Panopto - Staff

Use the Panopto video viewer

What is it?

As the content in Panopto grows it makes sense to make the most of the features within the video viewer. When you go in to watch these videos, you have some flexibility to use the video viewer to fit your specific needs.

What does it do?

You can use the video viewer to adjust playback controls, search, go to chapters, adjust the screen size, make comments, and find and download transcripts.

What should I know?

Once you open the video and click play, the interface has several icons that can allow you to access additional information and adjust playback settings including view (if there is a video and screencast element), search, speed, and captions.

The Viewer 

At the top of the viewer you have the information bar, it shows you the name and date of the session as well as the folder the session belongs to. The viewer itself is split into six distinct areas:

1 – Primary Video

Primary Video and/or Primary Audio Stream: Located in the upper left-hand corner of the Viewer, this will typically show the presenter’s video.  If there is only a primary audio stream, the primary window doesn’t appear.

2 – Search

The search bar allows you to find keywords that are time-stamped to allow for navigation. You can toggle what areas within the details that you want to search, as well as being able to filter your results.

3 – Details

Details, Contents, Captions, Audio Descriptions, Discussion, Notes, and Bookmarks. From early feedback we have received from students, the use of the Notes and Contents area has been very useful.

• Details: Depending on the content in the Panopto video, you can see the tags the creator has assigned to the video, the creator’s name, and the video’s title and description.
• Contents: This section allows you to see the table of contents entries, which include timestamps. You can select an entry to jump to the timestamp in the video.
• Captions: This section will only appear if the video’s creator chooses to caption the recording. It will include a complete transcript of the captions. 
• Audio Descriptions: If the video creator has added them, audio descriptions will appear in this tab, which provides visually impaired viewers with the visual context of what is being presented in a Panopto video. Learn more about audio descriptions in How to Add Audio Descriptions.
• Notes: You can take notes while viewing to refresh your memory later. Additionally, you can search within any note you take. Note: By default, notes under your username will be private, but you can set them to public. To learn more about notes, visit How to Take Notes.  
• Bookmarks: Bookmarks allow you to save a particular spot in a recording to revisit at a later time. Bookmarks will also show up in your search results. For more information, please see How to Create and Access Bookmarks. 
• Discussion: You can leave a public comment on a session for others to see. Please note: Viewers must be logged in to the Panopto site

4 – Secondary Video

This is where you can see the secondary video, screen capture, and PowerPoint/Keynote/other presentations.

5 – Viewer Controls

This toolbar allows you to control video playback, volume, speed, and quality. The player has eight actions that allow you to control how you view the recording, listed below:

• Play/pause the video. You can also click on any stream and it will pause or play the recording 
• Rewind or fast-forward 10 seconds. This is helpful if you miss a small phrase or word and need it to be repeated 
• Use the progress bar to quickly seek a specific time for playback
• Adjust the volume. Click on the speaker to bring up the slider 
• Use the time to go forwards or back to a specific time for playback
• The CC button is for closed captioning
• Gear icon for the captions settings menu
  • Toggle captions on/off. Adjust font size and colour, as well as the position of the captions on the screen
  • Adjust playback speed, intervals that fall between .5x and 2x
  • Control the streaming quality,
• The stream picker appears when you’re viewing a session with multiple streams, and allows you to pick which stream you want to see 
• The hide button hides the thumbnails and increases the size of whichever stream you have selected. Once hidden, you can click it again to show the thumbnails

6 – Thumbnails

You can navigate through a recording using the progress bar or by selecting a time stamped detail, the final way to navigate is using the slide’s thumbnail, located beneath the player. The slides are time-stamped and, once selected, the video will start where the slide is being discussed.

7 - Switching views

If your instructor has recorded their video so there is both a video recording of them speaking and a recording of their screen. You can maximize either stream by hovering over it and clicking on the square button, indicating expand, from the upper right-hand corner. Once in full-screen mode, you can select the Esc key or click the link to return to the normal viewer. You can also click the arrow button, which swaps the primary and secondary screens.

Related links and resources

If you want more in-depth guidance on the on the video Viewer please go the Panopto support site: