Best Practices for Panopto

Best Practices when Recording with Panopto

Recording a video in Panopto can be as simple as hitting “Record” and “Stop”. However, there are a few things you can do prior to recording that can help save you time, effort, and help you produce a better recording.

Minimize Environmental Distractions

If you are recording from your home or office, it is easy to forget about small distractions that can turn out to be huge distractions on screen. To minimize these distractions:

• Close your windows and door (consider putting a “recording in progress” note on your door)
• Lighting: Proper lighting is essential for good video quality and even a simple desk lamp can be used as your main light source. Whatever lighting you use, make sure you’re illuminated. Turn on any available lights in the room, close all windows and minimize glare from the computer monitor. Make sure the light
  behind you is not brighter than the light illuminating you. Never use your computer monitor as your light source!
• Silence your cell phone and avoid sitting next to an office phone that might ring (or take it off the hook)
• Turn off/mute any sound coming from your music device, TV, radio, etc.
• Wear solid colors if recording with video. Patterns can be distracting and can show up as moving when recorded, such as Houndstooth or Herringbone patterns.
• Make sure there is nothing distracting behind you that could disrupt your video

Minimize Technological Distractions

• Eliminate desktop distractions (email pop-ups, Twitter feeds, etc.)
• Close all other applications on your computer, except what you are using, and try not to use more than one application at a time. Too much load on the computer can distort audio and video quality.