This time of the year, I have 15 webinars over three weeks, and each contain 5 shared videos.
In the past I noticed that the videos do not play for all Attendees synchronously. This is expected since everyone is streaming the video from the cloud. I had a few videos today where the video on my extra computer, that is logged in as and Attendee, was about 5 to 20 seconds behind the video showing on the webinar Organizer computer.
This has all been normal in the past. I just know to allow a little extra time after the end of the video, since others are still watching the video after mine has stopped.
What is different this time, is that when the video stops on the Organizer computer it also stops on the Attendee computer. This means that the Attendee does not see the last 5-20 seconds of the video, if their video started late. These are short 3 to 5 minute videos, so those extra seconds at the end are very necessary.
Please check into why this is happening now.
As a work-around, I can play videos from a third computer using the ATEM Mini solution, but that does not work if there is music in the video or if the video contains a soft-spoken presenter. It would be nice to turn off the downward expander that GoTo employs to reduce background sounds. A switch to turn that off would allow us to present videos with music and also help with soft-spoken presenters.
Thanks GoTo for considering these program improvements.
I am running a four-hour long webinar today and showing five shared videos spread throughout the day.
Today, the first video was within a second difference between the Organizer computer and the Attendee computer.
For the second video, the Organizer computer was about five seconds behind the Attendee computer. The Attendee computer saw the beginning of the video before the video started playing on the Organizer computer. I've seen this happen before.
For the third video, the video started playing on the Attendee computer 3 minutes after the video started playing on the Organizer computer. As soon as the video on the Organizer computer got to the end, and without any intervention by me (no pressing any buttons) the video stopped on the Attendee computer. Thus, the Attendee computer saw only the first two minutes of the five-minute long video.
For the last video I am showing today, the Attendee computer saw the video start 10 seconds after the video actually started on the Organizer computer. And once again, when the video ended on the Organizer computer, the GoTo program stopped the video showing on the Attendee computer, thus the Attendee missed the last 10 seconds of the shared video.
It's Friday, so I am only showing two videos today.
For the first one, the Attendee computer was right in sync with the Organizer computer.
For the second video, the Attendee computer was 15 seconds behind, which I don't mind, the problem is when the video playback on the Organizer computer got to the end, GoTo stopped the video on the Attendee computer. The Attendee did not get to see the last 15 seconds of the video.
This is a new problem. GoTo did not truncate the shared videos like this in the past.
Hi Chris,
I didn't want to leave you hanging on this one, but I don't have any good explanation for a delay that large. It could be the AWS servers that are in use causing part of the problem, and I'll keep an eye out for additional reports of this behavior.
The delay has always been there since you started the video share feature. The new issue is that it automatically cuts off the Attendee video.
Yesterday, three of the shared videos started about 10 seconds late on the Attendee screen. One started 20 seconds late, which means the Attendee did not get to see the last 20 seconds of the video.
On one, the video started 10 seconds earlier on the Attendee computer. This meant the presenter started talking before the video was over on the Organizer computer.
On Wednesday, one of the shared videos never played on the Organizer computer, but played well on all the Attendee computers.
Another issue is when I select the video to be shared, the amount of time it takes for the video player to show up, the play button to be available, and then the video to start playing can be as long as 20 seconds. That's a long dead time in a webinar.
For today's webinar I showed five shared videos. Following are the time delays I noticed between the video playing on the Organizer computer vs. the Attendee computer.
1. the start time was within a second.
2. the video started on the Attendee computer 11 seconds late
3. the start time was within a second.
4. the video started on the Attendee computer 11 seconds late
5. the video started on the Attendee computer 28 seconds late
I don't expect the start times to be synchronous, since they are playing from the GoTo cloud. The problem is that as soon as the video stops playing on the Organizer computer, it stop the video playback on all computers. This means that some Attendees could have missed the last 28 seconds of the fifth video. That is a lot of time when the video is only five minutes long.
Thanks for the description, Chris. I will share these experiences with the GoToWebinar dev team.