How to play pre-recorded videos during your live sessions

Whether your participants are attending your virtual or hybrid event remotely or in-person, you can play full HD videos to your audience during your live sessions that use Studio or RTMPS streams.

This can be used to:

Play recordings during a live session at the time of your choosing to drive discussions and switch between live and simulive, for example a recording from a speaker that was not able to come and speak live. Read the 6 steps below on how to play pre-recorded videos in your live session, and don't forget to take a look at our notes on switching between simulive and live.
Play pre, mid, or post roll videos, before bringing your speakers or any other content to the stage, during the session as a break, or at the end of your live session session. This is a great space to promote your event or sponsors. See our recommendations on this
Run a fully simulive session, made-up entirely of one or more pre-recorded videos, with an onstage or offstage host or moderator starting the live session and playing the video(s). See our recommendations on this.

All of this can be achieved by directly uploading or importing videos from the workspace's Video library, in order to play them to your audience as part of your live session.

For the remote attendee's experience, as part of a virtual or hybrid session, the video will be played via the live session's stream, using Studio or RTMPS as the provider, and therefore will be seen in the app.

For the in-person experience, as part of a hybrid session and attending either at the venue itself or from a remote hub with a group of attendees, the video can be played via a live display associated with the live session, and therefore not seen in the app.

For the in-person and remote attendees, as described above, the videos are played via the live session stream or the live display. Therefore the inherent delay of up to 30 seconds will apply to the video being played to both types of attendees.

In this article, we will take you through how to import and play your videos during a live session:

1 - Optional - upload your videos into the Video library
2 - Import or upload the videos into your live session in Studio
3 - Reordering and previewing the videos
4 - Open the room and prepare the videos to be played
5 - Playing the video
6 - Ending the video and restoring the stage

Before continuing, you may also wish to refer to the:

Video format and resolution requirements
Hardware recommendations
Internet connection recommendations

1 - Optional - Upload your videos to the Video library

In order to play videos to your audience during your live session, you first need to import them into the workspace, via the Video library.

To access the video library, in the workspace main menu go to Content > Video library.

To upload video files in the video library, they will need to be in MP4 format and can be up to 4 GB in size. The recommended resolution should be 1080px. More information on the video requirements.

Once your videos are uploaded to the video library, you can import them into your live session.

2 - Import or upload the videos into your live session in Studio

If you have uploaded the video files that you wish to play to the Video library, you can now go to your live session and import them there so they are ready to be played live to your audience.

If not, not to worry, you can also upload them directly via the videos section in the live session.

Go to Interactivity > Live sessions, and open the live session where you want to play your videos.
You can already import or upload your videos prior to opening the room in Studio. Click on the Video button to the left of the preview screen, to open the Videos section:
Click on Add videos, where you can search for videos using the search bar.
Below we will select the four videos that were uploaded previously to the workspace's Video library, and click on Add videos:

Coming April 11, 2023: If you have not previously uploaded the videos to the video library, you can use the Upload button to directly upload the video files from here. The uploaded files will also be added to the video library.
The videos are imported into the Videos section of the live session:

3 - Reordering and previewing the videos

At this point, you have a list of videos that can be reordered as you please.

To do so, click on Edit list and rearrange the videos into the playing order by dragging and dropping them, and click on Save list once you are done:

While the live session room is still not open, you can also preview the videos by hovering the cursor over a video in the list and clicking on the Preview video button:

The video will play in preview mode:

To note, the host of moderator of a session can also delete videos by clicking on Edit videos and then hovering the cursor over the video top display the trashcan button. A speaker however cannot add or delete videos:

4 - Open the room

When you are ready to prepare the stage for the live session, you can open the room in Studio. Remember that by default the room will stay open for 1 hour, and the stream will automatically be reset if you do not go live within that time.

Remember that after opening the room it can take up to 2 minutes for the room to be ready. After that, all the videos will be ready to be played on stage. If you hover the cursor over each video, you will see that a green Play now button will appear:

When the room is open and ready, you can still click on the Add videos button to upload more videos from the Video library, reorder the videos in the list if needed, preview the videos, or delete videos using the trashcan icon.

5 - Playing the video

Once the videos are ready, you can click on the green Play live button to start playing the video.

This can be done before you go live in Studio (during the preview which by default will stay open for 1 hour before the stream is automatically reset), so that when you actually go live, the video will already be playing, or once you are already live and broadcasting, depending on your needs:

When you hit Play video, the video starts playing. The speakers and the host can hear themselves in the studio, but the audience cannot hear or see the speakers or any shared content - they can only see/hear the played video.

While the video is playing, hosts or moderators can still make changes to the stage by adding/removing speakers or screen shared content. These changes will only be visible to the audience once the playing video is removed from stage.

In the Studio, the host and speakers in the room can see the video playing in the preview, and can also see a countdown showing how long until the video will end. This allows them to know and prepare to be seen by the audience again when the video ends. They can also adjust their own video audio - this will not affect the audio for the attendees.

6 - Ending the video and restoring the stage

Once the video has played and fully ended (without being removed by the host or moderator), it will automatically be removed from the stage. The shared content and speakers that were hidden while the video was playing will now become visible to the audience automatically.

The host can also end the video at any time by clicking on the Remove from stage button in the Video playing now section.

Doing this will show a prompt message to the host in Studio, asking them to confirm whether the video should be removed from the live. The video will continue to play to the audience (if live) until the host or moderator confirms or cancels the video removal:

At this point, the host or moderator has two options to choose from:

Enabling the "Restore the stage..." and clicking on Remove will remove the video and bring back the stage, including any previously present speakers and shared content (including lower thirds).
Disabling the "Restore the stage..." toggle here and clicking on Remove will display an empty stage with just the background image. The host or moderator will need to add any speakers or shared content manually to the stage, as well as any lower thirds.

Once the video is removed from the stage, it will be moved to the end of the Videos list.

Things to remember when switching between simulive and live content

You can choose to play pre-recorded videos at the time of your choosing, between presentations or topics, in order to share content with your attendees and drive discussions.

To do this, follow the above 1 to 6 steps, and keep in mind the below tips and recommendations:

Remember that the pre-recorded video is played via the stream, and therefore has the same 30-second delay as a stream.
Remember that you can order the videos in the studio in the sequence that you wish to play them during the live session. Once a video is played it is automatically moved to the bottom of the list
Remember that when you hit Play video, the video starts playing. The speakers and the host can hear themselves in the studio, but the audience cannot hear or see the speakers or any shared content - they can only see/hear the played video.

Recommendations on using pre-recorded videos for pre-roll and post-roll

Pre-roll and post roll videos are played while a session is not live.

For pre-roll, this tends to be during the short period when the audience has joined the session and is waiting for the live to start, and creates a great opportunity for you to promote your sponsors, your event, a product, or any type of content, or to simply keep your audience entertained by creating a build-up to the go live.

Currently, loop videos are not supported in SpotMe Studio. We therefore recommend that you use a single pre-recorded video containing the pre-roll loop, and that is longer in duration than the intended use for the pre-roll.

Example:
Let's imagine that you wish to run a pre-roll video for 10 minutes before you go live with your session content. To ensure that your pre-roll video can accommodate any slight/last minute changes in schedule (i.e. if you need to run it for 12 minutes instead of 10 minutes to accommodate for a delay), we recommend that you upload a video with a 15 or 20 minute duration.

By doing so, you know that you have a 5 to 10 minute buffer should any delays occur with going live, before the video ends automatically.
When necessary, the host or moderator can stop the pre-roll video, and start to go live with the session content:

If you intend to have the host and speakers, as well as any shared content on stage directly after the pre-roll, simply make sure that your speakers and content are live on the stage before the overlaying pre-roll video ends. Speakers will see a 10 second count down as soon as the pre-roll video is about to end so that they can prepare to be live, and the host can also give speakers a heads-up that they are about to go live via the speaker chat (if using SpotMe studio as the streaming provider, this is not supported with RTMPS streaming).

Recommendations for running a fully simulive session

By a "fully simulive session" we are referring to a live session that will only be made up of pre-recorded video content that will be played to your audience.

You may wish to create a single standalone video to play to your audience that is self-sufficient, and will not require that a host or speaker introduce it live on the stage. The only action that will be needed from the host is to start the live session and to play the video live.

Running a fully simulive session can be done by merging multiple shorter videos together into one single file, and adding transitions into the video:

Upload the video to the video library, and import and prepared the video in the live session.
Go live with the live session.
Play the video live. The attendees will simply see the video play. Remember that there is a 30-second delay that is inherent to streaming.
At the end of the video a countdown timer will appear in the video preview indicating that the video is almost done. When it’s done, simply end the stream. No other action is needed.

Alternatively, you may wish to play multiple recorded videos back to back, by importing them and playing them in the list in the order that they will be played.

Note: Please remember that the video size limit is 4 GB. You may also wish to add a branded background image to your live session, to ensure that you avoid having any "black screen" moments for your audience. This background image can also be branded and show a message saying "The live session will be starting soon".

Technical notes on using the Videos section

Playing pre-recorded videos is supported on SpotMe Studio and RTMPS streaming, not on third party (Embed) streams.
Videos must be uploaded into the workspace’s Video library in order to import them into the live session to be played.
Videos can be imported before opening the room in Studio.
Remember that the pre-recorded video is played via the stream, and therefore has the same 30-second delay as a stream. For a hybrid event, if you are displaying the pre-recorded videos on a live display for in-person attendees (at a remote hub or at the venue), the same streaming delay will apply, and both audiences will see the video simultaneously.

Video size, format and resolution recommendations

Video size limit is 4 GB, as they are imported from the Video library.
Recommended resolution is 1280x720p, or 1920×1080p (for highest quality).
Only use MP4 files. Other formats are not supported.
Do not use files where you have manually changed the extension of non MP4 format files to MP4, as they will not be supported.
Do not use videos that were rotated using basic tools (such as Preview on Mac), as this will prevent the video from working properly when playing it in the live session.

Hardware recommendations

Have a professional computer configuration, at minimum for PC (or equivalent for Mac):

Intel Core i7-9700+.
16GB+ DDR4.
Non-integrated graphic cards (2GB+ dedicated graphics memory).
256GB+ SSD hard drive.
2 monitors.

Internet connection recommendations

Wired Internet, with a bandwidth of at least 10 Mbps up and down.
4/5G connection (through mobile device is acceptable) as a back-up plan if the wired connection is not working.

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