Panopto Launches Hosted Lecture Capture System
Panopto this week announced a new software as a service (SaaS) version of its lecture capture system, CourseCast. Dubbed CourseCast Hosted, the new edition is designed for educational institutions to capture classroom presentations without the need to invest in the kind of infrastructure generally associated with lecture capture systems.
CourseCast allows educators to capture, edit, and stream audio and video via the Web and provides indexing and archiving capabilities. Captured materials can be searched, linked, and annotated through the software, and recorded materials can be embedded in popular course management systems, including Blackboard. The new hosted edition incorporates several of the new features introduced this summer in CourseCast 2.0, including support for multiple video streams and audio-only presentations, asset-level keyword searches, automatic recording device discovery, and multi-format output (Windows Media, Silverlight, and MP3).
"CourseCast Hosted is our solution for educators and trainers who prefer to outsource the back-end infrastructure normally associated with lecture capture," said Brad Winney, president and CEO of Panopto, in a statement released Wednesday. "Now, in conjunction with the client/server version of CourseCast, our customers have the full range of implementation choices and a seamless migration path between the two."
CourseCast Hosted will be available via annual and monthly subscriptions. According to the company, the on premises version will remain free for academic institutions participating in the Socrates Project. Further information about CourseCast and CourseCast Hosted can be found here.