Webcam Pagination and Active Talker

BigBlueButton adjusts the number of webcams visible to viewers and moderators based on the size of session.

Pagination of Webcams

To display webcams within the boundaries of server resources, viewers will see (up to) 5 webcams at a time, with the ability to page through available webcam streams.

Instructors will see up to 25 webcams with the ability to paginate as well.

If there are more webcams streams available above these thresholds, then BigBlueButton client will show left/right arrows to let the user paginate between the available webcams.

For example, in a session with 8 users all sharing webcams, viewers would see five (5) webcams at a time (see screen shot below).

However, the instructor in this session sees all 8 webcams. 

(The user can also adjust the layout to change the size of webcams relative to the presentation -- here in the screenshot below we made the webcams a bit larger than the presentation.)  

Dynamic Adjustment of Viewable Webcams

To keep the number of webcams streams manageable for larger sessions, the number of webcams visible to moderators and viewers will dynamically adjust downward as the session size increases. 

The following table gives you the number of webcams shown to Moderators (teachers) and Viewers (students) based on size of session.

For example, in a session between 40 to 49 users, the moderators will see (up to) 16 webcams at a time, and the viewers will see (up to) 3 webcams at a time.

Active Talker

To ensure each user sees who is talking, when pagination is active, the first page will display the webcams in order of active talker. 

For example, if a viewer is seeing the first five webcams, they will see the five most recent active talkers, with the most recent active talker always taking the left most webcam placement.