Overview 

This guide outlines the how to create and submit a video for your final assessment.

Contents

Creating a video

When shooting, pay attention to: 

  1. Direction of light. 
  2. Background noise.


There are many ways to make a video – for example, shooting with a movie camera then editing in Adobe Premier, or making a screen recording with voiceover using Quicktime Player. Those are excellent methods if you know how. 

Below are three easy ways to make a video that you may not be aware of.

Method

Notes

Microsoft Stream Screen recording.
Record your screen with a voiceover and video inset.
Star rating: 4/5
Mobile phone camera using Microsoft Stream app.
Record directly into Stream via your camera.  Star rating: 4/5
  • The easiest way to shoot and upload a simple video e.g. of a performance.
  • Log into the Stream app using your Uni email.
  • Shoot in Stream and upload in one go OR shoot a video using a different app then upload.
  • You MUST edit access permissions to (a) add your lecturers as owners (b) stop everyone else from accessing it. 
  • Instructions on how to edit access permissions in Stream.
Recording a Microsoft Teams meeting with yourself.
Record a Teams meeting in which you are the only participant.
Star rating: 3/5
  • Go to the Calendar in Teams, click “Meet now”, start recording the meeting, then perform or start sharing your screen to present.
  • The recording uploads directly to Stream.
  • Can suffer poor quality video or audio if your internet upload speed is slow.
  • You MUST edit access permissions to (a) add your lecturers as owners (b) stop everyone else from accessing it.
  • Instructions on how to edit access permissions in Stream.

Compressing a video

Exclamation mark iconDo NOT leave your submission until the deadline day.

The Scenario

You have shot and edited your video, it’s 5 minutes long, it’s in MP4 format and it’s 900MB. 

It’s the day before the deadline. 

This is small enough to be uploaded directly to the Assignment link in Learning Space. 

But you’re at home and that could take hours. 

  • IF YOU CAN COME ON CAMPUS, then do so and upload over the campus network.
  • IF YOU HAVE UNLIMITED DATA on your phone, you might tether your laptop to your phone, as upload speeds via 4G are likely to be 10 times faster than via home internet.
  • Otherwise, make your life easier by reducing the file size. 

Handbrake

A good, free tool for reducing the size of videos is Handbrake. Download it from https://handbrake.fr, install it then use it to make a smaller file size.  


View the guide on using Handbrake to reduce file size. You will need to try different settings and check the output to make sure the quality is still reasonable.

Exclamation mark iconDO NOT WAIT UNTIL DEADLINE DAY to learn how to use Handbrake.


Other Tools

There are many other tools for manipulating videos, including Adobe Premier, in which you can adjust output settings that reduce the file size when exporting.  

Submitting a video

There are fours ways to submit a video for an Assignment.
 

Method

Notes

Microsoft Stream.
Upload your video to Microsoft Stream, make your lecturers owners of it, then submit its URL to the Assignment link.
Star rating: 4.5/5
  • You can upload any video format and Stream will deal with it. 
  • Uploading from home could take hours and hours, but Stream is unlikely to time you out. 
  • Before uploading, you may wish to convert your video to a lower quality so it uploads faster. 
  • You must wait and make sure the video has uploaded OK. 
  • You MUST edit access permissions to (a) add your lecturers as owners (b) stop everyone else from accessing it. 
  • Instructions on how to edit access permissions in Stream.
Video File.
Submit an MP4 file directly to the Assignment link.
Star rating: 4.5/5
  • This is a good route IF YOU LEARN HOW TO OPTIMISE THE FILE, balancing size vs quality. 
  • MP4 is the best file format to use. 
  • The upload limit is 1GB. 
  • Uploading from home could take hours and hours if your file is 400MB or more. 
  • The Learning Space server could time you out and you’d have to start again. 
  • A 5-minute video shot on a phone in 4K will be almost 2GB, but probably only needs be 200MB or so to be reasonable viewing quality. 
YouTube
Upload your video to Youtube, set its visibility to unlisted, then submit its URL to the Assignment link.
Star rating: 3/5
  • Not as good as using Stream, as it’s not hosted on a University system. 
  • Uploading from home could take hours and hours, but Youtube is unlikely to time you out. 
  • Before uploading, you may wish to convert your video to a lower quality so it uploads faster. 
  • You must wait and make sure the video has uploaded OK. 
  • You must set the visibility to “Unlisted”. 
Vimeo
Upload your video to Vimeo, password protect it, submit its URL and the password to the Assignment link.
Star rating: 2/5
  • Not a particularly good way of submitting. 
  • It’s not hosted on a University system.
  • There is a 500MB weekly upload limit – that may scupper you!
  • You should set a password to access the video so that it’s not open to the world.
  • Before uploading, you may wish to convert your video to a lower quality so it uploads faster.
  • You must wait and make sure the video has uploaded OK  

Question mark iconFurther Support 

For general queries about the Learning Space, students should first contact their module leader or personal tutor. For any other comments or issues within this guide, please contact the Digital Learning Team via dlsupport@falmouth.ac.uk. Alternatively, please refer to the numerous help guides found on our Knowledge Base.

View the Accessibility Statement for all of our support guides.