Teams Live Events: Adding shared screen content to queue not possible?

Brass Contributor

Hi all,

 

I'm currently testing the Live Events in team and it seems that screen content that is shared by presenters cannot be added to the queue by the producer. 

 

Instead once a shared screen is live and another presenter starts sharing his screen this immediately replaces the active screen sharing content from the current presenter. The producer has no option to intervene or control what screen sharing content is sent live to the attendees. 

 

Is this a known issue or might this be a bug? I would normally assume that the producer is the one who decides what content is sent out live!

 

Thanks
Michael

23 Replies

@layer9de 

Same issue here. Looks like it is not a feature (yet). A working work-around is to use a 2nd device as Camera input (via HDMI to USB3 converter) and so have more than one Video Source combined into one.
Here you can use any Calling solution from Skype - to Teams or 3rd parties.

Overall it would be a real great feature to have multi Speakers combined in Events.

thx
Thomas 

I have exactly the same question. 

Hi @Thomas_Laggner ,

thanks. Do you mean you're outputting the content from your desktop via HDMI and then connect the HDMI to an USB camera device and use that as source? So that the content from the desktop is also available from a camera source in Teams? I guess this can be done with some tech savvy users but for most of them this would not be an option to be hones.

 

By the way I am also missing the option to mute the audio from Producers and Moderators for all attendees so that presenters can talk to each other without having the audience listen!

 

Thanks
Michael

You can use OBS and download Virtual Cam and have a scene in OBS for camera. And one for Desktop. And you switch scenes and what OBS shows goes to your teams camera.

But as you say does take some steps. I have a couple webinars where I’ve done this to an extent if you want to see them I can link but it’s def. not something the masses will easily figure out. But if it’s a small set of users that need to do it might not be that bad.

@Chris Webb 

Thanks. I found the software "ManyCam" that allows to capture anything and output it in a virtual webcam. Using the virtual webcam as source for the producer we can achieve that the producer can replace the live stream with the source from the webcam when necessary.

 

Otherwise we have the problem that even though a presenter stops sharing his desktop or app the contents of this webcam are still being transmitted into the livestream. The producer has no option to replace the video stream from the presenter other than with another video stream - which usually is his own webcam or the video source from another presenter. But it is better if the producer can replace the live stream with a placeholder that he wants to (if the producer only shares her own screen, the video source of the presenter from before is still being transmitted and not replaced).

 

Microsoft should add such an ability natively to Live Events.

 

Thanks
Michael

Yeah that’s essentially the same thing as OBS method I was talking about.

@Chris Webb 

 

Ahh thanks, somehow missed that and even that OBS is free of charge. Actually with that solution in place Live Events in teams are much more managable.

 

We by the way also noticed today that if there are multiple producers within the Event, the view for the queue is individual for each of them.

 

It would be much much better if all producers saw the same view to easily find out was has been put into the queue by a different producer.

 

But I guess time will improve Live Events as well!

@layer9de  Same problem, tried on several machines in same and different tenants...

 

Alos, if there are 2 producers, they can not see same "picture" but rather have 2 completely sperate views.

 

 

@layer9de 
That is one way to go.
At work I use 2-3 accounts and laptops to manage and monitor the calls
- Machine1  is doing the producer function + sending music from a phone (using audio interface) 

- Machine2 is there to share a deck of slides if needed or for the loop during the pre-meeting time (15 minutes before real start). Loops contains info on Attendee interface (audio/Q&A...) + meeting infos

I use it also to check that audio is good after it has been broadcasted

- Machine3 (can be a mobile or tablet) is connected to the attendee side to monitor the final broadcast.
I realise this is a lot of accounts and machines but this allows for full audio and broadcast monitoring :)

 

This requires at least 2 accounts.

 

Now this is not ideal and MS should improve on this as giving the possibility to share with no preview control and take over with zero notice is not the way AV works.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Why has this issue not been addressed? This is a glaring issue. Producers have no control of shared content. A Presenter can just crash the live presentation, unknowingly. 

@Loren We noticed the same problem today while doing a test run for a webinar tomorrow! Last week, we held a Teams Live Event where we had three presenters plus myself as a producer, and the presenters were all able to share presentations into the share tray at the bottom of the screen, where I could pick them and insert them into the live event queue.

 

Today, however, the only option the presenters had was to share their screen - like in a regular Teams meeting - which overrides any content that the producer has set up. Something has obviously changed within the past six days, since last Tuesday everything worked fine. If anyone has any idea what has happened, please let me know! Our next event is coming up in 24 hours and now it turns out that we apparently can't run it like the previous ones.

That is how it’s always worked. You must not have had the event live or done it simultaneously during testing cause you have only ever been able to share one content at a time.

Same issue for me? Have you discovered a resolution without adding other software?

@Chris Webb No, we were definitely live and have the participants and recording to prove it. We tested this out in multiple test runs for three days before the first event and every time, when presenters shared their materials they showed up in my share tray, where I was able to queue them up for the stream e.g. while the previous person was talking. Then, on Monday, presenters only had the option to share directly into the stream, overriding what I had put into the queue.

So, has anyone figured this out?.. I need to run a live meeting, and had the same experience, the queue does not work anymore..  It did use to work, a few months ago, when we ran our first Live event. 

@Bruce Reid Its working just the same here as it always has.

 

If I share my screen into a Live Event it appears as an option at the bottom of the screen that I can add to the preview, either full screen or in the larger of the two areas when combining a video in the smaller section.

 

If someone else starts sharing their screen it will just replace mine, there is no ability to have a second screen share queued, there is only ever one screen share at at a time.

 

It has always been like this.

I am having the same issue - as a producer I used to have the capability to flawlessly go from one source of content to the next but queueing it up in the left hand preview screen. it seems that I can no longer do that. Only stop sharing, just to start up and share again.  

@Jseverance - 

So, my workaround was, I(producer) was master of the presentation, I displayed the presentation, I had 9 presenters live, and swapped their video feed into the queue as needed and sent that live.  It worked for video feeds, but not content sharing. The video feed would change, but not the content, until I advanced it ..

 

Bruce

@Loren  have you found a solution to this problem or have you spoken to anyone at Microsoft? This is a glaring problem and takes all control away from the producer.