Lecture Capture student guide

Echo has a number of features to support you in learning from video content. 

Play controls

• You can use the fast forward button on the left of the player to move to the relevant part of the recording.
• The Echo player has speed control on playback. This enables you to move quickly through the parts of the content that you understand and to slow down to review new concepts. This feature is available from the cog icon on the bottom right of the recording.

Recording inputs

Once you have selected a recording, you will be able to review inputs captured during Lecture Capture. This can include a recording of the lecturer's audio, the lecturer's presentation (e.g. PowerPoint slides), a secondary video of the lecturer. Select each source to enlarge it.

Bookmarks and notes

• You can place bookmarks and time-stamped notes on the Lecture Capture recording as you are reviewing it. These features are available from the top right of the recording.
• The Echo Study Guide consolidates all your bookmarks and timestamped notes on each of the Lecture Capture recordings and the notes can be downloaded. When you next review a recording, you can use the bookmarks and timestamps to jump to the section of the recording that you were struggling with. To access your Study Guide, open the link to Lecture Capture from your Moodle module and select the link to Study Guide prior to opening a recording. 

Lecture Capture recordings from 1st November 2021 will include an automatic interactive transcript that you can choose to display or hide as you are reviewing Lecture Capture recordings.

Open the transcript

We recommend that you access the transcript feature using a desktop or tablet device. The transcript feature does not work on the Echo360 mobile app and is difficult to navigate using a mobile browser.

Select the transcript icon from the top of the Lecture Capture recording to view it. The transcript will open in a panel to the right of the recording. You can then type a keyword into the Search input field to search for and navigate to relevant part of the recording.

To turn off the transcript, select the transcript icon from the top of the Lecture Capture recording.

Download transcript

Transcripts are not always downloadable. The download icon will be blue if downloads are switched on and grey if downloadable transcripts are not available.

Select the download button at the top of the transcript to download the transcript. If a message displays that the you are not authorised to download transcripts for this media, you can still copy and paste parts of the transcript into your notes. Click within the transcript, select and copy (CTRL C on windows) parts of the text from the transcript into Word/NotePad. There is a short screencast on how to do this.

Open captions 

Captions are available from the CC button on the bottom right of the Lecture Capture recording. Select the CC button to open the captions menu. To display captions on the recording, select the CC slider. A tick appears and the slider turns green.

The captions menu allows you to change the font size, contrast, location and alignment of the captions that display on the recording.

To switch off captions on the recording, select the CC button from the bottom right of the recording to open the menu. Switch the slider to off by selecting it. The tick disappears and the slider displays as grey.

If captions are not available on the Lecture Capture recording, the CC button on the bottom right will be greyed out and a message will display that captions are currently unavailable for your content if you try to select this button.

The automated transcripts are considered a supplementary resource. You should not rely solely on the transcripts when reviewing your Lecture Capture recordings. You're advised to check the transcripts against the PowerPoint and readings to ensure you have a good understanding of the topic and the terminology used.  

If you require accurate transcripts as part of your reasonable adjustment, you should contact disability@city.ac.uk to discuss your requirements for quality transcripts. This will then result in human intervention to make corrections on the automated transcript. This usually substantially improves the accuracy of the transcripts, but the accuracy can still be impacted by terminology used, accent of the lecturer and audio quality of the recording.

Watch the Academic Skills Team animation on top tips for Lecture Capture to help you to learn effectively from Lecture Capture.