The document discusses the evolution and implementation of self-service video workflows using Opencast at the University of Cape Town, highlighting the transition from lecture capture to various video recording options. It outlines the design principles of usability, end-user control, and high-quality output, detailing several workflows for different recording scenarios, including lecture recordings and clinical skills labs. Additionally, specific operational procedures, metadata handling, and available tools for video processing and publishing are addressed.

1. Credit: Photo by Loïc Romer
ORCHESTRATING
SELF-SERVICE
VIDEO WORKFLOWS
WITH OPENCAST
Stephen Marquard
Corné Oosthuizen
Duncan Smith
Sam Lee Pan
Centre for Innovation in
Learning and Teaching,
University of Cape Town
www.cilt.uct.ac.za

2. Opencast video at UCT
First there was lecture capture
Started 2012
Significant growth every year
Opt-out policy from July 2018
700+ recordings per week,
7000+ students per week use recordings
… then there was self-service video upload into Opencast
(from Sakai via LTI)
… and a desktop recorder
… and a One Button Studio (democratising online course video production)
… and some Clinical Skills teaching venues.

3. Design principles
Make the services as easy to use as possible
Provide as much control as possible to end-users
(maximally self-service)
Make the recorded media as useful as possible to students
Keep the video server-side end-to-end
Low cost, high volume, high automation, highest achievable quality

4. When is a video not a video?
When it’s a mediapackage!
Catalogs
Metadata
SMIL, MPEG-7
Tracks
Audio
Video
Attachments
Captions
Transcripts
Notes
Related media
Publications
Rich playback experience (example)

5. Video wants to be in Opencast
High
Quality
Mass
Production
Ease of
Use
Schedule Edit Publish
Length of
Videos
Lecture
Recording ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ~ ✔
45 min to
4 hours
Clinical
Skills Lab ✔ - ✔ ~ ~ ✔ < 1 Hour
One Button
Studio ✔ - ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ < 1 Hour
Screen
Recorder ~ ✔ ✔ - ✔ ✔ 5 - 30 min
Upload
feature ~ ✔ ✔ - ~ ✔ 5 - 30 min

7. Workflows are awesome!
Workflows are used to:
inspect
analyze
edit
enrich
transform
publish
media packages.

8. Some workflow operations
▪ Inspect media (resolution, tracks)
▪ Analyze
▪ Metadata, for example “is this a timetabled recording of a course lecture”?
▪ Audio: identify segments with single speaker vs background noise (ML model)
▪ Presenter tracking in 4K videos (track4k)
▪ Manual editing (cutting, track selection)
▪ Text recognition on presentation (slide) videos
▪ Segmentation (slide transitions), preview images
▪ Automated speech recognition for captions (IBM Watson, Google, Politrans)
▪ Human-generated transcripts and captions (3Play, Way With Words)
▪ Intro and outro videos, title slides, animations
▪ Audio normalization (consistent loudness)
▪ Transcoding (multiple output formats for playback and download), mostly with ffmpeg
Workflow operations can be:
• internal Opencast code
• tightly-integrated utilities
(e.g. ffmpeg)
• loosely-integrated scripts
or applications (track4k,
pyaudioanalysis)
• third-party services via
APIs (e.g. speech
recognition)

9. Five different workflows
Lecture recording
Schedule > REC > Before Edit > … > Publish
One Button Studio
Book > Show up > Record Take #N > Edit in My Videos > Publish
Clinical Skills Labs
Show up > Identify yourself > Record > Edit in My Videos > Download or Publish
Desktop recorder
Personal Series/Course > Start/Stop > Edit > Publish
Upload
Personal Series/Course > Upload your video (any format) > Edit > Publish

10. Lecture recording workflow
Goals:
Provide a rich recording of face-to-face lectures for students which can be used in flexible ways. Publish as
soon as possible. Give effect to policy (opt-out, review and consent). Provide accurate transcriptions when
required.
How it’s used:
▪ Schedule (opt-out, manual via timetable, manual ad-hoc)
▪ Fully automated multi-stream recording (optional live streaming)
▪ If required: hold for editing, hold to verify consent
▪ Process and publish
Workflow operations
Analyze metadata and audio
Track presenter in 4K videos
Audio normalization, slide segmentation, preview images, slide text OCR
Automated speech recognition when selected and where possible (search and discovery),
human-generated transcripts and captions when selected (accessibility)
Multiple output formats

11. One Button Studio workflow
Goals:
Provide an easy way to record and publish direct-to-camera instructional video
for online courses
How it’s used:
▪ Book the studio (Office365 room calendar)
▪ Show up
▪ Set up presentation media (venue PC or bring your own)
▪ Start and stop recording with one button (multi-stream)
▪ Recordings are uploaded automatically to your personal video series
▪ In My Videos in Sakai, select, edit and publish (to a course site)
Workflow steps:
Publish preview immediately (with minimal processing)
Allow user to update metadata, edit and re-publish
Optional: title slides, intro/outro or animations,
custom backgrounds, transcript and captions

12. Clinical Skills Lab workflow
Goals:
▪ Provide an easy way to record and publish instructional video in a
clinical setting
▪ Provide an easy way for students to record formative and
summative assessments: simulated patient interactions in a clinical
setting
How it’s used:
▪ Walk in
▪ Identify yourself (enter username on keyboard or touch screen,
NFC/RFID reader from ID card, OCR from ID card, face recognition)
▪ Position camera for optimal field of view (touch-screen PTZ controls)
▪ Start and stop recording (touch screen, button or voice prompt)
▪ Recordings are uploaded automatically to your personal video series
▪ In My Videos in your workspace (Home), select, edit, download or
hand in
Workflow operations:
Audio normalization, optional title slides or animations

13. Desktop recorder
Goals
Simple and fast way to create and publish screen recordings without additional software.
Handle any processing on the server (lightweight for the client)
How it’s used
▪ Recording is initiated from a button in a personal or course video series
(Opencast LTI tool inside LMS)
▪ Compose recording sources (desktop app, webcam, mic), start and stop recording in browser
▪ Edit and publish
Workflow operations
Audio normalization, optional trimming from edit catalog, multiple output formats

14. Upload workflow
Goals
Provide an easy way to upload and publish self-recorded
video, to provide flexible playback options for students
(don’t just embed that mp4 file in Lessons).
How it’s used
• Create a new video series for a course or project site in
Sakai or other LMS
(if there isn’t already one for lecture capture), via
Tsugi/Opencast LTI integration
• Upload the video file (optionally selecting processing
options)
Workflow operations
Audio normalization, segmentation, multiple output formats

15. The source will be with you, always
https://github.com/opencast
https://github.com/teltek/Galicaster
https://github.com/LectureTracking
https://github.com/cilt-uct/tsugi-welcome-to-lecture-recording
https://github.com/cilt-uct/TrimPointDetector
https://github.com/LectureSight/lecturesight
https://bitbucket.org/cilt/lecturesight-overview
https://bitbucket.org/cilt/oc-scripts
https://bitbucket.org/cilt/oc-dev-scripts

16. Credit: Photo by Tourisme Montréal, Stéphan Poulin
opencast.org
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