Accessing, Publishing and Sharing Videos in Microsoft Stream

Stream (on SharePoint) is a video-sharing service that is included with our Microsoft 365 license. It is available to all faculty, staff and students at the University of Windsor. In Stream (on SharePoint), you can control who (users or groups) can access the videos you upload.

Stream Features

Stream (on SharePoint) provides these important features:

• Free of advertising and commercial tracking
• Automatic captioning of the video 
• Per-user, group or public access, including the ability to let others upload a new version
• Transcription search
• Comments (can be disabled)

Accessing Stream

The Stream app can be accessed from a Web browser at microsoft365.com/launch/stream or portal.office.com and by selecting it from the App Launcher (the nine dots in the upper left corner); it should be available in the menu. If not, select Explore all your Apps and find it in the menu. It will be added to your frequently used apps listing.

You can also download and install the Apple iOS or Android mobile apps. 

Learn more about playing a video across Microsoft 365. 

Upload or Save a Video

If you have an mp4 or video recording that you want to save or share, you can add it directly to your OneDrive or SharePoint like any other Word or Excel file.

A message will pop up when the video has been successfully uploaded to the folder. 

You can play it directly from there or choose to share it.

Sharing a Video (Limiting Access and Making it Public)

Stream (on SharePoint) allows sharing a video to individuals, within a group, in Teams or making it public by sharing a link.

Here is one way to share a video when the video is in a SharePoint folder.

1. Locate the video that you would like to share. 
2. Select Share
3. Select the cog
   

4. Select the type of people you would like to view the video. 
   • Anyone = any person with the link can view the video, even if they are external to the University.
   • People in the University of Windsor = anyone within the University can see the video
   • People with existing access = anyone who has access to that SharePoint site
   • People you choose = viewable for anyone you select to see the video

You can also select if you want them only to view the video or edit the video.  

5. Select Apply
6. Select Copy link and share the video as needed. 

Organize videos

In Steam (Classic), you could create a group or channel and add your videos to the group or channel to organize them. 

The groups and channels concepts from Stream (Classic) do not carry forward into Stream (on SharePoint). Instead, you’ll organize your videos the same way you would any other files. Videos don’t need to be stored in a special location; they can be stored alongside other content in your workflow. Group videos together into folders, libraries, Teams, sites, and Communities. 

If you need more customization, then feature those videos on SharePoint pages and sites with web parts for more customization.  

If you need a Video Portal page to display your videos, you can create one inside a Microsoft Team SharePoint site by following the instructions on the Learn how to create a video portal with Microsoft's guided portal site documentation.  (Note: Skip the "General Setup" section as the site has already been created inside your Team.)  

If you require a dedicated Video Portal page, please open a ticket requesting a SharePoint site for this purpose.

Transcription and Captions

Stream (on SharePoint) will automatically create captions (transcript) of a video when it is uploaded. It may take several minutes to hours to generate the transcript. When it is available, users can see the transcript in a separate window or view them as captions, and the transcript will be used for searching in Microsoft 365.

The video owner can edit any errors in the transcript simply by pressing the pencil icon in the upper right corner of the transcript window.

In case the transcript has not appeared, edit the video details and make sure that:

1. The Video Language is set appropriately
2. Auto-generate caption file is checked

Caption File Extract

Stream automatically generates a WebVTT file from what was spoken in a video and uses it for a video's transcript and closed captions. If you download the caption file, it will contain time codes and metadata.

Occasionally, you may want a copy of a video's transcript without the extra information. This online utility will extract the transcript text from downloaded VTT files generated by Microsoft Stream, allowing you to copy and paste the text elsewhere.