Using Personal Capture

If you are unable to book into a Q-Review lecture capture enabled room, you can still record your lecture or event using Personal Capture (PCAP).

What is Personal Capture?

Personal Capture is a simple tool used to capture your computers screen, audio from a microphone,  and video from a webcam (if available). The Personal Capture software can be installed onto a computer or laptop (PC or MAC) allowing you to be able to record from the comfort of your desk, or take your laptop with you to the classroom or record virtually anywhere you can take your mobile computer. Once the software has been installed, there is no need for internet connection to make a recording – internet connection only becomes neccessary when you are ready to publish your recording and make it viewable to the public.

What can be done with Personal Capture?

Personal capture allows users to:

  • Capture their voice using a microphone
  • Capture video using a webcam
  • Capture content being displayed on their screen (including any videos being played) – Please note: it *always* captures the screen. I.e. the presenter cannot choose to only capture webcam+audio
  • Start and stop recording directly from their computer
  • Make minor edits to their recording (such as cutting bits out)
  • Publish recordings:
    • Automatically to a Blackboard course for student access
    • Alternatively, users can copy and paste a link to the recording onto a website or blog

Here’s how it works (click on image to enlarge):

How can I get Personal Capture on my computer?

Personal Capture is available from the E-Learning Unit (ELU) for staff to download onto their own computers. You will need to schedule an appointment with ELU to obtain instructions and also to receive a publishing license. ELU will give you access to the Echo Streaming Server where you can access the download link, and where your recordings will be published to. You will also receive training from ELU, though from experience very little training is required as recording, editing and publishing is easy to use.

Please note: If you don’t have a computer that you can install PCAP on, then you can borrow our laptop which already has PCAP installed.

Please submit your requests and questions via our online helpdesk at https://helpdesk.its.qmul.ac.uk (click on the Request button and select Q-Review).

Computer Requirements

Please refer to PCAP computer requirements here.

Current News and Updates:

UPDATE ON PERSONAL CAPTURE on MAC OS 10.7 or LION

Through some preliminary testing, we’ve been able to determine that EchoCapture Personal does not function with the latest released version of MAC Operating System (Lion or 10.7). Our Development team is aware of the issue and is working on a fix. Until a fix is confirmed, our recommendation is to NOT update any systems where EchoCapture Personal is installed to this new MAC Operating System (Lion or 10.7) until such time as the issues are fully resolved.