Spotlight and pin: Participants don't see what host does when using audio mixer

[ChattyKathy]

We recently hosted a large hybrid event: live in an auditorium with mics and a PA system and 80 people connected via Zoom. To eliminate echo and feedback, we used an audio mixer with presenter mic output going to the in-room PA system and also to the mic input on the host laptop to route to Zoom participants. In the reverse direction, we had headphone output from the host laptop routing Zoom participant speech to the audio mixer and out to the in-room PA system. The audio all worked perfectly. The problem was that because in-room audio was routed through the host laptop, Zoom considered the host laptop the active speaker anytime mics from the auditorium were active and Zoom featured the video of the person operating the laptop at all times except when another Zoom participant spoke. We thought this might happen and tried to prevent it by spotlighting and pinning video from 2 cameras turned on the in-room presenters. The spotlights and pins worked on the host laptop's display, which was projected to an in-room screen, but the spotlights and pins did not appear on Zoom participants' remote displays. This also produced a recording that showed mostly the face of the person operating the host laptop (certainly not what we wanted). Can anyone tell me how to configure settings in Zoom so that we can get it right the next time? With audio routed through a host laptop, how do you successfully spotlight or pin presenters on cameras that have joined the Zoom session so that Zoom participants see those video streams highlighted?  Also, how should we configure recording settings to ensure we have silent video from in-room cameras (the spotlighted/pinned ones) captured as well as video of active speakers? I hope I have explained this well enough to get some good advice! Thank you!

[bstrelko · Accepted solution]

Yes, thank you for the thorough explanation!

First off, dismiss the notion of 'pinning' for other participants. Pinning is local-machine-only, so Spotlighting (for everyone) will be the helpful function here - Spotlighting and Pinning will yield VERY different results. Spotlight only who needs to show up onscreen for other participants (and get recorded) at any given time AND ideally turn video off for any participants/endpoints that you'll never need to see on the air.

If you are running a Zoom Webinar, you'll also want to force 'Follow Host's View' or any other view that reflects the Spotlighting choices for all attendees.

Running some tests in advance will be your best friend when ensuring everything looks/sounds the way you need it to!

[ChattyKathy]

Thank you for your helpful reply. The tip to skip 'pinning' in this scenario is a major one, as is your tip to run tests in advance. We now realize how important that is. I don't understand, however, why the 'spotlighting for everyone'  didn't work. It spotlighted the desired video stream on the host laptop, but not on the displays of the Zoom audience. The spotlighted camera video was also NOT captured by the cloud recording. Could there have been something in our meeting settings that overrode the spotlight? The active speaker view seemed to override gallery view, shared screen, and spotlighting no matter what we tried to change with the display during the meeting. Would it be advisable to choose recording settings for separate recordings of active speaker, gallery view, and shared screen? (We also did not capture shared screen in our recording of this hybrid event.) We were not using Zoom Webinar. Thank you again!

[bstrelko]

Apologies, I wrongfully assumed that you were already doing this - YES, always check the option for separate recording of active speaker, gallery view, and shared screen.

[ChattyKathy]

Thank you! I still don't understand why spotlighting wasn't working as expected during the Zoom session, but knowing the right recording settings is a major part of the solution. Many thanks for clarifying this for me.

[bstrelko]

Someone here can correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC, the Gallery View recording is where spotlighting gets captured. Making sure to capture all views ensures the best chance that you won't miss anything if Zoom changes something on the back-end and doesn't communicate it to users, which is (unfortunately) frequently the case.

[ChattyKathy]

Thank you, bstrelko! That's a helpful tip!

[SZ_Tech]

I had the misfortune to not have checked the gallery view and apparently have lost our simultaneous ASL translators, who were in separate spotlights.  I only see the speaker view recording in my recordings tab.  Is there any way to retrieve the gallery view from a cloud recording?   Where do I find the choice to select the view before the meeting?