Worship Service Webinar options

[Mikerowaved]

Our stake will be doing their first round of Worship Service webinars this Sunday and a couple of questions popped up during our testing.

1. Joining a webinar not only asks for a name, but also an email address. Members might be put off by this wondering what Zoom will do with their email address after it's entered. Of course, nonsensical email addresses can be used (eg, not@me.com), but that doesn't answer the bigger question of why Zoom wants our collective email addresses.

2. I don't see a way to disable the chat feature, unless it's turned off in the global settings. Unfortunately, that will affect every meeting and webinar in that ward, which might not be desirable. Is there a way to disable it only for a Worship Service webinar?

[swigginton]

1. Joining a webinar not only asks for a name, but also an email address. Members might be put off by this wondering what Zoom will do with their email address after it's entered. Of course, nonsensical email addresses can be used (eg, not@me.com), but that doesn't answer the bigger question of why Zoom wants our collective email addresses.

The Webinar product is designed to have people register beforehand. Joining with name lets the host and panelist see the audience member's name if they have a question, etc. Including the email address seems to be a carryover of the registration process, even though you can disable registration for a webinar (and should for sacrament meetings). Zoom doesn't seem to use the email address for anything other than Webinar reports. Those include the name and email address of those who joined the webinar. We use those reports for our bishops and EQ/RS presidents to see who joined the meeting. That helps them identify members who may not have joined due to technical or other issues.

2. I don't see a way to disable the chat feature, unless it's turned off in the global settings. Unfortunately, that will affect every meeting and webinar in that ward, which might not be desirable. Is there a way to disable it only for a Worship Service webinar?

Sure. The host can disable and enable chat at any time during the meeting. Next to the Chat button is an up-arrow. Click that and you get a choice of who participants can chat with. We choose "No one" for sacrament meetings. The chat button is still on the screen for attendees, but is disabled. Panelists can still chat with each other and the host.

[Mikerowaved]

Sure. The host can disable and enable chat at any time during the meeting. Next to the Chat button is an up-arrow. Click that and you get a choice of who participants can chat with. We choose "No one" for sacrament meetings. The chat button is still on the screen for attendees, but is disabled. Panelists can still chat with each other and the host.

I'm not sure what Zoom client you're using, but there's no up-arrow next to the Chat button in either the Windows 10 (ver 5.5.1) or Android (ver 5.5.1.1304) clients.

OK, I found the Chat switch in the Android client. After a webinar has started, click ... More in the bottom-right corner and select Security. Scroll down and you'll find, Allow Participants to --> Chat with --> select No one. There you can also switch off Raise Hand. This disables your video while it's happening, so it's best to do it well before the meeting start time.

Another option I found is to turn on Enable Practice Session while scheduling the meeting. This lets you make all the setting adjustments before going live. As far as I can see, the only thing that switch does is give you a chance to see the A/V and change any necessary last-minute settings before going live. Am I missing something?

Problem: If someone joins a meeting using your ward Zoom account during a worship service meeting, they automatically become a co-host and will capture the video focus if any audio is detected. This can be a serious problem for someone like a RS president trying to view a Worship Service webinar on her home PC. She would have to make sure she was logged out of the Zoom client before joining the meeting as a regular "Attendee". Either that, or change the setting to Mute my microphone when joining a meeting (not the easiest switch to find).

Finally, how would a person enable an RTMP feed in Zoom? I would like to use the Meetinghouse Webcast system concurrently, at least for the first week or so, until we're sure everyone got the message about changing over to Zoom.

[swigginton]

I'm not sure what Zoom client you're using, but there's no up-arrow next to the Chat button in either the Windows 10 (ver 5.5.1) or Android (ver 5.5.1.1304) clients.

Sorry, I misled you there. I was going from memory, which wasn't a good idea. On the PC, you just click the Chat button. Then click the button with 3 dots. That's similar to the "More" button and gives you the option to disable chat for attendees.

OK, I found the Chat switch in the Android client. After a webinar has started, click ... More in the bottom-right corner and select Security. Scroll down and you'll find, Allow Participants to --> Chat with --> select No one. There you can also switch off Raise Hand. This disables your video while it's happening, so it's best to do it well before the meeting start time.

We have a host checklist that gets all these settings in place before we start the meeting. There are some that can be configured when scheduling the meeting, Others need to be set within the meeting.

Another option I found is to turn on Enable Practice Session while scheduling the meeting. This lets you make all the setting adjustments before going live. As far as I can see, the only thing that switch does is give you a chance to see the A/V and change any necessary last-minute settings before going live. Am I missing something?

We always do this and it's extremely useful. We're still meeting from home, so it's a chance to check the participants' video and audio quality and to be sure they know what to expect when it's their turn to speak. We practice turning video on/off and muting/unmuting. It all happens before we start the actual broadcast.

Problem: If someone joins a meeting using your ward Zoom account during a worship service meeting, they automatically become a co-host and will capture the video focus if any audio is detected. This can be a serious problem for someone like a RS president trying to view a Worship Service webinar on her home PC. She would have to make sure she was logged out of the Zoom client before joining the meeting as a regular "Attendee". Either that, or change the setting to Mute my microphone when joining a meeting (not the easiest switch to find).

That's exactly how we do it. That one is also on our host checklist and they make that change as soon as they start the broadcast. It's in the options for the Participants window. Also, if you use the "Spotlight" feature, it keeps the current speaker in view, so another panelist won't take over the screen if their audio comes on. Part of that requires the host to configure the attendee view to be "Active Speaker View". That option just moved in the most recent Zoom release. It's now under the "View" button in the top-right. Previously, it was in the settings in the Participants Window.

Finally, how would a person enable an RTMP feed in Zoom? I would like to use the Meetinghouse Webcast system concurrently, at least for the first week or so, until we're sure everyone got the message about changing over to Zoom.

We've never used that with Zoom, but I believe the information is here: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articl ... om-service

[Mikerowaved]

Thanks for your outstanding responses! I hope it helps others struggling with similar questions. If possible, can you share your Zoom checklist(s), or at least PM them to me?

Unless I'm missing something, it appears the custom RTMP feed needs an admin's intervention, so that would push it to the church's level and out of reach for us.

I'm attempting to run a Zoom webinar using the Zoom app on an Android phone. Since we have ample BW, I turn on Group HD video in the settings and select either Standard HD (720P) or Full HD (1080P), then when scheduling a webinar I select Enable HD video for attendees but it only makes a slight difference in the quality of the actual video feed. Sometimes in testing the video doesn't even get out of 640x480. Even if it does, the bitrate never gets over around 1.2Mbps (as measured on the download side).

Is there any way to force the video resolution and/or bitrate to a higher setting?

[swigginton]

If possible, can you share your Zoom checklist(s), or at least PM them to me?

I posted a link to all our checklists and materials for Sacrament Webinar broadcasts here: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=38242&p=218857
Feel free to use any ideas that may be useful from that. I'm happy to answer questions about how we arrived at some of our choices for settings, etc.
Regarding the HD video, I believe Zoom has throttled that due to the massive load expansion they've had on their servers with COVID. It may not be possible to get full HD at the moment.