Pinning and Moving Boxes

[LindsayP]

I am a court reporter doing depositions via Zoom.  It's important that I identify immediately who is speaking.  I like to arrange people's boxes in a certain order.  The problem is, when there is also a videographer attending via Zoom and he pins a speaker, I know I can get back into gallery view, but frequently the order of the boxes has changed but I can't move them to my liking because he's pinned someone.  Anyone know a way around this?  Does it have to do with who is the host, who is the co-host?  I'm usually one or the other.  The other day I was surprised that I could move the boxes, and the videographer afterwards said he had pinned the witness and didn't do anything different.  I'm hoping maybe a recent Zoom update had

enabled this.

[Bort]

Hi @LindsayP 

When the videographer pins someone's video, that should not affect your view of the meeting, as pinning only affects their personal view of the meeting. If the videographer is a host or co-host, it could be that they are not pinning, but rather spotlighting, which does affect everyone's view.

If they are spotlighting, there is nothing you can do, as spotlighting will move videos around, even if you are using a custom gallery order, but pinning videos on their end will have no affect on your video order. 

Check with them and see if they can stick with pinning videos on their end. 

[LindsayP]

Unfortunately, some of them do spotlight, for this reason (they depend on the Zoom cloud recording for their backup):  "If we only pin the witness (and not spotlight), the witness will not be isolated in the Zoom cloud recording (it will jump from speaker to speaker). If we could be 100% sure of our local MP4 recordings, we wouldn't need the cloud recording, but between Zoom updates that affect our ability to record in dual screens (causing freezes), internet drop-outs and the ever-present threat of power outages, we need the cloud recording (which operates independent of all of those -- in fact, we can lose power, or even lose our connection to the meeting, and cloud will keep recording)."

[Rupert]

Hi,

If you are the Host, and if no one is pinned, spotlighted, or has their hand raised, you can re-arrange your grid order by dragging and dropping - then set Follow Host's Video Order. This will set other participants grid order to the same as yours - but it does not guarantee row/column position because everyone's scale  could be different.

You can also use Immersive Grid View to set fixed positions for specific participants, on a plain background - if that is allowed on your account.

Hope this helps.

Rupert

[LindsayP]

I frequently am the host.  If I am not, and the videographer is the host, can I ask (before he spotlights) that he make me host for a minute, I arrange the video boxes to my liking in gallery view, and then if I make him the host again and he spotlights a participant, my gallery view will not change order?  And do I have to be host, or can I be co-host to do this?

[LindsayP]

P.S. I meant to include in my first reply if while I am host I arrange the boxes and then click on "follow host's video order."