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Video Content Management FAQ

The Video Content Management service (using Panopto) offers Clients video capture and storage at the user or classroom level, with integration with the Canvas platform. The service also provides captioning via a third party integration (3PlayMedia). Please see the tabs below to find answers for this service's frequently asked questions.

For more information, please contact help@isc.upenn.edu.

Panopto for End Users

All active University students, faculty, and staff are eligible. This includes postdocs, unpaid affiliates with active academic appointments, emeritus faculty, temporary and contingent workers, including student workers, and service providers. If in doubt, contact your local IT support provider for assistance.

Any video can be uploaded to Panopto, provided it is University related. This includes courses, meetings, webinars, guest speakers, and student videos.

  • Panopto records content in a proprietary format that separates video of the presenter from presented content, like PowerPoint or Excel. Users can manipulate the views to suit their own viewing needs. Content and presenter are shown in multiple windows, not a single picture-in-picture static screen. Depending on the permissions set by the video’s creator, viewers can download PowerPoint slides independent of the recording, view captions, and have discussions timed to the video.
  • Panopto is not only a storage system for content, it’s also a recorder. Several schools across campus use Panopto’s Remote Recorder software to record classroom content, and users can install Panopto recorder on their own computers to record their own videos. For more information about any of these features, contact your local IT support.

Panopto provides a number of features specific to video playback and storage.

  • Video storage can be easier organized by course.
  • Integration with Canvas and Zoom makes it easy to record video and automatically upload them to a Canvas course.
  • Videos can be searched, captioned, edited, and played back at various speeds, all within Panopto.
  • Access to videos is automatically granted to current students when scheduled through Canvas.
  • Faculty - Creating a course in Canvas automatically creates a Panopto account for you.
  • Students – Being enrolled in a Canvas course automatically creates a Panopto account for you.
  • Staff and others - Contact your local IT support provider to create a Panopto account.

There are several choices for how to log in to https://upenn.hosted.panopto.com/.

  • If your account was created from Canvas, choose “Panopto Canvas Integration”. You will be prompted to log in with your PennKey.
  • If your account was created by your local IT support, choose “Panopto”. Use the username and password that was created for you.

After logging in, click Browse on the left. A frame will pop open that contains folders you are able to access. Clicking on a folder will display the videos contained within. Clicking Everything will show you a list of videos you are able to access regardless of folders. If you believe there are recordings you should have access to but do not, contact your Local IT support.

After logging in, click the blue Create button at the top. To create an entirely new folder, click New Folder. Give the folder a name, select a parent folder, then click Create Folder. To upload a video, click the same blue Create button. Select Upload media.In the pop up that opens, select a folder, then drag the video into the window, or browse to it on your computer.

Panopto videos can be edited inside Panopto’s web interface. Heads and tails can be trimmed, audio volume normalized, PowerPoint slides (or whole decks) replaced. For assistance with the Panopto video editor, contact your school or center’s IT support.

Panopto is funded by PTIC. There are no charges for university users.

LTI stands for Learning Technology Interoperability. It’s a standard that some educational software uses to communicate with each other and seamlessly provide services without jumping between applications. Different schools have different implementations for the LTI, but in the most complete scenario, Zoom meetings can be scheduled and started from within a Canvas course. The recordings of these meetings are automatically uploaded to Panopto under the course name, and available for viewing within Canvas. All of this is made possible by the LTI.

Our Penn instance of Panopto is not HIPAA compliant. Videos with PHI or other sensitive information should not be stored in Panopto.

Panopto storage is unlimited. The University does not currently impose any storage restrictions. However, in the interest of keeping the most recent content easily accessible, Penn has placed content retention rules in place. Any video that was recorded more than 4 years ago and has not been viewed in 2 years will be archived. Archived videos are still available but have been put into a “deep storage”. They can be easily recalled from the archive but may take up to 48 hours to be viewable. For any issues finding, recalling, or viewing archived videos, contact your school or center’s IT support.

Panopto may update this list without notice.  The most recent list is located here, under 1. Cloud Support.

The following file formats are supported:

  • MP4 (.mp4, .m4a, .m4v, .3gp)
  • MOV (.mov, .qt)
  • ASF (.wmv, .wma)
  • WEBM (.webm)
  • Matroska (.mkv, .mka)
  • MPEG-2 PS/MPEG-1 (.mpg, .mpeg, .mps, .ps, .mp2, .m2v, .m2a)
  • MPEG-2 TS (.ts, .tsv, .tsa, .mts, .m2ts, .mpg, .mpeg, .mod, .tod)
  • FLV (.flv)
  • AVI (.avi)
  • MP3 (.mp3)
  • FLV v2 (.f4v, .f4a)

The following video and audio codecs are supported.  Max bitrate is 2.5 Mbps, anything higher will be downscaled:

Video Codecs:

  • H.264 / AVC1
  • H.265
  • H.263/MPEG-4 Video
  • H.262/MPEG-2 Video
  • H.261/MPEG-1 Video
  • AV1
  • VP9
  • VP8
  • VP7
  • VP6
  • MJPEG
  • VC1/WMV3
  • WMV2
  • WMV1
  • Windows Media Screen Codec 1
  • Windows Media Screen Codec 2
  • Spark (aka Sorenson 3, and FLV1)
  • DV formats

Audio Codecs:

  • AAC
  • AC3
  • FLAC
  • Vorbis
  • Opus
  • MP3
  • PCM
  • WMA3 aka WMA9
  • WMA2
  • WMA1
  • WMA10 Voice
  • WMA9 Voice
  • WMA9 Pro

3Play Media is a paid service providing transcription, closed captioning, live captioning, audio description, translation, and subtitling services for Penn videos.

Zoom, Panopto, and YouTube all provide automatic captioning. Aren’t those good enough? Sometimes, in a pinch. But for someone who can’t hear, “good enough” isn’t nearly good enough. Imagine trying to watch a lecture video with lots of technical terms, none of them correct in the captions. Without the ability to listen to it, you’d be lost. 3Play Media guarantees a 99% accuracy rate and allows for preloading of names and terms that might be difficult to understand.

Contact your school or center’s IT support for assistance setting up an account.

There are several ways to use 3Play Media. The simplest is by logging in to 3Playmedia.com, selecting the correct project, and uploading videos directly. ISC can also put integrations in place for Panopto, Zoom, and Canvas. Contact your school or center’s IT support to discuss your needs.

The standard turnaround time for files is 4 days. There are also service levels at 2 days, 1 day, 8 hours, and 2 hours. A longer, 10 day service level is available at a less expensive rate.

Pricing for the live video captioning offerings change over the course of the year, depending on the volume of use. See current pricing.

 

3Play Media adds on a difficult audio surcharge when the audio quality of a recording meets certain criteria, especially when combined:

  • Speakers with strong accents
  • Background noise
  • Loud music
  • Low quality microphone
  • Spontaneous speech
  • Multiple speakers with rapid exchanges
  • Loud and changing background noise

To avoid the extra cost, try to use a high-quality microphone and eliminate as much background noise as possible. More details can be found here.

  • Login to the website at 3playmedia.com.
  • Click on the project name in the upper left corner to change to a different project. If you only see one project name here, that’s the only one you can access.
  • To change settings for your project, click the Settings gear in the upper right corner.  Important:  Make sure your settings are correct before uploading any files.Once a file is uploaded, settings will be applied as they are.
  • After verifying settings, click Order Services. Click Transcription & Captioning. Choose a turnaround time (Standard is 4 days). Click Next.
  • Add optional services, like Audio Description or Caption Placement. If neither applies, click Next.
  • Create a new folder for recordings or choose an existing folder. Then add files to be captioned or links from online videos.Click Next.
  • After verifying everything is correct on the last page, click Submit.

Contact help@isc.penn.edu and ask to create a 3Play Media project. You will need to supply a project name (the standard is “school-department”, for example “Wharton-Legal Studies” or “SAS-Percussion Ensemble”), any staff who should have access to the project including an admin, and the PO number for an open PO for the remainder of the fiscal year.

Send an email to help@isc.upenn.edu. We directly support integrations with Panopto, Canvas, and Zoom, but we may be able to assist with other integrations as well.Get in contact with questions.

Yes, but projects containing PHI must notify 3Play Media in advance of upload and incur an extra cost.

Caption Formats

  • DFXP
  • CPTXML
  • QT
  • RT
  • SCC
  • STL
  • ADBE
  • SMI
  • SBV
  • WMP TXT
  • WEBVTT
  • Avid DS Subtitles
  • iTunes SCC
  • SMPTE-TT
  • PPT XML
  • STL-RTF
  • Netflix SMPTE-TT
  • Hulu SMPTE-TT
  • QuickTime XML
  • Amazon SMPTE-TT
  • Facebook SRT
  • iTunes SMPTE Caption Format
  • Web VTT for Extended AD
  • WebVTT with no blank frames
  • Transcript Formats
    • Keyword Cloud
    • Plain Text
    • Word Doc
    • Time Stamped Doc
    • HTMP
    • JS Transcript
    • JSON Transcript
    • PDF
    • HTML for Screen Reader
    • Word Docx

Audio Description Formats

  • WebVTT
  • Plain Text
  • Word Doc
  • Merged Text
  • Merged Doc
  • Stamped Doc
  • Merged Doc (Stamped)
  • Merged Doc (Stamped) for Mixed Media