We built TwentyThree Webinars with ease of production in mind, so that you are able to create engaging and interesting webinars, right from your browser. We’ve created the tools that allow you to upgrade your webinars from a live streamed slide show, to a TV-like production. The host is the person in the webinar room that is in charge of producing the webinar and is in full control of what is being shown on screen at each time. By mixing the different production options together you can create a lively webinar that keeps your audience engaged and interested throughout the webinar.

When you enter the webinar room as a host, you will see the switcher at the bottom. The switcher will show previews of all your available feeds from your speakers webcams and shared screen, as well as the mixing options for Mixed and Panel views. The speakers will also see the other speaker video feeds, but the audience will not see the previews in the switcher.

The essentials of producing a webinar

To switch between the different streams that are available, you click on the preview of the stream that you want to show on screen. A green halo will appear around the selected feed, so you can easily at a glance see the active stream.

You can seamlessly switch between speakers or their screen sharing or the mixing options by clicking around on the switcher. On the large video feed you see what is being streamed out to the audience currently.

Sharing your screen and slides

In your webinar you or other speakers might want to share their screen or a slide show. When you share your screen, the shared screen will appear in the switcher as a small square next to your main webcam feed. For detailed information on sharing your screen and slides, check out our article dedicated to this topic.

Mixed mode

If you want to show a speaker and their screen sharing at the same time in a webinar, you can use Mixed mode. Mixed mode is a layout option where the host or speaker can broadcast their webcam and screen at the same time, next to each other. This option is often meant to be used as a transition between or in combination with webcam and screen sharing, rather than being the layout option used throughout the entire webinar. When the host or one of the speakers have both their webcam and screen sharing turned on, a new tile will appear below the screen sharing preview tile. Clicking this tile will broadcast the webcam and shared screen together to the rest of the room and the audience. Note that only the same speakers webcam and screen can be shared in this mode, as you cannot mix sources between speakers.

In case that either the webcam or screen sharing streams get disconnected while being broadcasted in Mixed mode, the disconnected stream will be blank in its respective spot. You will then easily be able to switch to the still connected feed by clicking on it in the switcher. The same will happen when a speaker manually turns off their screen sharing or webcam while broadcasting in this mode.

For screen sharing in Mixed mode, you should follow the same guidelines as with standard screen sharing. For TvCards, you are able to show Polls, Questions and Up Next cards on screen, however, Name Tags will not be displayed in Mixed mode.

Panel view

If you have multiple speakers in your webinar, you might want to show them all on screen at the same time, for example for panel debates or a Q&A session. You can use the Panel layout to show all the speakers on stage in the webinar room at the same time. Like with Mixed mode, this layout is intended to be used as a supplement to your webinar production and not as the view used for your entire webinar.

If you have more than one person in the speaker room, you will see a tile called “Panel” to the right of your speaker previews in the switcher. By clicking on this tile, you will bring all speakers up on “stage”, and display selected webcams on the screen at the same time. 

If you would like to choose which speakers should be shown on the screen, you can click the settings button in the bottom righthand corner of the Panel tile and then select the check box on specific speakers. Be sure to click the checkbox at the top right corner when you would like the selected speakers to be chosen. The speakers in the Panel view will be shown in the same order as in the speaker list/registration page. As for TvCards, they will follow the same rules as for Mixed mode, where Polls, Questions and Up Next Cards can be shown on screen, but name tags will not appear.

Playing a video in a webinar

If you have a pre-recorded video that you want to use as a segment of your webinar, you can use the Video Playback option in the right-hand side of the webinar stream. By clicking the play button and then on “Select videos”, you open up the video selector where you can select the videos to stage for the webinar. You can choose any video that you have uploaded to TwentyThree or recorded previously as a webinar. Once you are ready to play your video, simply click on it in the playback panel. This will automatically mute all your speakers and play the video and audio directly to your audience. Speakers can unmute themselves if they want to provide commentary over the video, but note that there are no audio controls for lowering the audio of the video. If you want your video to play on loop, you can click the looping icon on the far right side of the playback progress bar at the top. Your audience will not see this progress bar. Once you're done playing your video, you will need to switch to whichever stream you want to display next, by clicking on it in the switcher. This will also automatically unmute any speakers that were automatically muted when the video playback started, but any speakers that manually muted themselves either before or during playback will stay muted.