#1 2009-05-19 21:11:30

**_fu_paladins_**

Webcam video in a meeting

I'm looking for some ideas...

We have training sessions where we have 12-15 participants that all have webcams. We use the webcams to have a personal touch, but do not need to have everyone up on webcam during all parts of the training session. The "Brady Bunch" view does not work real well for us - or we have not figured out a screen layout that makes this practical/effective. We know that we can "train" the partcipants to manually turn the webcams on/off. While this sounds simple to do, we have had some challenges getting people to just click the right button. These are easily solved, however, the seconds/minutes getting them to do this subtract from the training time.

We have done detailed research on this but it seems that all camera control is delegated to the participant. We are a hosted account.

Is there a way for the meeting host to control this on/off function?

If so, how do we do this?

If not, what suggestions do you have that may improve what we are trying to do?

**_thomasattrp_**

Re: Webcam video in a meeting

The request to create a control for the Host or Presenter to be able to turn video on and off has been made before. Hope that Adobe will see fit to create that capacity in future releases.  Have the same issue in sessions we host.  Thanks for reinforcing our request.

**_Jorma_at_RealEyes_**

Re: Webcam video in a meeting

You can control ending a users video, but yes, the start is up to them.

I suspect that short of a custom application, you will not see this feature in Connect as it would pose a security issue for many users of this system if you could turn on their camera as you saw fit.

I have discussed this with our developers and I beleieve it is possibel through a custom application, and our external video tool can be adapted to fit this need. It would have something like a video switching device built into it, so when someone joined your room it would call to their camera and pause their feed unless you selected their feed from the switching tool.

**_fu_paladins_**

Re: Webcam video in a meeting

Thanks for the replies. I keep hearing about security and privacy when it comes to this. Is there some resource that I could go to so that I can better understand the technical and legal worries that Adobe has?

I've worked with some other virtual meeting/training platforms that seem to have a different take on this. They supply a user agreement on the login screen to notify the user about the issues and still allow the users to 'Allow' or 'Deny' the camera access when they come into the room.

**_sean_at_RealEyes_**

Re: Webcam video in a meeting

I speaking with the dev team here, this is something that could be achieved via a custom .swf application running in a share pod backstage. It would allow to Host to detect if the Participant has a camera plugged in and then initiate the camera stream. The Participant would still have to click the FP "Allow"  button, however.

There might even be a way to do the Pause for all as well, rather than just your view of them which Connect allows for.

If interested in taking about this app, feel free to ping me.

**_dyun_**

Re: Webcam video in a meeting

This isn't the most efficient workaround but i just tested it and it does work.  If a participant is sharing their webcam, you can automatically turn their webcam off by changing their Enhanced Participant Rights.

So lets say we have 4 users, 1 host and 3 participants.

If I want to give participants A and B rights to the Camera and Voice Pod.  At some point, I want to make participant B stop sharing their camera and let participant C do it so I revoke rights from participant B and enable rights for participant C. 

when I do this, participant B's camera automatically stops and they no longer have control over the C+V pod, while participant C, who did not have control over the C+V pod now has rights.

Super tedious, I know, but you can make this easier by Allowing/Revoking rights for groups of users by holding down Ctrl and selecting multiple users in the Attendee List before opening up the Enhanced Participant Rights dialog.

That's the workaround I came up with but I don't know if that will meet your needs or not.

Best,
David

**_thomasattrp_**

Re: Webcam video in a meeting

Let me describe a situation where Host control of cameras and VOIP would be handy, for us, anyway.

We conduct live workshops.  We run the host video almost the whole time, except when showing other video, etc.  We might have 3-5 participant sites each with 5-20 people in the room watching on a projector.  We train a room captain to be our hands and legs and teach a tech person (usually the same one) to handle chat, etc.  During role plays, group discussion, etc. it would be quite handy for us to be able to go from room to room and turn on the individual webcam for that room as well as audio so we could monitor or share with the whole group.  We would not need all cameras on at the same time in this scenario.  For the host to be able to pause each camera would be even better since the delay time would be eliminated when turning on.  Also, when we have interaction with a particular room (like Q&A or reporting on activities), we can activate the camera and voice for that room and all can see / hear.

Current set up requires one person in each room to be at the camera/mic when we want to do this.  I.e requires more personpower.

Thomas

**_fu_paladins_**

Re: Webcam video in a meeting

We are doing something similar.

We want to be able to display people when they are asked a question. Too often, students try to "hide". I have seen other platforms that provide this functionality.

Adobe - please get this into 7.5!!! or 8.0!!!

Someone from Adobe - is there any reality to this "privacy" issue?