Webex Camera view is too small

[RobertMalak5465]

Hello,

We've been struggling since the last Webex update to figure out how to make the image of our webcam video larger on the screen. It used to be able to go full screen and now is just a tiny postage stamp. We plug in a camera and have to show things on our whiteboards as well as around the room to our meeting attendees online. I can't even aim the camera correctly anymore because the on-screen video is now so tiny. Surely, there must be a way to increase the size so you can actually see what the camera is aimed at?

Thanks for any help!

[RobertMalak5465]

That's weird.  Not sure why it changed my message to say **bleep** when I didn't curse.  I purposely used a word that would imply anger but wasn't a curse word.

You keep referring to a scenario where each person is looking at their laptop camera and logged into Webex individually.  That's what all of society is doing nowadays but back before Covid-19, we had 20 people sitting in a meeting room along with 20 people on the phone in various locations.  That's why you need a camera to pan around the room, especially when one of them goes up to a whiteboard and starts pointing at or writing on it.  Corporate meeting environment.  They don't exist nowadays and I don't care anymore.

Anyhow, the point of this thread was to get the thumbnail size increased by Cisco back to the way it used to be.  It didn't work.  End of story and we all move on.

[Fritz_H]

@RobertMalak5465 
regarding your issue: I actually did understand your use-case; I just wanted to explain why I see it as non-standard.

And I suggested a simple work-around: join your own meeting to get a big view of your Camera-Image.
I know - this is just the 2nd best solution - but if it helps to improve the situation as a temporary work-around: why not?

kind regards
Fritz

[nsabato]

 I was thinking the same thing as Fritz.  It's a work-around that kind of 'tricks' Webex to do what you want.  But sadly, it didn't work. Whatever computer you use makes your self-view small.  Even just as a participant.  I didn't realize that.  So this work-around doesn't work, unless I'm missing something.

I'm a teacher, and we were told to use Webex.  Problem is, when I'm teaching, I need to be able to see myself the same size as my students, not in a teeny tiny window, as Webex seems to have designed their interface. (That interface is probably fine for standard work meetings, or teaching via a lecture, but it doesn't work for teaching little kids --- you need to be able to see yourself and see the things you're sharing with your students).

I saw that there are ways to make a floating box for your self-view, but this blocks some of the other participants. So that doesn't really work.  What I really need to be able to do is put myself in the grid along with my students. Otherwise, I can't see how I'd be able to use Webex effectively with my students.

I spent HOURS searching online to see if anyone else had this issue.  I finally stumbled on this thread and see that I'm not alone with my frustration with Webex.  We simply need to be able to put the self-view in the grid along with the rest of the participants.  NOT ROCKET SCIENCE, I'm sure!!

CISCO, I imagine it would be better for YOU if you FIXED this.  It's useless to have that tiny self-view.  It's not something anyone needs, as far as I can see. And I imagine people would easily choose Zoom or another app over Webex for that reason.  I imagine you would rather GAIN users than LOSE them?

[Jillian.Aboussafy]

I had just been speaking with a colleague about this. Anyone who is presenting, or sharing something with a client will also understand, being able to check in on your visual, that your framed well, will understand that you look at that image. Every other solution I use right now, Zoom, Teams, all have your image as one of the images, the same size. Which is very useful. 

Just wanted to call out that it isn't just the "non standard use case" Which I also do not believe is very non standard within small and midsized companies. This is such a odd thing to limit, even if they let us adjust the size of the pop out, then we would have some window arrangement options. 

Not sure if anyone from Webex/Cisco is still following, but add another to the list who would like to see this improved. 

Thanks!

[RobertMalak5465]

No 2nd-laptop.  No room at the table for another laptop and now, no meeting room or people at the table due to Covid quarantine.  But thank you for the suggestion.

[Paul Stojanovski]

When you say that you cannot make the video any larger, are you referring to the self-view of the Webex Meetings client? 

[RobertMalak5465]

Yes, I believe that's correct.  The self view.  When we plug our camera into my laptop, a little box shows up.  Today, we had a minor breakthrough.  Decided to try the Chrome web browser instead of Firefox and we were able to stretch the video to make it a little bigger!  It's still way to small, but now we can sort of see what it's pointed at.  It starts off full-screen but then as soon as the first person dials into the meeting, it gets small and can be enlarged slightly.

Would like to get it full screen and then pin that for all to see on the webex.  The pin your own video seems to have disappeared from this version of webex.  It wants to switch to whomever is talking which doesn't work for us because the people on the call are supposed to be talking about what they see on our camera.  The second they start to talk, they loose the ability to see our camera unless they pin it themselves.

[herhodes]

Hey there!

Thanks for using the community. I believe the experience you're having is actually as-designed.   Normally, customers wanting to share large areas of non-people only content use a few different approaches: 

1. they have a Webex video device, like room kit mini that makes it easy to control the view you're sharing, much better than a desktop camera.  You can then take control of the view for attendees

2. They use the in-meeting whiteboard so that the white-boarding is democratized, and people joining from mobile or web can see it clearly, pinch and zoom to areas that interest them and even contribute.  The advantage too is the whiteboard lives on and can be edited later.  (vs. wiped off a board)

That said, I have passed on your feedback to our PM team who are reading your comments, and seeing if there are UX changes / enhancements that may work.  Thanks for taking the time to feedback. 

[kennethlibeson]

Has there been any changes or updates to this? We have had a lot of our staff complain that they can't expand the size of the self view. They all work from home on a laptop and two 27" screens. They see the remote ends full screen and it's way too small in the self view to see how they look to the far end. As a result, many of them are choosing to not share their camera at all. Their concern is they will forget their camera is on and do something they don't want to intentionally share over video. It's just too small on higher resolution displays and doesn't serve the intended value. Giving them the option to resize as needed seems like an obvious value add. Restricting the ability seems like you are forcing us to use it in a way that doesn't work for us.

[RobertMalak5465]

No Changes, other than Cisco suggesting you buy their hardware/camera setup.

Webex is not a priority for Cisco.  If it were, Zoom, GoToMeeting, BlueJeans and Microsoft Teams probably wouldn't be doing so well...

[kennethlibeson]

We already own their hardware in a number of our conference rooms. I'm not sure they offer any specific hardware that would integrate with a single user laptop environment.

[WeiKwongOng5555]

Hi, is there any changes / enhancement done so far, especially for the self-view video? my customer is satisfy with Webex Meeting experience using the Webex app in the laptop, except the size of the self-view video is too small for them.

Question: the size of the self-view video in the Webex Meeting is not adjustable? We cannot enlarge the self-view video?

[RobertMalak5465]

herhodes,

Thanks for your reply and suggestions.

1.  We looked at fancier web cams but unless you're referring to something I don't know about, they were all cost prohibitive for a small company like ours.

2.  Our room is covered in static white boards with information that we share during our webex meetings.  These white boards are meant to display information for anyone who walks into the room any time of day/night so they can have a good idea of what is going on.  This would not be possible with an electronic whiteboard.

All Cisco has to do is revert the functionality back to the way it was prior to the last update....

[NathanHale31502]

We are having the same issue.  If there is a fix, that would be awesome.  We have had to move on to another service.

[RobertMalak5465]

Hello Cisco,

Do you even care?  Since I posted this months ago, we haven't received any feedback or suggestions from you.  In my last post, I thought Chrome was showing a larger view.  I was wrong as it will shrink once another caller joins the call.  How you think having a postage stamp size video of yourself showing on screen is the least bit useful is beyond me.  We can't aim our camera correctly at the whiteboards we're trying to share because we can't see it!!

Should we move to Zoom or GotoMeeting since Cisco has apparently stopped supporting Webex?

[mtabrez]

Hi,

"The correct team of experts to help you are available by raising a case at support.webex.com. That said, once your issue is resolved, we'd love to hear if there was a fix that would work for our extended community. Come on back and let us know how you resolved this. thanks for being an active member of our Webex Community. "

Regards