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Participant
February 4, 2013
Question

Capacity question for participant live video

  • February 4, 2013
  • 1 reply
  • 475 views

The marketing for Adobe Connect shows 15 people online with video at the same time. However, an administrator at my institution says that having more than 5 or 6 people can become problematic. What are your experiences with capacity, clarity of voice, noise in background, etc.? How many people can I expect to have live at the same time on video?

thanks

lisaanne100

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1 reply

Jorma_at_Knox
Legend
February 5, 2013

It all comes down to bandwidth. Since there is no limit on how many individuals can be sharing their camera and audio, you should be able to share as many as the internet connection can handle. However, there is a line between possible and reasonable.

You should be able to accommodate more concurrent live videos than concurrent live audio streams.

When breaking the 5-6 number for live video, I'd switch down to the lowest quality video, so that I have a better chance of getting the clean videos delivered to everyone. Consider whether or not everyone needs to be on a live video stream. Do you need to see people sitting there drinking water, picking their nose, or looking bored? Usually only the individuals that are actively speaking justify a live video.

Audio through VoIP is like audio through radios. There is a single audio stream and everyone's audio gets compressed into that single stream. So if you have more than 3-5 individuals talking, it will just sound like noise with no easy way to distinguish one person from another. If the group is well behaved you can get more people to have hot mics at once, but only one or two people should be talking at any given time. Additionally, multiple hot mics will increase the likelihood of an echo or a feedback loop. Like the video, only the individuals who are speaking should have their mic on and broadcasting. This is why the raise hand feature is in Connect, so other individuals can indicate that they have something to say, and the host can give them the ability to do so at the appropriate time.