Zoom audio oddity

In a recent session, we encountered an as-yet unexplained problem with audio in a Zoom session.

The presenter used PowerPoint with embedded video clips. The audio in the clips could not be heard by many, perhaps most of the attendees. Audio from the presenter and other attendees was fine.

Although the Zoom version used by the presenter was a few months old (December 21, 2020 version 5.4.7 (59784.1220), there was no detectable pattern regarding who could hear the audio or not. Some with older and newer versions could not hear the audio, others could. Most people were using the Windows client. (Details may not be significant here.)

Unfortunately, there was no recording of the session.

So far, we’re exploring a few threads. None of these seem compelling, but we need to start somewhere.

  • The presenter was using an unencrypted session (for reasons yet to be determined).
  • The videos were both a series of pictures with an audio overlay and some downloaded, unedited YouTube clips.
  • Verifying that the presenter had the Share computer sound checked when screen sharing.

Update:

It works in practice, but not in theory.

We met with the presenter today. Audio from movies and YouTube was garbled and then nothing, video was jerky. Observers were on Windows and Mac. The presenter switched from his laptop to desktop. The desktop machine is a bit older. Don’t have the specs on either machine.

Audio and video worked fine on the desktop. We have something that works, even though we don’t have an explanation of why some attendees in the previous session could hear the audio, while others couldn’t.

I’ll take something that works over something that’s explainable any day.