On Thu, Mar 26, 2020 at 8:09 AM Rich Shepard <rshep...@appl-ecosys.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Mar 2020, Michael Barnes wrote: > > > I have participated in a bunch of webinars and the video was always one > > way. Participants had two way audio and could comment and ask questions, > > nobody could see them. Other than seeing who is sleeping or left the > room, > > I see little value in two way video for presentations. Granted, your > > situation may be different. Maybe you are doing soap carvings and want to > > see everybody's work. In that case, you may want to go with a paid > > subscription that allows up to 100 video participants. > > Michael, > > Participating might be different from hosting a webinar. I downloaded FCC's > desktop app (not yet installed), and read the instructions for voice and > video conferencing. > > Voice conferences are all done with a phone (landline or mobile); > easy-peasy. > > Webinars and video coferences (webinars with host providing video and > participants seeing it, both sides having audio connection, or video > conferences with all participants seeing each other) looks like a problem. > From the web site's instructions: > > "To host an online meeting with Web Viewer: > > Using Chromebook (only Chromebook supports full host functionality at > this time), log in to your online account and navigate to your Meeting > Wall." > > Feh! I didn't look to see what subset of full host functionality the rest > of > the user world has. > > Have you hosted a video conference or presented a webinar with FCC? > > Regards, > > Rich > Actually, I just hosted a conference tonight, finished a few minutes ago. We had five attendees. We started with me sharing my desktop and showed a couple of applications. Then I showed a DVD followed by a short video file I had on my computer. All participants were able to see and hear everything. All participants were able to comment and were heard by everyone. I did request everybody mute their microphones during the video just to minimize unrelated noise. After the video, there was open discussion, which seemed to go well. Towards the end, I allowed those who had cameras to turn them on and we could all see each other. Whoever was talking took focus and was on the main screen while the others were visible on the side. During the meeting one of the other attendees wanted to discuss something and I switched presenters to him and he was able to show his desktop and bring up a website that all could see as he discussed the topic. As host, I did need to download and use the the app, but the attendees only needed to use their web browsers. I am running Linux Mint and had no problems. I'm not sure what functionality I was missing, as I was using the app, not my browser. I do use the Firefox browser on my wife's computer, also Linux Mint, and did not see anything she was missing. Now that I finally got things working the way I wanted, I'll be happy to host any demos anybody might be interested in. Michael _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug