4 Reasons to Use Panopto for Zoom Recordings

Panopto offers a range of benefits, including easy sharing capabilities and ways to quickly find what you need from long recordings

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This story is part of the Tech Bytes series.

If you are a Zoom user, and you record meetings to ensure you don鈥檛 miss key information, you may want to take a close look at Panopto, an online tool that allows you to store Zoom recordings 鈥 or any videos 鈥 on an easy-to-access platform.

In late 2022, with Duke鈥檚 limited allotment of Zoom cloud storage squeezed by a high number of recorded meetings, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) adopt as the place to stash and watch recordings.

But the reasons for giving Panopto a try go beyond easing Duke鈥檚 storage crunch.

鈥淧anopto is just a better way to present a Zoom recording than even Zoom itself,鈥 said Media Engineer Todd Stabley, Duke鈥檚 project manager for Panopto.

Stabley has been working with Panopto since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Back then, it was mainly used as a way to record and share video faculty lectures in classrooms. Since then, Panopto had made it easy to capture, watch and share Zoom recordings.

Here are four reasons Panopto is a smart move.

It鈥檚 Automatic

Duke users can easily clients to send recordings directly to their . Once users have followed the steps to link Zoom with Panopto, recordings will no longer be stored in their Zoom account, where they face automatic deletion after a period of time. Instead, recordings are automatically stored in Panopto, which offers better long-term management of recordings.

The Panopto player for recorded meetings provides easy searching tools and access to shared screens. Image courtesy of Duke OIT.

Get the Whole Picture

Zoom meetings are more than just video conversations. There are screens that get shared as well as links and discussions in the chat. When a Zoom meeting is recorded to Panopto, it captures everything. And the Panopto video player gives gallery and speaker view options and the ability to see shared screens, chats and live transcripts that can be shown along with the video.

鈥淧anopto ingests everything from the meeting and intelligently presents it all within its player,鈥 Stabley said. 鈥淚f someone shares a link in the chat, you know you鈥檝e got it. It鈥檚 just a very rich media player.鈥

Find What You Need

When watching a traditional Zoom recording, finding a specific part of a meeting can be a challenge. But when viewing a recording on Panopto, there are multiple ways to quickly find the relevant part of a conversation.

Users can type words into the search field above the transcript and go right to the spot in the video when the word is mentioned. They can also click on thumbnails shown below the video and jump to that spot in the meeting.

And you can also mark chapters in your recording to make it easier to jump to sections where specific topics were discussed.

Sharing is Easy

Users can send a link via email for the entire video, or a section of the video, by clicking the 鈥渟hare鈥 option next to the video when viewed in your Panopto folder.

As long as the recipient has a Panopto account, and everyone with an active Duke NetID can create one, they can have their own copy of the recording, as well as a transcript within minutes of a meeting ending.

鈥淚t鈥檚 really easy to share,鈥 Stabley said. 鈥淵ou can quickly send a link to all of the participants in a meeting and they鈥檒l get an email that鈥檚 got the transcript and a little preview of the meeting. That鈥檚 part of what makes Panopto a really compelling solution for the challenge of how to store your meetings.鈥

You can learn more about Panopto in this .

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