Likelihood to Recommend Kaltura is an excellent tool IF you have a large library of content. It can be pretty pricey so if you are early in launching an online program you may be better off waiting a few years until you've amassed a large enough catalog to warrant the investment in such a tool. The tool is best purchased by a University or company-wide vs having a single department try to find the budget for it. The unlimited plan pays for itself in most cases if you go this route. Secondly, you must be willing to invest time and resources into on-going training for your faculty and staff, especially for those who wish to create their own media and use the quizzing features.
Read full review Panopto is great if you have a lot of video content that you need to put in a central repository. It makes it easy to manage who sees it and how it is categorized. The captioning features are also really good too. For folks to view the video, they don't need a Panopto account. You can send them a direct link. If you want to upload videos, however, they will need a Panopto account. If you only have a few videos or care less about usage statistics,
SharePoint may be a better file repository option
Read full review Pros Very easy to use interface for uploading videos or capturing a screen recording. There are very few clicks required to get the media up and running. The video conversion process that happens on the back-end is fast and provides videos in device agnostic formats. Integrates well with other systems, such as our Moodle LMS. This extends the capabilities of the LMS and also allows us to keep video/multimedia content organized in a central location (the KMC). Kaltura can be connected to various processes within your organization. For example, we have a system in place that allows a video lecture in a classroom to be uploaded to Kaltura in a very easy manner. User/role management is very important as some people on campus have more privileges to publish content than do others. We have Kaltura connected to our Single Sign-On solution for authentication and we can assign roles to specific people within the Kaltura software. Read full review Simple to use - It really is a click-and-go system. Log in, click on record, and you're set. Flexible - It allows multiple information-rich inputs to be recorded simultaneously (for example, the screen, webcams, microphones, etc.). For some demonstrations, having multiple perspectives/views can be beneficial. The ability to add multiple webcams enhanced the value of some of my recordings. Reliable - This is critical when an unforeseen opportunity arises and you want to capture it visually and with audio. I had multiple experiences where a unique person was available briefly and due to Panopto's reliability, I was able to capture content that would otherwise have been seen by only those physically present at the time. Read full review Cons As it relates to the LMS integration, we would like to see improved workflow. But that may be just as much a Canvas issue as a Kaltura issue. I would like to see the ability to add inline, anchored comments to the video timeline. We are seeing issues with compatibility with certain browsers - especially Chrome. The faster Kaltura can move away from Flash the better. The capture appliance (CaptureSpace Lite) needs to be reconsidered. It's not intutive enough. Read full review Panopto doesn't fully support Ultra courses in Blackboard - we can do quizzing, which is very helpful, but we can't do video submissions like an Original course. There is no built-in certificate option for completing a video and its quiz questions, which requires us to use additional systems for tracking and awarding. Analytics are mediocre. The reporting tools are challenging to use and to get clear information on a consistent basis. Quizzing is limited to multiple choice or T/F -- there is no reflection point or open-ended question format. Read full review Likelihood to Renew The choice to renew our subscription does not belong to us, though we are able to provide input. We are aware of competitive products who have matured in the past three years, and we are aware now of alternatives to conventional plugin usage (LTI).
Read full review Usability Needs some work, but I'm sure improvements will come over time
Read full review Support Rating The first line support agents seldom are able to diagnose or troubleshoot any problems that we have. These agents simply open support tickets in their system which are escalated to a foreign level 2 support agent which creates at least a day delay between reporting a problem and getting initial feedback. Any back-and-forth questions add at least another day delay.
Read full review Panopto has been quick to answer any questions, but their rollouts and updates have caused issues where we felt a little blindsided by unexpected changes. Their development cycle is slow and often their promises for future updates have been extremely slow or never come.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Kaltura was the best option given the sheer volume of people we needed to support digitally. Others were better in their own regard, but due to limitations in number of attendees or sessions, Kaltura was the best option
Read full review Cost wise, unless you have a huge audience, Panopto is better. Both Zoom Meeting and
Kaltura and for more expensive and a smaller program/company may not have the demand to justify them.
Kaltura - is a far superior tool, the UI is much more modern and easier for a novice user to understand, and it makes sharing videos amongst faculty much easier. The LMS integration if far smoother and the recording is much easier and faster (from within the LMS). The analytics are also present in a much cleaner and digestible way. Lastly, the quizzing feature is far more robust.
Zoom - Smoother at streaming and live interactions. Stronger chat feature and supports larger audiences, it can handle over 100 HD webcams at once if needed. It does basic desktop capture and supporting audio-only formats that can easily be converted to Podcast or Soundcloud.
Google Loom - This one is not listed above as it's rather new but its a FREE tool for fast video/desktop/PPT recordings and it's extremely fast and easy to share. That said it's pretty basic as far as any additional features are concerned. Post-production editing is limited to basic timeline trimming.
Read full review Return on Investment Managing video content with the KMC has greatly reduced the amount of hours previously needed to manage. User issues ie: uploading video, viewing video has been greatly reduced. Increased user engagement with using video in LMS courses. We currently have 6,929 videos on our system. Last month , 2/1/14, 17,623 videos were viewed at least 75% of the way through. Read full review Panopto integrates with our LMS, D2L quite well. It makes the process very simple for our instructors and students to record and watch videos. It does not require any plugins or software to watch videos, as they load up in a web browser. The videos work on mobile and embed easily in courses or on websites. We also enjoy the easy sharing of videos and simplified management in the web portal. Read full review ScreenShots