Due to some people experiencing intermittent audio and/or video delays during sessions we have built a new feature within Jigsaw that will help monitor and manage these challenges. As you all probably know, streaming webcams and computer-based audio (VoIP) is the largest consumer of internet resources and can sometimes cause problems for some people in live virtual sessions. Given that you can have up to 25 active and simultaneously streaming web cams, multiple audio streams and the fact that everyone is asking for more real time communications, we realized that we need to monitor how these new and more aggressive streams of data are being handled by various desktops, laptops, Chromebooks and tablets.
We recently released a monitoring program that quietly sits and reviews what your internet connection and your device can handle without impacting the session being attended. It works like this:
Jigsaw constantly measures how long it takes for information to flow from our servers to all devices. If the system detects a “significant” degradation in the ability to pass information, it takes a closer look at the delay. Once the initial delay is detected, we increase our monitoring of your connection. If we discover a delay in your connection of at least 2 seconds that persists for three consecutive 5 seconds periods, we consider your connection does truly have a “delay”. If this occurs we take a couple steps to ensure no one else in the session is impacted.
1. The name of the affected person(s) will turn orange in the Attendee List.
2. The system can/will disable all video feeds, in and out, of the affected device and will display a message to the affected person that the video feed is disabled due to a connection delay. Everything else in the session will continue to function normally, including audio.
3. The system will wait 10 minutes and will re-assess to see if the delay is gone. If not, it will wait another 10 minutes and check again. If the connection delay is resolved, the video feeds will be restored and the affected person’s full capability returns to normal. If you don’t want to wait 10 minutes, you can force the system to recheck by right clicking anywhere in the session and choosing “Repair Connection”.
Jigsaw also looks at the processing power of devices because the addition of tablets and Chromebooks have brought a different a unique technical twist to virtual sessions. Since not all devices have the ability to manage the multiple video and audio streams at the same time along with engaged learning we are looking to ensure these devices don’t degrade the learning experience for everyone. So we are beginning to measure the device capability by measuring the frame rate that the video is able to play on each device. We then compare the frame rate to the rate that the video was intended to play. The devices that don’t have the processing strength that other devices do can impact everyone’s overall quality and experience. If the system detects any CPU stresses that might impact the session, we take similar steps as outlined above to ensure the degradation only happens to the affected device and does not impact everyone and the overall session.