#1 2008-11-19 16:07:25

**_jameslloyd_**

Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

Hi comrades,

I just finished up a ticket with Adobe Support where I reported a 5-second delay of the camera/voice pod behind a screen-share pod.

I was told that this is acceptable performance.

Really?  I'm curious about your opinions.  In our case, explaining the use of online performance management software, in the screen share pod the presenter often has left the screen containing a demonstration that IS STILL BEING EXPLAINED in camera & voice.

Just curious if I'm out of line to be disappointed. I mean really, let me know if this cognitive disonance is just to be ignored.  Maybe my degree in Ed Tech truly is just baloney.

**_jturkle_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

Hey James: I hear your pain.  I have seen this in recordings but not in live meetings. In recording Adobe suggested that we have our IT team see if our customer was using server based, dynamic virus protection tool which have been known to create a delay in the audio through the RTMP. You might check that out. I presume you have already optimized your room and have checked your up/down bandwidth in Meeting?

One other thought, which port are you accessing Connect meeting in your organization? I have seen performance issues with SSL access using port 443 rather than port 1935.

**_jameslloyd_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

Hi Jonathon, we are hosted at adobe so I hope that they are making all these wonderful settings the best they can for us :)

Also, the delay is between pods - the voice & video are in sync within the Camera/Voice pod.

**_jturkle_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

I would expect the voice and video in the camera pod to be in sync. I have only seen sync issues between the voice (camera or new voice capability) and main share pod. 

As for the port issue that is something controlled by your IT group and can show up on a hosted account. I had a hosted customer that was gaining access only through port 80 because their IT group locked the others down. When we got them to change that many if not all of their performance issue went away.   

If you are behind a Proxy server and/or have ports 1935 and 443 blocked, you may be experiencing connectivity/performance issues (port 443 is often associated with SSL traffic so IT may have that shut off for Connect traffic. 

There is nothing immediately to indicate that you are not on Port 1935 (the optimal port).  There is a trick to show you what port you are actually connected on. I have tech note here: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgeb … d=c22e2700 

For a more robust test try this:   http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgeb … d=tn_16466  Basically this will testing the connectivity for that individual user.

If you get a failure in any one of the categories that can mean there is a problem. Describing those possible is more than we want to do here except to report back on that.

This may or may not be helpful, but if not at least you will have eliminated one possibility.

**_jameslloyd_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

Thanks Jonathon,

I did verify that our hosted account is on 1935 and the other test indicated all connections as successful:

WIN 9,0,124,0

RTMP         DEFAULT    Success
RTMP         80             Success
RTMP         443            Success
RTMP         1935           Success
HTTP Tunneling        DEFAULT    Success
HTTP Tunneling        80             Success

I appreciate your pointing me to these resources, but I am still curious if having that much delay between pods is really something that we can call acceptable.

Isn't this stuff timecoded somehow?  Our recording is consistently 5 seconds out of sync - why not provide some tweak for admins to adjust sync between streams? 

Really, being out of sync is NOT acceptable and if Adobe tries to tell us otherwise, then we need to find someone else. Our training department, as well as our entire organization is represented by via this tool and it is a poor reflection of our otherwise high-quality work.

**_roysdenc_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

James,
     I can't say that the 5 seconds is acceptable, but if it is within what the system is speced to do (which I do not know if it is), then it would then be acceptable by Adobe's standards.  Now that is all a big IF because I don't know what the performance is speced for.  All of that being said, the method Adobe uses for recording conect is that there are multiple streams of data, which then get played back at the same time, using key frames/markers of some sort to keep sync, blah blah blah.  If a keyframe is missed while recording, then everything would be off for that data stream.  If there is something consistant that you are doing with these two pods (the method you start them, the order you turn your camera on, when you start your screen share), try changing that pattern and see if the results change.

    I had an issue that Adobe is working on fixing with a late Jan update that traced deep into the program's code, and the was the way a certain situation was handled.  To get them to work on it, I determined things I could to that made the error occur or not occur based on the steps I took.  They used this to find the root cause of the issue.  Our main hold up in all of this was getting Adobe to experience the same errors I was, by my guess because of their proximity to the servers as compared to me caused different timing responses.   Hopefully the Jan update fixes things for me.

     The point of all of this is that no, 5 seconds is not acceptable by your and my standards, but is there anything you can do to affect that 5 seconds.  The answer may very well be no, but there is a chance you may find something.  Though this product has it's flaws, I have not found another program that offeres the same benefits in one package.   

     If you know of something or another product that I dont, let me know.  I am always looking for something to use that will give me functionality like I get with Connect, but that is not Adobe and doesn't require so much of my time to fix and tweak things that Connect has problems with (all the work arounds we have to do for a simple presentation).

-Chris

**_jameslloyd_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

HI Chris,

Thanks for your very thoughtful reply.  I do have to agree with you that, like the support or not, Connect Meeting/Seminar is still the most capable tool around.

Also, like you I will be watching for anything that lets me accomplish my job more reliably.  If I do find it, I will be moving faster than you can say 'macromedia'!

**_Terry_at_RefinedData_com_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

I've seen the kind of sync issues you report in some meetings where I have multiple computers in one room and you can perform an action on one machine as a host, only to have it take 5 seconds or longer for that action to show up on other machines in the same room. I've had this happen with whiteboards, whiteboard overlays, slides and many other situations.

Typically, as hosts, we don't get to see the lag that can show up for users, so we find ourselves asking for feedback from attendees "can you see that?"

One of the solutions that we've discovered is that this behaviour is often caused by attendees not changing their Connection Speed setting in Connect Pro. They often have this set to LAN and this can be the root of the problem.

Asking everyone to change this setting to Cable/DSL at the start of a meeting can go a long way to eliminating the lag.

My feeling is that this should be something that the system auto-negotiates rather than relying on user input - most people don't know what to answer here anyway or simply never bother trying.

There's already a feature that is able to calculate and display latency and  so why is this not used to adjust the connection speed automatically.

**_jameslloyd_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

Thanks for the comment Terry.

In this case both the share pod with slides and the camera/voice pod were being operated on the same computer - which I had hoped would help guarantee that items stay in sync.

Again, I've read other places that the separate data streams in a meeting recording are stitched together using something like video timecode.  If Adobe acknowledges that there are sync errors when the recording is stitched together (which they have by saying it is 'acceptable') then I would hope that someday they could allow us as administrators to offset the error by adjusting the synchronization between pods.

It can really be a problem - say the training is about difusing a bomb and the presenter says 'cut THIS wire, not THIS wire' ... where would you like the mouse pointer to be??  :)

-
j

Last edited by **_jameslloyd_** (2009-01-13 08:42:48)

**_troutlark_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

Hi James,
With the release of v7, I'm seeing synch delays of 5 to 7 seconds when my presenter is sharing an app or desktop. The latency happens in both their audio (mic) and when they click on links in their share pod.
In v6 this was not the case: same presenter, same attendee (me, during a practice), same equipment, hosted by Adobe.
So, I can only surmise that the cause is the v7 code.

After a complete system boot on both the presenter and my (attendee) computers, the latency improved - but it was still worse than what I experienced in v6.x

As other posts in this thread have stated, this is NOT acceptable by any stretch of the imagination. Not only does it look unprofessional, but it's so distracting to the attendees that they'll "tune out" in frustration. The presenter gets pretty flustered too.
I haven't seen a latency like this in any product since the 1990s when I dealt with LearnLinc. Let's hope that someone at Adobe with some power to change things, is watching these forums. Maybe the only way to get them to quickly fix things like this is to leave them en mass?!

**_santhony_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

Just a random and probably useless thought -

Anyone try turning off the enhanced audio...  It's known that that has caused issues in the past with VoIP, maybe its somehow bandwidth related to the pc that is recording? 

I assume also that the folks doing these recordings are hardwired and not on wireless when they are presenting :)

**_troutlark_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

In my situation, I'm dealing with a "live" situation, as compared with a recording playing back. We verify that Enhanced audio is definitely turned off - previous experience with some of the settings (especially Automatic Gain Control, yikes!) taught us that. I think that the Enhanced audio is OFF by default also.
And wired connections are all we all for our presenters - again, sad experience in past years taught us that this is the only way to go.
Keep those ideas coming, though.
- Bill (troutlark)

Just a random and probably useless thought -

Anyone try turning off the enhanced audio...  It's known that that has caused issues in the past with VoIP, maybe its somehow bandwidth related to the pc that is recording? 

I assume also that the folks doing these recordings are hardwired and not on wireless when they are presenting :)

**_jameslloyd_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

Yes - enhanced audio off here as well.  All fully manual settings on a computer with multiple switched cameras to the video pod, 8 channel lockout microphone mixing in a room dedicated to webcasting.

I'm quite certain in my case that it is a sync issue between the data streams of a recording.

**_dyun_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

Hi All,

We are trying to collate a comprehensive list of issues you are seeing with playing back meeting recordings so that we can better understand and hopefully resolve the issues you are experiencing.  Please respond to this post or email me so we can troubleshoot:
http://www.connectusers.com/forums/cucb … hp?id=1639

Best,
David

**_jameslloyd_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

Hi David,

I think for the problem I am describing a solution would be to have the ability to 'offset' timecode references between the data streams.  Perhaps off of the 'edit recording' page there could be a link or menu to display all the data streams in the recording and next to each is a timecode offset value.  Each value would be zero as a default, but we could adjust plus or minus values in order to correct playback.  In my case, I would want to delay the data stream of the slide share pod by 5 seconds, in relation to the other pods.

-----
james

**_composia_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

Hello alltogether,
I'm Peter from Germany, so excuse my poor english...
Just a comment on the synchronization problem of recordings:
I am working with a hosted Version and experience massive synchronization problems of recordings, too. Not only 5 sec., but sometimes the ppt-Matrial "freezes" when watching the recording. Click on "pause" and the "play" moves to the "right" folio, but then it freezes again, and always at the same time-point! I tried several PCs, always the same...
All my recordings suffer the problem that a delay between material und the conductor increases with watching-time (i.e. after an hour the delay is greater than after 10 minutes...), consistently.
The support is of no great help yet (no significant reaction).
I now record my meetings with a Screen-Recorder (Camtasia), but this is of course no final solution.
If my problem is fixed (if...), I will post it here.
Greetings from Germany
Peter.

**_Kelly_Torrance_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

Hi, James:

Yes, dealing with delays between pods can be extremely frustrating when they occur.  As a best practice when using live streaming video, I audit the live area of my meetings for any non-essential bandwidth hogs that will be competing with the "main event".  One serious contender is the attendee list.  If you have the attendee list in your live area and it is not a critical component of your presentation, move it into the presenter-only area and see if there is an improvement.  Also, try removing any photo/coloured backgrounds, etc.  I've found I get great results when I focus on giving the video and shared presentation priority on sending packets, and make sure that my video settings are appropriate.

As an aside, in case you have not seen it, here is a fantastic recording (posted on this site) which includes a great overview of video settings, etc. http://seminars.adobe.acrobat.com/p36159796/

Hope this is helpful.

Kelly

**_jameslloyd_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

Hi Kelly,

thanks for the tip - I'll have to watch the bandwidth monitor and see how much the attendee pod adds to traffic. 

It's ironic that the attendee pod was NOT turned on in Alistair's recording to which you linked because then you would see that I was an attendee! :)

I find that the attendee list, like the camera/voice pod, it is an element of engagement for participants who are easily distracted from the meeting.  Of course they can see who's on by using the chat dropdown.  I will check on how much traffic that pod uses.

Still, I don't think bandwidth is the issue when it comes to synchronization of streams during recording playback.

thanks for the thoughts!
-
j

**_rjirving_**

Re: Connect Pros - is 5 seconds out of sync acceptable to you?

I'd be interested in hearing how much bandwidth it uses - a report back would be helpful if you have time.

Cheers

RJI