There are a number of ways we can provide support for video and streaming in the Department.

In-room provision

Most teaching spaces and seminar/meeting rooms in the Department of Engineering are equipped to facilitate the recording and/or streaming of simple slide/voice captures directly from the built-in lectern PC. This supports the capture of all sources in the AV system (including document cameras and laptops) – in essence whatever is shown on the projector is what’s captured for the live stream.

Streaming (and/or recording) then takes place via software on the built-in lectern PC which is dependent on your streaming requirement:

Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is available for basic and direct streaming to a number of popular platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Twitch, and will also run standard protocol streams. As well as the in-room AV sources it can also make captures of application windows, web cameras and is capable of arranging multiple sources into the same video frame. This platform is best used for streaming purely in-situ events.

Panopto Recorder records directly to the University’s Panopto lecture capture platform and is capable of “web-casting” the content live within the Panopto environment. This usually means that viewers are likely to be students or members of the University that already have access to their teaching content on Moodle. As such the use of Panopto for live streaming is best used within teaching delivery.

For those with access to a Zoom license you are able to use the Zoom Desktop application on the lectern PC in order to live stream directly to a YouTube or Facebook feed. This platform is best used for virtual or hybrid presence events.

Unless you are using Panopto, one prerequisite for running live streams of your sessions is to have access to an account on a platform such as YouTube, Facebook or another streaming service. YouTube is not available by default on the University Google Workspace agreement, but you can opt-in to enable YouTube by visiting https://preferences.g.apps.cam.ac.uk/ and turning it on manually.

Further information on setting up a live stream on YouTube and Facebook is available in the resources section below. AV Support does maintain a generic YouTube account for use with live streams and there may be occasions where it is more appropriate for this to be used for your event. If in doubt, please contact us on av-support@eng.cam.ac.uk.

Sharing Video Content

There are a few platforms available within the University of Cambridge that can facilitate sharing of video content.

Microsoft Stream

Microsoft Stream (https://web.microsoftstream.com/) is available as part of the Office 365 suite. This platform is best used when sharing videos internally to users within the University of Cambridge and/or managing access to a specific group of users. The platform does not allow sharing to members of the public. CUED guidance on how to use Microsoft Stream is available here.

YouTube

For videos that are to be made publicly available, YouTube is available* as part of the University of Cambridge Google Workspace agreement. You can upload videos and live-stream content from this platform. User access control is however limited so do exercise caution when sharing publicly.

*YouTube is not available by default on the University Google Workspace agreement, but you can opt-in to enable YouTube by visiting https://preferences.g.apps.cam.ac.uk/ and turning it on manually.

Streaming Media Service (SMS)

The UIS Streaming Media Service (SMS) is presently experiencing disruption as per the information at https://help.uis.cam.ac.uk/sms-news-20-june and we advise avoiding the use of the platform until further notice. Longer term, the system is due to be replaced with a platform called YuJa (see https://www.uis.cam.ac.uk/it-portfolios/projects/sms-project) but a firm release date is as of yet unknown.

Professional filming/streaming services

For higher profile events, additional production equipment/cameras and attended technical support teams are usually required to achieve a professional result. As a small support team, we aren’t equipped to provide this type of service but are happy to work with you to advise and liaise with reliable local and 3^rd party firms that specialise in this service.

Please get in touch via av-support@eng.cam.ac.uk to arrange support.