Unitube Uploader is available at https://lataamo.helsinki.fi
Unitube is a recording service for all University staff and students, providing a platform for uploading, viewing and saving videos, publishing them in different environments and managing the publishing rights of your own recordings. You can view the recordings in Unitube Viewer and upload new content to the service in Unitube Uploader. Different campuses also have Unitube studios and Unitube lecture rooms that can be booked separately, allowing you to use card-based authentication to record directly into Unitube. Further information about Unitube studios and lecture rooms can be found in the Unitube instructions.
These instructions describe how to use Unitube Uploader. Separate instructions for adding captions to videos are available here.
Quick help
Information security
Please consider information security when you save and share recordings in Unitube. It is subject to the same rules and guidelines as other tools, such as your e-mail.
Read more on information security in Flamma.
See the Detailed help tab for instructions.
Detailed help
Table of contents
- Login and basic view
- Uploading a recording to Unitube Uploader
- About licences
- Copying recordings from Unitube Uploader to your computer
- Deleting a recording
- Recovering a deleted recording
- Sharing a recording: ID, link and embedding code
- Collections, sharing them and administrator rights
- Advice and support for problems
- Automated captions
Login and basic view
Log in to Unitube Uploader at https://lataamo.helsinki.fi
All recordings that you upload to the Unitube Uploader are first shown in your personal (1) Recordings folder. You can use the other tabs to view your own collections and streams. Your streams will be shown in your Streams folder (2). Click Add new recording to add recordings (3). The Recordings folder has a search function (4 ). You can also use various identifiers to limit your search (5). A list of recordings in the folder is shown below them (6).
Uploading a recording to Unitube Uploader
The service supports the most common video file formats, such as .avi, .mov and .mp4. The Uploader should manage to process any recording files from programs used at the university (e.g. Zoom and ScreenPal).
The maximum file size is 25 GB.
Please note the resolution. We recommend that you convert any high-quality (e.g. 4K) videos to HD before uploading them (or record the videos in native HD). In any case, the backend system will convert the videos to HD, and uploading will take longer if conversion is required.
Please note that you cannot update the video using the same ID. A separate ID is created for each upload.
- You can upload new recordings to Unitube Uploader on the Recordings tab (1). Click New recording (2).
- The New recording window will open in your browser. You can click the [i] Information... icon next to each field for further instructions on filling them in.
- Click the Choose file and locate the file to upload on your computer (1). Name the recording. The title will be visible wherever the recording is published (2). Give the recording a public description (3). Select a publishing licence for your recording (4). Read more about licences. Select an expiration date for the recording (5). Select the collection to which you want to add the uploaded recording (6). Learn more about collections. Select a caption file in .vtt or .srt format for the recording or order AI-generated automated captioning for the recording (7).
- Wait a moment. The upload progress bar shows the progress of the upload. You can close the view when you see the notification under the upload bar.
- The recording will show the In progress tag until it has been processed and the tag is removed.
About licences
When uploading a new recording to Unitube Uploader, you must select its publishing licence as mandatory information for the new recording. More information about licences is available on the Creative Commons community website at creativecommons.fi.
- “All rights reserved” in accordance with the Unitube terms of use.
This publishing licence may be used, for example, if the rightsholder of a recording has permitted you to upload a recording in Unitube, but you do not own the rights to the recording yourself, or especially if any further sharing of the recording is prohibited. In such a case, you must explain this and give credit to the rightsholder in the description field! - CC-BY – may be modified and utilised freely; source must be mentioned
This publishing licence allows the recording to be freely utilised, redistributed and modified as long as the original creator is credited. - CC BY-NC-ND – may be distributed freely for non-commercial use
This publishing licence allows the recording to be redistributed for non-commercial use (e.g. use in education), but it may not be modified and appropriate credit must always be given to the original creator. - CC0 – no copyright reserved, free to use
This publishing licence states that the original creator waives all copyright to the recording to be published.
Changing the publishing licence
- You can change the licence of a recording previously uploaded to Unitube Uploader by finding the desired recording under the Recordings or Collections lists and clicking the name of the recording.
- In the recording information box that opens, select Licence.
Copying recordings from Unitube Uploader to your computer
- You can copy the recording uploaded to Unitube Uploader to your computer from the recording information box. Find the desired recording under the Recordings or Collections lists and click the name of the recording.
- In the information box that opens, select Download recording. There are always two different versions of the recordings available for download: a high-quality version and a smaller, more compressed version. Click on the desired version, and it will be downloaded to your computer.
Deleting a recording
- When you delete a recording from Unitube Uploader, it will remain in the Deleted status for a few months, during which time you can recover it to Unitube Uploader. The content will be permanently deleted in a few months.
- You can delete a recording by locating it under the Recordings list and clicking the Delete icon next to it.
- You can also delete a recording from its information box. Once you have opened the information box for the recording you want to delete, click the Delete icon next to the name of the recording in the top bar.
- The Delete recording box will open, asking you to confirm the deletion of the recording. Select Delete to delete the recording.
- At the bottom of the page, you will be notified of the progress of the deletion and you will also be notified when you can close the Delete recording box.
Recovering a deleted recording
- You can find the recordings you have deleted under the Recordings folder. Open the Recordings tab (1). Select the (2) Deleted tag and you will see a list of all the recordings you have deleted. Under the description of the recording, you can see the date after which the video can no longer be recovered.
- Find the recording you want to recover and click the Recover icon.
- In the Recover recording box that opens, you can select the collection to which you want to recover the recording (1). Once you have selected the desired collection for the recording, (2) click the Recover button.
- The progress bar at the bottom of the screen allows you to follow the progress of the recovery. You will be notified when you can close the box, and the bar will turn green once recovery is complete.
Sharing a recording: ID, link and embedding code
Before you can publish a recording, it must be added to a collection. The sharing of recordings is affected by the publicity settings of the collection to which you have moved your recordings. In the Publicity of collections section of the instructions, make sure that you have correctly set the publicity settings for the collection from which you want to share recordings.
The recordings you upload to Unitube Uploader have their own unique identifiers, links and embedding codes that you can use to share the recordings.
- To access the recording ID, link, and embedding code, open the recording information box by clicking its name in either the Recordings or Collections tab.
- You can copy the recording (1) ID, (2) link or (3) embedding code to the clipboard by clicking the Copy button on each row. Please note that the embedding code will not work if the collection containing the recording is not set to allow sharing and embedding via links or completely public in Publicity.
Collections, sharing them and administrator rights
If you have previously used Unitube Uploader, the collections will work in the new Unitube Uploader in the same way as series before.
The collections are similar to folders; you can use them to organise your recordings based on the topic, target audience or course, for example. To publish a recording, you must add it to a collection. The visibility and administrator rights of recordings are also determined based on the collections. You can select a collection for which you have administrator rights. You can manage collections by going to the Collections tab in Unitube Uploader. Before you can publish a recording, it must be added to a collection.
Creating a new collection
- Click the New collection button under the Collections tab to start creating a new collection.
- Carefully fill in the collection details in the New collection box that opens.
- Under Publicity, you can choose where and how the videos can be used and viewed. Read more about publicity settings and Moodle connectivity under Publicity of collections in these instructions.
- Under Administrator rights, you can set your collection’s administrator rights for either individuals or IAM groups. For more information, see Collection administrator rights in these instructions.
Moving a recording to a collection and removing it from the collection
You can add a recording to a collection while uploading a new recording to Unitube or you can look up the recording you want to transfer in the Recordings tab and click its name.
- To open the recording information box, locate it under the Recordings tab and click its name. In the information box, click Collection. Click the drop-down menu and select the collection to which you want to move the recording. Please note that, after this, the visibility of the recording will depend on the publicity settings of the collection you selected.
- You can remove a recording from a collection from this same box by choosing Not in a collection (Unpublished).
- To delete several recordings from the same collection at once or to move them to another collection, click the Collections tab and find the collection from which you want to delete recordings. Click the name of the collection.
- In the collection settings menu that opens, select the recordings that you want to move or delete.
- If you want to move recordings to another collection, select Move and, in the window that opens, (1 ) select the collection to which you want to move the recordings. Finally, press (2) Confirm.
- If, on the other hand, you want to delete recordings, make sure that you have selected the correct recordings to be deleted in the collection settings menu that opens. Click Confirm once you have selected the desired recordings.
Publicity of collections and Moodle connectivity
When you create a new collection, you can choose where and how the videos can be used. You can also later change the publicity settings of a collection by clicking the Collections tab and the name of the collection whose publicity settings you want to change. In the window that opens, find Publicity.
- The option (1) Unpublished means that the videos in the collection are only visible to you and any other users who have administrator rights to the collection to which your recording has been added.
- The middle option (2) means that the recordings in the collection do not appear in the listings of public search engines or the University of Helsinki’s website but can be shared and embedded using links. Please note that anyone who has the link can view videos moved to the collection.
- The bottom option (3) means that the collection is public and its recordings can be shown in the listings on the university’s website, search engine results and Unitube Viewer.
- If you would like to restrict the visibility of the recordings to a specific Moodle course or make it easier to share the contents of a collection on a course, you can connect the collection to the course by adding its Moodle ID here in Collection Moodle courses. In addition, you must enable the functionality in Moodle. A slightly simpler way is to restrict the collection’s recordings to only being visible via a link (or embedding): this way, it is not necessary to link the collection to Moodle.
- Moodle instructions are available on the website of Educational Technology Services.
- Instructions on how to link Unitube videos to Moodle
Collection administrator rights
Collection administrator rights can be assigned to individuals or IAM groups. You can grant administrator rights to collections when creating a collection under Administrator rights. You can also later change the administrator rights of a collection by clicking the Collections tab and the name of the collection whose administrator rights you want to change. In the window that opens, find Administrator rights.
- Type at least four characters in the search field to begin the search. You can search for individual persons in field (1) and groups in field (2).
- You can remove administrator rights by clicking the red X next to the group or individual icon (3 ).
Advice and support for problems
If you encounter problems with Unitube Uploader or have any questions, you can send a message to the service e-mail, helpdesk@helsinki.fi.
Video visibility issues
Can't see the video even though the collection is marked as public? You can fix visibility issues and many other issues by updating the collection metadata.
- In Unitube Uploader, open the Collections tab and click open the collection information.
- Find (1 ) Publicity and edit the collection information. Click (2 ) Update and then (3) Save.
Automated captions
When using the automated captioning service, you should remember that the artificial intelligence you choose does not always produce complete or perfect captions for your video. After the automatic generation of captions is completed, you should always check the captions and, if necessary, correct any errors in the transcription or timing with a suitable tool. Even if you have to make corrections to the automated captions, using the automated captioning service is faster than captioning manually from start to finish, as automated captioning provides a good starting point for your captions in any case. After correcting any errors, you can upload the edited caption file to Unitube Uploader as the captions file of your recording, replacing the captions file produced by the automated captioning service.
You can order automated captioning for a new or existing recording as a file from Microsoft’s Azure cloud service via Unitube Uploader. Currently, there are two alternative language models to choose from: the Microsoft ASR speech recognition model and the OpenAI language model-based Whisper L.
When loading a new recording, you can select automated captioning by selecting Add captions in the New recording box.
- If you are adding captions to an existing recording, find the desired recording on the Recordings tab and click its name. The bottom option in the recording information is Add captions.
- Select (1) Automated captions and then select (2) from Language model which language model you want to use for the automated captions. Then select the language primarily spoken in your video under (3) from the options Finnish, Swedish and English. Please note that the choice of language is important in order for the AI you choose to produce a sensible result! After this, when loading a new recording, click Send, or when processing an old recording, click Save.
You will be notified that automated captions are being processed. You can also see this in the tags of the recording. It usually takes about half an hour to an hour to add captions to a video – depending on the length of the video – so let the service run in peace. A caption file is created on the server regardless of whether you are on this page in your browser, so you can leave the page while waiting for the captions to complete. Please note that the service does not send a separate notification of the completion of the automated caption file, but you will know that the captioning is complete when the “Captions in progress” tag disappears.
To edit a text file, you can download it to your computer from Download or delete caption file in the recording information. Click the name of the caption file to download it to your computer.
For example, you can use the Subtitle Edit program in the Software Center or the ScreenPal program to edit the caption file, following the instructions in the IT Helpdesk’s “Adding captions to videos”.
Please note that ScreenPal can only process .srt subtitle files, while the automatic captions file you download from Unitube is in .vtt format. You can convert your uploaded file to .srt by using services such as:
Once you have finished editing the caption file created by the automated captioning service with the program of your choice, save it to your computer and upload the caption file in .srt or .vrt format to Unitube Uploader in accordance with the “Adding captions to videos” instructions to replace the caption file created by the automated captioning service.
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