Playback prerecorded videos during your ZenVideo event

This feature requires an Advanced or Premium plan, or an Enterprise plan with the Events feature added.

You can take a video or a previous event’s archive from your account and stream it live using our web-based production tool page, giving you the ability to stream prerecorded content without the need for an external application.

In this article

• Add a video to your event
• Add a video to a scene
• Configure video playback, volume, and scene transition
• Playback the video during your event
• Remove a video from an event

Add a video to your event

💡Tip: You can also do this directly from your video’s settings page, creating a new event and automatically inserting that video into the first scene.

After creating your recurring event you will be on our web-based production tool page where you can produce your event.

To add your video:

1. On the left side, select the Media icon, then select the Videos tab in the panel.
   
2. Select + Add videos. 
3. Select the video(s) you want to add to your event. You can also use the search bar to find your video.
   
4. Click Add to event when done. The selected video(s) will appear in the panel.

If you don’t see your video in the event videos list:

• Currently, only videos that the account owner uploaded to the account will appear in the list. Videos that team members uploaded do not appear.
• As a workaround, the owner can download those videos and then re-upload them to the account. 

💡Tip: After adding your video to the event, hover your cursor over it, click the ••• menu that appears, and then click Preview to open the video in a new window to watch it. This is helpful to ensure you have the correct video selected and that you’re satisfied with it prior to adding it to your event.

Add a video to a scene

Once you’ve added a video to your event, you need to add it to a scene in order for your viewers to see it. A scene can only include one video at a time.

1. At the bottom of the web-based production tool page, select Add scene to create a new blank scene. It will be automatically selected.
   
2. In the Videos panel, locate the video you want to add to the scene.
3. Click and drag the video into the canvas to add it to the selected scene. Alternatively, hover over the video and select Add to scene.
   
   

Configure video playback, volume, and scene transition

Once your video is in the scene, you can find video controls above the preview player, to the right of the Layouts and Overlays options. All video playback controls are usable before and during your event.

Here is what those controls are and what they do:

• Play/Pause: You can pause your video playback during the event, then select play to resume playback. Your stream will still be live even if you pause video playback during the event.
• Progress bar: Click and drag the indicator on the progress bar to jump to other parts of your video while it's live.
  • 💡Tip: If the video is in the first or only scene of your event, you can use this to set a different starting point for video playback before you go live; this does not work for videos in any following scenes.
• Volume: Controls the output volume of the video in your stream. For example, if a guest speaker needs to talk over a video, you can lower the video’s volume so you can hear the presenter more clearly. You can also adjust this while your stream is live.
• Video behavior: Determines what happens when your video ends. There are three options to choose from here:
  • Manual: This is the default setting. This means that at the end of playback, the video will display a thumbnail and you will need to manually select the next scene and click Send to stream to move your event forward.
  • Auto: Choosing this will automatically advance to the next scene in your timeline.
  • Loop: Choose this if you want your video to restart from the beginning as soon as playback reaches the end.

Playback the video during your event

After you’ve added a video to a scene, you can switch that scene into your event to show the video to your viewers live.

First, make sure you’ve clicked Go live to start streaming live to your audience.

To playback your video:

1. Below the preview player, select the scene that contains the video.
   
2. The video will switch into the stream output and start playing for your audience automatically.
   
3. If desired, use the controls above the player to adjust playback or volume.
4. When playback ends, the video will either display a thumbnail, transition to the next scene, or loop. This depends on the video behavior setting you chose, as described above.

⚠️Note: At this time, any subtitles or captions you've included in your uploaded video will not be displayed when playing it back live.

If you need to restart the video, click the reset button below the preview player to jump back to the beginning, then click the play icon to start playback from the beginning.

Remove a video from an event

If you don’t need a video anymore, click on the scene the video is in. Then you can:

1. Open the Videos panel.
2. Hover over the video and select Remove from scene to remove it from the selected scene.

If you want to remove it from the event entirely:

1. In the Videos panel, hover over the video and select the More (•••) icon.
2. Select Remove from event, which will remove the video from the Videos panel. Rest assured, you are not removing the video from your ZenVideo account by doing this.