Outside Video Experience Improvements

Michael Espey

We would like to see some improvements made to the experience when bringing in a video from outside of Panopto:

• Caption videos coming from YouTube (etc.) using caption providers within Panopto. Maybe there should be something to indicate if the YouTube video has captions in the form used to set up the session, so captions aren't doubled up.
• Include the YouTube watch time in the overall session watch time and statistics.
• Add the ability to have standalone YouTube sessions.

I also would like the scope for the external video functions to be expanded to include other platforms. (Vimeo mainly, but maybe things like Kanopy and Swank would be a "nice to have" sort of thing).

I would say of the above, the captions are the most important, then the metrics, then the standalone assets. They are all important, but we have really been struggling lately with adding captions to external content short of just ripping the content.

I think all of the above could be wrapped up into using the Panopto player controls to control the playback from other sources. Because the playback experience is seamless, the time from a YouTube video should be included in the runtime and the metrics. If it linked out to watch directly on YouTube, I could see not collecting stats, but your player is being used, so I think that time should be included.

Thank you,

Michael