Hi all,
We’ve been waiting for months for this issue to be addressed but it seems that nobody noticed or worst, care enough to look at.
I already mentioned it under another topic as a comment 3 months ago.
Firstly, thanks for the multiple spotlight feature and then fixing an immediate problem by adding the Replace Spotlight button.
But the Cloud Recording issue is still here:
When there are multiple people spotlighted, the cloud recording acts as if no one is spotlighted and focuses on anyone who is speaking at that time.
To be clear:
• Speaker A is spotlighted. S/he is silent. Participant C is talking. In the Cloud Recording, we see (as expected) Speaker A. Excellent, thank you, that’s how it should be.
• Speaker A is spotlighted. We add spotlight to Speaker B. Everybody see two of them in the screen, no one else. Great, this is the long-awaited multiple spotlight feature. But then Participant C starts to talk, asking a question, maybe. In the Cloud Recording, we see (not as expected) Participant C or D or E, or anyone who speaks as if no one is spotlighted.
.
Guys, there is a reason that we (as hosts/managers) spotlighted those select few people (speakers/panelists).
I’ll try and further explain our case but I see little need for that because you’re aware of its importance since you do not allow anyone else to be in the recording when one person is spotlighted.
Kindly, click the play button to see and read further details about this issue.
Details
.
Still, I’ll continue…
Our meetings and trainings are of very sensitive nature: medical, psychiatric and psychological trainings where doctors or medical personnel often share their private cases (of their patients).
So, we need only the panelists / official speakers appear up in the recordings.
There are multiple reasons for this but the most important one being that I need to get a written consent from all of the participants to let them show up in the recordings.
And only a couple of them gives consent to appear in the recording out of hundreds of participants / listeners / watchers.
.
Possible workarounds (not solutions, just workarounds):
.
•
Stop video of all other participants except official speakers/panelists
We can’t do that. That’s basically webinar model and our trainings require interaction, so we got to use the meeting. Speakers need to see the attendee (their students, most of them MD or Ph.D).
And participants need to share their cases on occasion.
Also, the newly-added security measure as allowing or not to Start Video doesn’t work for everyone (old versions of Zoom, maybe?).
So, someone might (and did countless times) turn on her/his video even if I didn’t allow them to do so.
.
•
Spotlight one speaker at a time by hitting the Replace Spotlight button.
It doesn’t work:
•• When two or three speakers are discussing, it’s nearly impossible to switch their spotlight fast enough by finding their name in the participants list or video thumbnail in the gallery, hit the more button, hit the replace spotlight. Especially given that Zoom’s constantly changing the order of those views.
Dozens of time, I’ve spotlighted the wrong person because that darn button slipped off under my cursor `_´
Before the multiple-spotlight feature, I was spotlighting Speaker A, then pin Speaker B to get ready and act fast to replace spotlight.
Now, you took this away, as well. I’m the host for Christ’s sake, even I can’t pin someone if another’s spotlighted.
Why?
What’s the reason?
Why can’t I pin another video, what’s the harm?
Why do you hate us 
•• Also any change to spotlight (add or remove or replace) forces all participants into Speaker View by turning off their gallery mode.
I don’t remember how many angry complaints I’ve got from the speakers/panelists that they want to see the attendee in gallery mode but their view is changing every couple of seconds.
Why do you do that? Why does spotlighting a person turns off all participants’ gallery view? If s/he wants to watch the meeting in the gallery mode, let her/him be! Even my view as a host is changing. If someone wants to see the spotlight, then s/he can always switch to Speaker View. Why do you force people? At least, make an exception for hosts and co-hosts; at least, don’t force us, the managers.
•• Also, replacing spotlight causes (though being momentarily) the active speaker (not wanted in the recording) still appear up in the recording.
.
•
Edit the recording (post-production) by replacing the unwanted person’s video with the speakers’ video cropping from Gallery Recording
When there are more than a couple of participants with their camera turned on, the gallery recording’s resolution is not usable for this purpose. 1920px*1080px divided by 20 or 50, well, do the math.
.
•
Record locally from another computer and use it to replace speakers view and unwanted people’s appearance
Well, this is what I’m doing for 3 months, for more than 40-50 meetings, each being 8-10 hours long.
Editing one day of meeting using this method takes about 2-3 days.
Why, you ask?
Because, the cloud recording and local recording does not sync up 
I align them at one moment, and a minute later they’re getting out of sync. I’m cutting and moving and patching seconds by seconds, sometimes frames by frames 
I guess this out-of-sync issue is somewhat related to your compression and streaming algorithms. It’s great, btw, thank you for the excellent work (not sarcasm, I’m being honest here).
When a speaker’s connection is bad and her/his video or audio freezes, a couple of seconds later we see/hear in a speedy way, so it (audio/video) catches up. Mind-blowing, wow, you’re awesome.
But it does have its side effects as I’ve mentioned.
.
Anyways, time to sum up…
Guys, this is a nightmare.
For 3 months, I’ve been struggling to deal with this issue and God knows how many more months I’ll continue…
And I’m done, I’m finished; quoting from Green Mile, I’m dog-tired 
Why do you hate us?
Seriously, why ?
You already have a filter in your Cloud Recording algorithm to allow only the spotlighted person.
Just, extend it with something like, I don’t know…
func should_be_allowed_in_the_rec( active_speaker ) {
return spotlight_list.includes( active_speaker.id);
}
Yeah, it’s that easy, just 1 line of code (sarcasm sign here)
While you’re on it, please bring back the pin video feature even if someone else’s spotlighted. At least, make an exception for the host and co-hosts.
.
I hope that I’m not alone with this problem and other fellow (pro) users chime in.
To be honest, my hopes are not high.
I’m pretty sure that this will get lost in the pile of hundreds of other topics
And I’m sure that I’ll continue to download that day’s recording wondering (and wishing) this time, maybe this time, you noticed and fixed the issue and I won’t have to edit those videos for 2 days straight without a rest.
Still, one can only hope, I guess 
Best,
~ Fatih
And when I reached to CS they said that it was expected behavior after one of the recent updates. But I’m gonna keep doing some research cuz it doesn’t seem logical to me! But hearing that it isn’t occurring to you gives me hope that it’s fixable on my end too!