through session statistics

In Zoom, if you are recording to the cloud, you will need to download the recording to your local computer from your Zoom recordings page and then upload it to your Panopto course folder. To bypass the first step, you can choose the Record on this Computer option in Zoom.

Several interactive elements are included with Panopto.

Student Engagement & Participation

Students are able to comment on specific points of any video and provide responses as well.

Leverage the "Top Viewers" data set and sort by "Comments" to view top contributors for any video. You can use this data for overall participation assessment.

Insert quizzes into videos

Panopto’s simple in-video quizzing capabilities help instructors test comprehension, reinforce key concepts, improve knowledge retention, and make your videos more engaging.  See Creating a Panopto Quiz above.

Click on this link to see a student view of the Panopto quiz: https://support.panopto.com/s/article/Take-a-Quiz-in-Panopto

You can also include the results of your quizzes in your D2L gradebook. See D2L - Adding a grade item to a Panopto Quiz above.