Viewpoint. This document will guide you through using Viewpoint, and highlights its major features. Viewpoint URL is

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1 Viewpoint Viewpoint is a free video and audio repository that allows users to upload their media (audio and video files) online and make them available to students. It also allows users to record their own videos and audios on the website using their webcam or microphone. Viewpoint has several other features of interest to language teachers, like the ability to group audio and video into Collections and the ability for instructors to create Invites to collect video responses from their students. This document will guide you through using Viewpoint, and highlights its major features. Viewpoint URL is

2 Signing In You need to sign in with your login information to access the full functionality of Viewpoint. You can click on the Signup link and follow the instructions to create your account for Viewpoint. (Note: The signup process will send a confirmation link at your address that you need to click on to activate your account). Once you create your account, use your address and your password to login.

3 If you see the Welcome message on the top-right of the screen, you re logged in! The My Video tab shows you the videos that you have under your account. You can click on any of the thumbnails of the videos to access the video. For example, clicking on the second thumbnail above brings up the following screen. Every video clip has a URL (link) that you can provide to let public access your video. It also has a Code field that you can copy-paste in your web pages to embed the video elsewhere.

4 You can edit your video s Title, Description and Publish Status by clicking on the Edit link above the video. The Publish Status of the video can be Private or Public. In Private setting, no-one other than you can see the video. In Public setting, anyone with the link to your video will be able to see the video. (You will still need to provide them the link, though!) You can click on the Delete link above the video to delete the video.

5 Recording your video using a webcam If your computer is equipped with a webcam and microphone, you can record your video on Viewpoint. Click on the Allow button to let Viewpoint access your webcam and microphone. You should be able to see your camera input in the screen. If you do not see your video on the screen, click on the Problems Recording? link provided and choose your webcam from the drop-down box provided.

6 You can also click on the microphone icon to select the microphone input from your computer and set its recording volume. Click on Click here to start recording to start recording your video. Once you are done recording your video, click on Click here to stop recording to end video capture.

7 Once recorded, you can playback your video and either choose to Record Again or Save the video. Once you are satisfied with your recording, click Save and give your video a Title and an optional description on the following screen:

8 Recording audio using your microphone You can record audio on Viewpoint if you have a microphone attached to your computer. Click on the Record Audio tab to access this functionality. Click on the Allow button to let Viewpoint access your webcam and microphone. You can click on the Record, Play and Stop buttons provided to record your voice, play it back etc. Use the Clear button to erase your recording and start afresh. When you are satisfied with your recording, click on Save, and give your recording a Title and a Description. All your audio clips are available to you under the My Audio tab. You can click on any audio icon under My Audio to access the corresponding recording.

9 Every audio clip has a URL (link) that you can provide to let public access your audio. It also has a Code field that you can copy-paste in your web pages to embed the audio elsewhere.

10 Using Viewpoint to upload Media (Audio/Video Files) Viewpoint allows you to upload your audio and video files and convert them to a format that can be viewed on the browser. Currently all popular formats are supported (wav, mp3, aif for audio, mpg, mov, avi, wmf for video) and we are always adding support for new formats. You can upload your audio and video files on Viewpoint by clicking on the Upload tab. Click on the Browse.. button to choose the file on your computer that you want to upload, and click on the Upload button. A progress bar displays the progress of your upload. Once your video/audio is uploaded and encoded, you can add its Title and Description and it will be available in the My Video or My Audio page as the case may be. Downloading Media You can download any audio file that you upload or record, as an MP3 file on your desktop. Similarly, any video file you record or upload can be downloaded as a QuickTime movie (.mov) file. To download a file, click on the Download File icon when viewing the file. (Please allow a few minutes for freshly uploaded or recorded media to be automatically converted into a download-ready format).

11 Adding subtitles for your Videos Viewpoint lets you add timed subtitles to your videos, which is a great tool for language learning. You can add one or more sets of subtitles to a video. The video can then be viewed either without any subtitles at all or with any of the available subtitles. To add subtitles to a video, click on the New Subtitles link above the video. This opens up an interface where you can see the video on the left hand side, playing it and pausing it as you wish. The elapsed time for the video is displayed on the top right corner of the video, which is useful to create subtitles which show up at a particular instant of the video. Click on the + button on the right hand side to add a subtitle. Enter a numeric value in the Start column. This is the time in seconds after the start of the video when the current

12 subtitle will start playing. Enter the number of seconds that you want the subtitle to display, in the Duration column. For example, the second subtitle below will start playing 7 seconds into the video, for 2 seconds. You can click on the - button next to a subtitle to delete that subtitle. Once you are satisfied, click on the Save button to save your subtitles, and give them a Title and Description. You can choose to view your video with or without subtitles. If subtitles are available for a video, they are displayed next to the video. You can click on the subtitle name to view the video with that set of subtitles. You can click on the View without subtitles link to view the video without subtitles.

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14 Grouping your media elements together: Collections Collections is a feature on Viewpoint which allows you to group your Video and Audio clips for easy access to a group of media elements. Click on the My Collections link. Click on the Create new Collection link to create your collection. Provide a name and description. Once created, you can add Video, Audio and other elements to your collection by clicking on the appropriate links next to the Collection name. For example, to add a Video in your account to the collection, click on the video link above.

15 From the drop-down box provided, select the video you want to add to the collection. (Note: You can only add videos in your account to your collection). Use similar procedure to add your audio elements to your account. Viewpoint also allows you to add external media (like YouTube videos) to your collection, if you have the embed code for the video available. Click on the embed code link next to the Collection name and enter the details of the video you want to add. The number of items in your collection is displayed on the right hand side. You can click on the URL for the Collection to see what the collection will look like. Use the delete button to delete media elements from the Collection. (Note: The delete links are only visible to you!) These audio/video elements will not be removed from your account, but simply not linked with the Collection anymore.

16 You can provide the Collection URL to anyone to allow them to view your Collection. To delete an entire Collection, click on the checkbox next to it and choose Delete from the drop-down box. Deleting a Collection does not delete the audio/video elements in your account.

17 Publishing Collections as Podcasts You can publish a Collection you make as a Podcast. A Podcast allows you to add or remove media items (audio or video), and newly added media items are automatically downloaded to any client s computer who is subscribed to your podcast. (For a FAQ on Podcasts and what they can do, visit To publish a Collection as a Podcast, click on the faded Podcast icon next to the collection. Doing this generates a Podcast link for the Collection that you can use with many media programs like itunes, Windows Media Player, WinAmp etc. In the screenshot below, we have generated a unique link for the Podcast for our collection called Podcast Collection. You can share this link with others (by doing a copy-paste of the link). The process for subscribing to the Podcast varies with the client program your subscribers use. For example, for itunes, your subscribers would click on Advanced -> Subscribe to Podcast..

18 Then enter the URL of the podcast in the text box that shows up. Doing this allows users to subscribe to your podcast, wherein any additions or deletions you make to the collection representing the podcast would be reflected in your clients machines. In the screenshot below, the six videos in the Collection are automatically downloaded to the subscribers computer. These videos or audio recordings can then be transferred to an ipod or other portable music devices.

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20 Data Collection using Invites Viewpoint provides you with Invites, a feature that lets you create assignments for your subjects to let them record their video responses. All responses submitted to your Invite are then available to you (and only you) to review. To create an Invite, click on the My Invites link. Click on the Create new Invite link to create a new Invite. Provide a Title and Description for your invite. You can also choose whether to allow your subjects to be able to re-record themselves by clicking on the checkbox next to it. (This feature may be employed for testing where you may be looking for spontaneous responses and not prepared responses). The Invite URL is displayed next to the Invite Title. You can provide this link to your subjects to allow them to visit the Invite and submit their responses. Note that the subjects themselves do not have to be registered at Viewpoint to be able to submit responses to Invites.

21 The process for submitting responses to Invites is similar to Recording your video online. The only difference is that any video submitted in response to an Invite cannot be viewed or deleted by the subjects, but only by the instructor who created the Invite. The number of responses submitted for your Invite are displayed in the right-most column. Clicking on the number provided will take you to a page where you can see all the videos submitted for your Invite. For example, the number of responses for you Invite in the screenshot below, is 1. Viewpoint is a new Rich Internet Application by Clear ( and we are continually working to make it better and tailoring it to make it more useful for language teachers. Your feedback and comments are welcome, and will be answered promptly. Please any questions/comments/suggestions about Viewpoint to clear@msu.edu