Eric Burns's dashboard

Eric Burns replied on February 19, 2009 17:52 to the question "Same user settings for all users on one computer?" in Panopto:

I just realized you may not have my email address. Rather than post it publicly, please give Panopto Support a ring at 800-931-5036 and they can put you in touch.

Eric Burns replied on February 19, 2009 17:49 to the question "Same user settings for all users on one computer?" in Panopto:

Hi David,

We have extensive new support for this type of scenario in 2.1. Would you be interested in having a brief phone call to discuss? Please drop me an email and I can give you a call.

Thanks!
Eric

Eric Burns replied on January 30, 2009 02:39 to the idea "Alternative to Dazzle Video Capture Device" in Panopto:

Hi Steve,

Our preferred supplier is DY NYE, at http://dynye.com. Please let them know that Panopto sent you. :)

Eric

Eric Burns replied on January 19, 2009 20:13 to the question "Switching to Screen Capture as Main Viewer" in Panopto:

Hi Bruce,

This is a pretty complex issue. We have considered viewing screen capture streams by default when present, on the assumption that if the screen is being captured the PowerPoint is probably redundant. However, this can increase the bandwidth requirements for viewing and potentially cause other problems (for example, if an always-on-top application is showing above PowerPoint, it will be captured in the screen capture but not shown in the PowerPoint tab). Overall, however, it seems like a reasonable short-term solution.

The right solution is to allow full flexibility for the instructor - at any point or interval in the timeline, it should be possible to set a "default" tab to be shown. We will be including this capability with our new editor, slated for release in the summer of 2009 with CourseCast 2.2. In addition, the recorder should do its best to pick sensible defaults, something we are currently investigating.

If you are interested in defaulting to screen capture (versus PowerPoint) when present, please get in touch with us and we can look into enabling this capability on your server.

Thanks,
Eric

Eric Burns replied on January 16, 2009 03:04 to the question "When I try to subscribe to the podcast, iTunes says "Authorization is required."" in Panopto:

Hi Sean,

Can you let us know the URL of the Podcast feed you're trying to subscribe to? If you don't want to post it here, you can email support@panopto.com and we'll help you via email, then post the solution back here.

Thanks,
Eric

Eric Burns replied on December 29, 2008 16:54 to the question "Why is a recording "stuck" processing or uploading?" in Panopto:

Hi Bill,

In general, the only thing that should be able to cause a recording to get "stuck" is if the content of the recording has not been fully transferred to the server. This can happen if, for example, multiple recorders were used for one session and one of them wasn't allowed to finish uploading.

If a session is recorded with only PowerPoint or only screen capture, it will not successfully process because there is no primary media stream (audio or video).

This can also happen if a recorder crashed and then was restarted and continued recording to the same session, but this is a fairly difficult situation to get into.

We are taking several steps in 2.1 to make it much more difficult to get into this situation, and if content is missing to allow the session to partially process.

Thanks,
Eric

Eric Burns posted an update in Panopto on December 17, 2008 01:31:

Announcing Some CourseCast 2.1 Features

All,

Panopto expects to release version 2.1 of CourseCast in late February / early March of 2009. Described below are a few features that may whet your appetite. Please feel free to comment or request more information.

* Live Broadcast support - version 2.1 of the Panopto Recorder will allow any presenter to choose to broadcast the presentation to a live audience. Viewers will be able to take notes and ask text questions. This will even work with Panopto Hosted!

* Analytics - we'll offer some easy-to-read charts to track how people use your server, individual classes, and even specific recordings.

* H.264 Video Podcasting - new recordings can be optionally delivered as a video Podcast feed for playback on your video iPod, iPhone, or other MP4/H.264 device.

* Recorder presets - instructors having trouble with selecting classes and devices? Presets will track the most recent class that a given user presented in, along with the set of devices used in the last successful recording. Click your preset, click "start", and off you go!

* Public / Private notes - users who have logged in to view recordings will be able to take notes under their authenticated user ID. The presenter can then make these notes public and read-only, so all users can view and search them. Your students can transcribe your classes!

This is just a subset of the features we're delivering. To learn more, please contact us directly at sales@panopto.com.

Thanks!

Eric Burns
CTO, Panopto Inc.

Eric Burns replied on December 16, 2008 05:29 to the question "I loss screen capture after editing. Why ?" in Panopto:

Hello Yves,

It looks like you might see this problem if you use the special French-localized Editor we sent you on an English-localized machine. In order for the Editor we sent you to work properly, the number format of the machine you are using must be set to French (Canadian) in "Regional and Language Options" under Control Panel. If you want to use the Editor on an English machine, please download the standard version from your site at http://hosted.panopto.com.

I'll ask someone from Support to get in touch with you.

Thanks,
Eric

Eric Burns replied on December 10, 2008 01:42 to the question "Mac recorder?" in Panopto:

Hi Dan,

Work is underway on this right now. We are looking to deliver functionality comparable to the current Windows recorder within six months. If you'd like to help beta-test, we'd be happy to let you take a peek at this as soon as it's functional.

Thanks!
Eric

Eric Burns replied on December 09, 2008 20:07 to the question "How about a single login for all users?" in Panopto:

Hi Pete,

I'd really love to speak with you in person about this. Can you give me a ring (will send phone # in email) when you get a chance, or let me know when I can call?

Thanks,
Eric

Eric Burns replied on December 02, 2008 00:09 to the question "What kind of reports would Administrators like to be available from the server?" in Panopto:

Hi Pete,

Thanks for starting this! I'm actually making the rounds with this exact question. We're building our analytics features now with the intent of being able to show the following data:

* How many users viewed a specific recording, and when?
* Of those viewers, which ones were logged in, and who were they?
* Reporting over date ranges

Right now, we're trying to decide whether it's a must-have or a nice-to-have for granularity finer than "unique views". It's considerably more work to track how much of a given recording a student has viewed, so we'd love any input from the community on this.

Thanks!
Eric

Eric Burns replied on November 20, 2008 23:05 to the idea "Recording Status Message" in Panopto:

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the input. I think we should do this, since it's very simple and low risk. I'll file a bug and we'll try to get it out in the next build, due in about 3-4 months.

Eric Burns replied on November 14, 2008 01:13 to the idea "Please bring back the option to speed up the broadcast." in Panopto:

Hello,

Thanks for the kind words!

With respect to the playback rate, we have a tricky issue on our hands. Windows Media Player, which is only available as a plug-in on Internet Explorer / Windows, is currently the only way to do faster-than-normal playback. However, we use Silverlight for FireFox/Safari on Windows and Mac, which still doesn't support fast playback. Until we are able to find a way to make this feature work in Silverlight, there is a hidden work-around if you are using Windows:

1) Open a Panopto url in IE on Windows, like http://macmillan.hosted.panopto.com/C...

2) Edit the URL in your address bar and add "&usewmp=1" to force the player to use Windows Media Player. This will make the url:
http://macmillan.hosted.panopto.com/C...

3) Right-click on the video and select "play speed -> fast", and the lecture will playback slightly faster than normal.

Until we can correctly support this feature with our Silverlight player, we are considering adding the faster-than-normal playback just for Windows/IE users. A lot of people miss it.

Thanks for your feedback!

Eric Burns replied on November 13, 2008 18:34 to the idea "Alternative to Dazzle Video Capture Device" in Panopto:

Sascha, what you're describing is exactly why the DataPath boards are superior to the VGA2USB LR. The LR is a USB device that tries to squeeze full frames across the USB2 bus, at a very high cost in CPU time. The DataPath products seem to offload everything from the CPU - we've seen 1-2% CPU usage on a modest desktop while previewing 1280x1024 at 30 fps. Right now, I think the DataPath is the best way to achieve very high quality, high-framerate VGA capture. We've had great results with about 10 fps on both capture and playback.

Eric Burns replied on November 13, 2008 01:29 to the question "I Use a powerpoint presentation larger than 50 megs" in Panopto:

Hi Rocky,

What version of CourseCast is your institution using? In the latest version, 2.0.1322, the limit has been raised to 100 MB and can be overridden by the user. If you're on a support contract, we'd be happy to get you upgraded.

Eric

Eric Burns replied on November 12, 2008 21:05 to the idea "Alternative to Dazzle Video Capture Device" in Panopto:

Thanks for the tip, David. Here's another device that may do what you want:

http://desktop.thomsongrassvalley.com...

Canopus has been making these for years. The ADVC 300 may also be interesting.

By the way, if you are looking into VGA capture hardware, we have had terrific results with equipment from DataPath. If you are planning to build a desktop system for use in a podium recorder, this is definitely the way to go.

Eric Burns replied on November 06, 2008 18:06 to the idea "Ideas for simplifying recorder workflow / interface" in Panopto:

Hi David,

I think what we're looking at is another check-box on the settings page for "remember login info". If you close the recorder and reopen with it unchecked, it will forget the login info but remember the server. Does this sound like it might work?

Eric

Eric Burns replied on November 06, 2008 18:03 to the question "Silverlight problems" in Panopto:

Just to follow up, David, this is something we're going to be adding in the near term. It's pretty easy to do.

Eric Burns replied on November 04, 2008 23:51 to the question "How do I globally populate students into classes? (from Dan Mull @ Cal Poly - supporting our CourseCast pilot... thanks!" in Panopto:

One more quick answer: we'd be happy to work with you guys to write the data into the SQL tables directly. I believe Kalamazoo did something similar, where they wrote a small utility to dump user lists from their class membership system into the CourseCast access control tables. We're willing to help you get this going if you are interested.

Eric Burns replied on November 04, 2008 23:48 to the idea "Additional User Type" in Panopto:

Hi David,

Thanks for the input. I've opened a bug and we will consider this for inclusion in a release. This is probably something we can do without major trouble, but we'll have to investigate and see how much time it will take and how it affects other components.

Thanks again, keep 'em coming!

Eric