Panopto Remote- current setup and results
Let's face it, you don't have time to look at all this. I don't want you spending time that has already been spent, and all of the equipment you see here is headed to UT Surplus. Here are some lesson's learned, and where further exploration is headed. Please direct any questions to me.
The best path to lecture capture.
- Panopto Remote works great for lecture capture and webcasting. It can be scheduled and setup in advance to record a class and put the resulting file in the faculty members Canvas course.
- If you need mission critical lecture capture and have the money, buy a Panopto-approved lecture capture appliance like the Seneca Scribe. If you have existing MediaSite hardware, it can be converted to run Panopto Remote. Our current sales rep for Seneca is Paula Gervasoni at Arrow, paula.gervasoni@arrow.com
A current (Spring 2022) price list is here Download here. Note these appliances have either two or four inputs, HDMI or SDI. Also note the hardware specifications, we've found that Panopto Remote loves processing power, but doesn't use a lot of RAM. Note these appliances are made to be integrated in existing rooms with cameras and microphones. - Campus expertise here is in Pharmacy and McCombs.
The scavengers path to lecture capture.
- The majority of Panopto files you will see here are captured on late 2012 Mac mini's running Win10. We have a bunch of these with quad-core i7 processors, 16Gb of RAM, and SSD drives. We can capture the USB-3 output from a camera, the HDMI output from a laptop on a LAITS console, headed to an HDMI splitter that goes into the console and a $19 USB3 or C HDMI dongle. This gets us two video sources.
- Audio is always more painful than video. Some 1080p webcams capture great audio in small rooms, and some of our testing is with wireless lapel microphones. Here the audio input enters the Win10 Mac mini via a USB external sound card.
- Panopto Remote lets you select what inputs you want to use. The examples below take in Windows Task Manager running on the Mac mini to monitor processing load, a laptop input via HDMI to USB3-or C dongle, and USB-3 audio and video coming from a camera all on a nearly 10 year old Mac mini.
- Panopto Remote also allows you to sync a primary and secondary capture machine. We can stack two Mac mini's and get a bunch of inputs to play with, including document cameras, digital microscopes, and any USB or HDMI video inputs. We've not found a good use case for this yet, but it does work.
- Finally, most of us have a serious video camera with us, our phones. Panopto Mobile allows you to join a Panopto Remote recording quite easily. Again, what would faculty do with this?
The rational, sustainable path to lecture capture.
- Our current lecture capture setup is portable, and our next step is to purchase a small form factor Dell with a decent chipset and RAM. This will get us warranty coverage, a computer that is not a decade old, and hopefully reliability.
- Next, inputs. The Panopto-approved Magewell USB3 or C to HDMI dongles Links to an external site. are $299. The HDMI to USBC or 3 dongles on Amazon Links to an external site. work pretty well for $16.99 with a 20% off coupon.
- HDMI splitter- to connect to our LAITS consoles, we put a $16 HDMI splitter Links to an external site.in line connected to the laptop input. You also need to grab USB power for the splitter.
- Compared to a dedicated Panopto Remote appliance, we should have a decent amount of money to spend on audio and video capture by using a PC. We are testing the $999 Meeting Owl Pro 360-degree, 1080p conference camera Links to an external site., which should work great in smaller rooms, or you can use two in a larger room. We've also tested wireless lapel microphones, but we hope to test some less expensive models soon.
Example Videos: Note that the "Screen" input on each of these is Windows Task Manager running on the Mac mini to assess processor load. The "Camera" input is the HDMI output from the laptop.
Audio here from Meeting Owl Pro, please use "Watch in Panopto" button