Panopto vs. Zoom

Panopto

Panopto is, first, foremost, and almost entirely, a lecture capture tool with an unlimited media repository. It enables faculty to create pre-recorded lecture materials, or to capture live lecture via an integration with Zoom Cloud Recordings. As it is software-based, the recording software can be accessed or installed on any computer, personal or CSUN-provided. Videos automatically enter the media repository for management, and an integration with Canvas means videos can be pushed into courses. Materials can also be recorded directly from Canvas and will automatically appear in that course’s catalog. 

Panopto does not adequately support live streaming of its recordings, and should not be considered for this purpose.

Panopto auto-captions videos that do not already have them, which makes all videos fully searchable by keyword.

Zoom

Zoom is for video conferencing and, therefore, live, synchronous meetings. It is useful for synchronous classes. It does have a recording feature and can therefore be an effective if at times clumsy way of doing lecture capture. 

Zoom Cloud recordings are auto-captioned by Zoom after the recording is complete and uploaded. Zoom does not offer live captioning or transcription at this time. 

Panopto-Zoom Integration

If a Zoom meeting is recorded to the cloud, there is an integration between it and Panopto. The Zoom Cloud recording will be automatically imported into Panopto for further manipulation.

Our recommendation is that if is a synchronous, live session, then use Zoom to record. If it is pre-recorded and meant for consumption later, use Panopto. In either case, all media ends up in Panopto which can then be pushed to Canvas.