Using the Panopto Recorder to create online teaching material

As well as being used for lecture capture, Panopto is an excellent tool for creating quality teaching material for use online. Panopto is able to record from multiple video sources simultaneously.

This has the potential to make recordings with multiple camera angles or close-up shots. Possible uses for this are for recording lectures, practical demonstrations, interviews and many more.

Creating your Session

  1. If you haven’t already got Panopto installed on the device you intend to record on following these instructions.
  2. Open the Panopto client and log-in using your normal Aston credentials.
  3. Set your session folder and name as normal. As you will probably be editing your recording it might be worth recording to a sandpit folder or your My Folder on Panopto. Change the name to something memorable that describes the recording.
  4. Select your primary audio and video sources using the drop-down menu. The Capture Computer Audio tickbox allows you to record the audio from any applications you might have running on the machine for demonstration purposes.
  5. If you’re capturing your screen, depending on the content you are recording, you may wish to increase the framerate. You can do this by adjusting the options at the bottom of the Recorder window.
  6. When you’re ready to start, click the record button at the top left of the Panopto recorder.
  7. panopto-5-stop-pauseWhen recording, use the Pause button to temporarily pause recording, allowing you to resume again, or the Stop button to stop recording.

    If you click pause, your session is still recording

    When the session is uploaded to the server, content between you clicking pause and resume gets automatically edited out, and your students won’t see it

    Should you click pause, but forget to resume the recording, you can edit the content back into your session

  8. panopto-5-recording-completeAfter clicking stop, you will see the Recording Complete screen. This lets you amend the title and add a description of the session, if required. Click Upload

Adding Extra Cameras and Audio

  1. Any Panopto recording requires at least one primary source. The bare minimum is for one audio source.You can select your primary audio and video sources using the menu on the top left. Using the drop-down menu menus, select the source you wish to record from, Panopto should automatically detect any device plugged into your machine but make sure this is done before opening Panopto. These sources don’t just have to be webcams either, any video sources from clinical instruments etc will be accepted as long as they interface using USB.
  2. To add further sources, click on the Add Another Video Source button and select another camera from the drop-down menu. This can be repeated for as many sources as you have available.