Hosting a third party Youtube for a Webex Event

[scelop]

I have started using webex events to host youtube lectures for faculty and graduate students that normally attend in person lectures in a weekly seminar series. Due to covid-19, we have substituted inviting speakers to present at the seminars, to finding youtube videos that are watched synchronously (by me sharing a screen with the video in full screen mode) by the attendees at an event. When the youtube (lecture) is over, attendees can ask questions and otherwise interact in a similar way to a physical seminar meeting. The problem is i can't find a way to host the youtube video if i mute the microphone on my computer...when i do that, the audio of the video cannot be heard by any of the attendees. The reason i want to mute my microphone is so that noise from my office does not become background noise to the youtube audio. Webex tech suggested i just 'share multimedia' instead which puts the video into a little thumbnail on each attendees client...which is not suitable.

So basically, my question is, is there a way to share the video and the audio of the youtube video in an event while having my microphone muted? Seems like this should be an easy thing to do.

[SiliconRichard · Accepted solution]

A user was having a similar issue and told me they took these steps in Webex Training (very similar to Events):

Download the MP4 to your Local Device. There are tools available and they should be researched before utilizing.

Then in the Event you should be able to select FILE then "Open and Share" this MP4 file. I would suggest having users turn down their volume as it will play directly on their device as if they were watching it on their system.

[scelop]

Thanks...I am going to test it today to see what the functionality is like.

[scelop]

i just completed a small scale test and this work around is perfect. The only downside that i see is that i have to download the original video...which could be onerous for large videos...but for now it is the only workaround i have so thanks very much for the idea. I will give it a shot a my next event hosting about 50 people.