How to change the live session or stream settings

Once you have created a live session, you can at any time access the live session settings in order to make any necessary changes to the live session characteristics.

The options present in the settings will vary depending on the live session type (in person, hybrid, virtual) and its status (scheduled, preview, live, past, or published), and in some cases the stream provider (SpotMe Studio, RTMPS, Embed).

Remember that once a live session is created, you cannot change the type of the live session (in-person, virtual, hybrid) or the stream provider (SpotMe Studio, RTMPS, Embed).

In this article we'll take you through the available options that can be used in the settings for before and during the live session, as well as after the live session has taken place (for the video on-demand, or replay or the live session).

Settings for live sessions that have not yet taken place or ended

For live sessions that have not yet taken place (have the status scheduled, preview, or live), you can access the settings via the Settings cogwheel button in the top left of the screen:

Here you will find the following tabs of options:

In the General tab, you can:

• Change the live session name and start time.
• Copy the moderator or speaker permalink (for Studio and RTMPS streams).

In the Video tab, you can:

• Enable live interpretation if needed (and add the Interprefy project ID).
• Choose whether or not to show the full list of viewers (attendees) in the app.
• Choose to enable or not the full screen button for attendees.
• If needed, limit the attendee's video resolution in order to better manage potential bandwidth constraints. For RTMPS live sessions, the bandwidth options also include a 1920x1080, in addition to those visible below.
  Please note that this is only supported on the web app, not on mobile apps.

In the Interactivity tab, you can enable or disable the interactivity options for the live session: Q&A, Polls, Claps, as explained in the Creating and configuring live sessions article, and configure your word cloud poll colors.

In the Design tab (available for SpotMe Studio streams only) you can add a background image for your Studio live stream, as explained in How to add a custom background to your stream article:

In the Live displays tab, for in-person and hybrid sessions, you can add live display(s) to show polls, Q&As, and the live stream on large screen(s) at the event venue or at remote hub(s). More information in the How to use live displays article.

 

In the Captions tab, you can fully configure the captions/subtitles for your live streams, as explained in the How do closed captions work article.

 

Settings for live sessions that have ended (VOD live sessions)

Attendees can have the option of seeing a replay of the live session, in case they missed it or would like to refer to it once it is over.

To make the live session replay available, in Studio you will have the option to PUBLISH the replay of your live session once it has ended: 

When you click on the PUBLISH button, the VOD (Video On demand) settings for the replay of the live session are displayed and can be edited based on your needs:

These VOD settings replace the settings that were previously available before the live session had ended, and that are no longer applicable. They can be accessed at any time via the cogwheel settings button in the top left on Studio for streams that have a status Past or Published.

Here you can adjust the name of the live session replay, the interactivity options that will be visible or accessible to attendees, and the video resolution of the video for the on demand replay:

VOD name: This is the name of the live session replay.

VOD Interactivity

Q&A: Here you can choose whether or not in the replay the attendees will be able to see the Q&A tab in the side panel as well as the questions that were pushed to screen during the live. If enabled, you can also choose:
- whether or not to show the Q&A upvoting (attendee votes) in the replay for the Q&A questions. 
- whether or not attendees can have the ability to post Q&A questions when watching the replay, in order for these questions to be collected and addressed by the event team (by default this is not enabled).

Polls: Here you can choose whether or not to show the poll questions that were pushed to screen during the live session, as well as the poll results. Attendees can only view and will not be able to participate in polls.

Claps: With this option you can choose to enable two things: the ability for your attendees to see the claps that were made by the audience during the live session AND the ability for your audience to clap when watching the live session replay. Claps that are made while watching the live session replay are counted as VOD claps.

Full screen: Here you can choose whether or not to add and enable the full screen button on the live session replay.

To better see how enabling or disabling these options in the VOD settings will affect the experience of your attendees who are watching the replay, below you can see:

• a live session replay where all the options are enable, and compare it to
• a live session replay where all the options are disabled.

Replay if the VOD settings are all enabled (Q&A with upvoting, Polls, Claps and full screen video controls):

Replay if the VOD settings are all disabled:

VOD Skip intro until (mm:ss.sss):

Use this option to remove any introduction or pre-roll content that you had at the start of your live session, and that you do not want to include in the replay.

For example, if your live session recording has 2 minutes and 30 seconds of pre-roll (loop) video at the start, and that you wish to remove it from the replay, you can enter 02:30.00 in this field.

Doing so will cut out the first 2 minutes and 30 seconds of the live session recording, which will not be included in the published on demand video.

If needed, you can modify the skip intro until value in the setting after publishing the replay, should you need to adjust the starting moment.

Note: Currently, replay videos that have the beginning removed using the skip intro until field and that are featured in a content hub, will not have the beginning removed when viewed by attendees in the content hub. This is currently only applied to on-demand videos seen in the web app and mobile app, and not on mobile apps.

VOD Bitrate restriction

If attendees are in an enterprise environment with limited bandwidth, you can limit the participants resolution to avoid potential issues related to bandwidth constraints:
 

By default the viewers will be able to click on the cogwheel icon and choose the resolution for the video using the following options:

If you choose to limit the resolution to 768x432 px in the VOD settings, then in the live session replay, the maximum resolution that attendees can select for the video will be 768x432 px:

Note: On mobile app, the bitrate restriction is supported as follows: If you choose to limit the resolution to 768x432 px in the VOD settings, the maximum resolution of the VOD when played on the mobile app will be 768x432, and the viewers will not be able to select the video resolution in the player.

VOD closed captions

The closed captions item in the VOD settings can be used to upload VTT format closed caption files to your on demand video. More information

VOD transcript and caption files

Available starting June 3, 2026.

Backstage users with the “Manager” role in the workspace can download transcripts and/or caption files for the live session recording.

This will provide users with a searchable written record of what was said during the session, that can be easily analyzed.

As soon as the live session is over (either when publishing the video or once it is published), a captions and/or transcript file of the recording can be generated via the Transcript section of the VOD settings:

Important:
- If you wish to download a full recording of the live session, without any matching transcript and/or caption files, you can always download it via the live session in Studio. Find out more
- If you wish to download a recording of the live session as well as the matching transcript and/or caption files, you can do this via the VOD settings section described here. Please note that if the live session recording exceeds 4 hours in length, the recording and the matching transcript/captions files will always be chapterized into multiple files.

Tips: 
- To help create accurate captions and transcripts, you can associate glossaries with live sessions. A glossary is a set of rules that guides transcription, using lists of terms. It helps the system recognize, replace, or block specific terms during a call. Find out how to create glossaries
- Recordings and transcripts for video breakouts and live sessions can also be retrieved via API. Find out more

Here, in the VOD settings the user can select the Language used during the session, and then click on Generate transcripts & captions to proceed.

Once the files are generated, the user can:

• Download the file as a .TXT format transcript, with speaker labels (that includes Speaker 0, Speaker 1, Speaker 2 etc.), OR
• Download the file as a .VTT format captions file, without the speaker labels.

Captions and transcripts can only be generated by Backstage users with the “Manager” role in the workspace.

Remember that live session recordings that exceed 4 hours in length will automatically be broken into multiple chapters that will each have a duration of up to 2 hours, and are named as numbered chapters so that users can clearly see the sequence of the files. For example:

The above chapterization is performed for the sole purpose of having matching recording chapters and transcripts when the session exceeds 4h in duration. If you wish to download a full recording of the live session, without any matching transcript and/or caption files, you can always download it via the live session in Studio. Find out more

If the recording is split into multiple chapter files, users can download the recording files by clicking on Download recording. The name of the recording file will always contain the name of the live session as well as the date and time. The same applies to the transcript files. Once a captions or transcript file is generated for a recording, the user can download each file.

Notes:
- Captions and transcript files only need to be generated once in Backstage, and are then always available to be downloaded, either as a .TXT format transcripts, with speaker labels or as a .VTT format captions file, without the speaker labels.
- Captions and transcript include everything that was said during the video breakout as text, with precise timestamps. Users can use the files to perform searches for key words and gather insights on what was said during the meeting.
- The transcript with speaker labels does not indicate speaker names, but does differentiate what was said by each speaker by adding speaker labels (Speaker 0, Speaker 1, Speaker 2 etc.). To identify who said a specific word, the user can check the transcript and the video to see who is the speaker. 

Important: The transcript files are generated automatically, we therefore recommend that you always review and verify the content before using or sharing it. Remember that using glossaries can help to improve transcript accuracy.