Put my own video file into a lesson
If your teaching lives on YouTube or Vimeo, paste the link (Use the videos already on my YouTube or Vimeo). But when the video is a file — on your phone, your camera, your desktop — you don't need to route it through another platform first. Give it straight to your course.
How it works
- Drag the file into the drop area on your courses page — or ask Bernard to add it to a lesson. Either way works; it's the same video underneath.
- Let it upload, then get on with your day. The file goes straight to secure storage, so big files are fine, and once the bar completes you can close the page.
- Everything else is automatic. Within a few minutes the video is ready to play on any phone, a cover image has been picked from the footage, and captions have been written for it (Captions and transcripts, written for me).
The captions quietly do double duty. Learners can switch them on, and the words become a transcript — which means your teaching turns searchable: you can ask where you talk about something and jump straight to the minute (Where do I say that? Search inside my own lessons).
A video alone isn't a lesson yet — give it a title and a few lines of notes (Add a lesson to my course), and slot it into the syllabus. As ever, learners see the new lesson only after you've checked the preview and approved it.
The prompt
“I've dropped a video onto my courses page — make it a lesson in my [course name] course called [the lesson title], with these notes underneath: [a few lines].”
The [bracketed] parts are yours to fill in. First time? Connect bernard to your AI over MCP — a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI — then paste the prompt above.
Questions people ask
- Is there a size limit on lesson videos?
- Big files are fine. The video travels straight from your device to secure storage — it doesn't squeeze through your website — so a long workshop recording uploads as happily as a two-minute clip. Once the upload finishes, you can close the page; the rest happens on its own.
- What does 'Captions paused — monthly limit' mean?
- Your site has used its captioning allowance for the month. The video itself is unaffected — it plays for learners exactly as normal. Once the new month starts, just ask Bernard to write the captions and they're done in a few minutes.
- Do I have to keep the page open while it processes?
- No. Once the upload bar completes, close the laptop and walk away. The playable version, the cover image and the captions are all prepared behind the scenes — and the lesson itself reaches learners the way every change does, when you approve it.