Learn about the latest offerings in Adobe Connect. This article summarizes the new features and enhancements.
Adobe Connect enables you to create state-of-the-art digital training, webinar, and collaboration experiences. For an overview of Adobe Connect, see www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html.
The sections below summarize the new features and enhancements available in the various releases of Adobe Connect.
The Adobe Connect 12.6 release introduces a new broadcast control for sessions, short answer type questions in quiz pod and diarized transcripts (beta). The release adds support for import/export of quiz questions, closed captions in breakout rooms, mixed audio in breakout rooms. The release also brings in improvements to simplify closed caption workflow, PDF document sharing, and room accessibility.
The Broadcast control provides an explicit button for the host to start broadcasting to the entire audience. Until then the presentation team can confer amongst themselves without being heard by the audience and test their audio/video feeds. Even when the session is not live, participants will be able to enter the room and see the active layout, but they will not be able to see or hear the hosts and presenters till the broadcast is started. In effect, the broadcast control results in creating a “virtual green room” for the presentation team.
A new question type, Short answer will be added to the Quiz pod. A short answer type question only has question text and there are no answer options. The response to short answer questions will not be evaluated when computing scores. The responses to the short answer type questions will be included in the current quiz pod reports available in Connect Central.
Evaluation example: If a quiz has 10 questions and 2 of them are short answer type questions, then only the 8 non-short answer type questions will be counted towards scores (and score percentages). The score for someone who gets all 8 questions correct will be 8 out of 8 (100%).
Controls to import / export quiz questions have been introduced to make is easier it to setup up the quiz pod. The feature supports GIFT and CSV file formats for both import and export.
Transcripts will be generated for all meeting recordings if transcription is enabled from the room preferences. The transcripts will be diarized i.e., it will show the speaker’s name.
The hosts will be able to edit the automatically generated transcripts.
NOTE: Any edits made to the transcript will automatically reflect in the closed captions also.
Closed captions will be available inside breakout rooms. Since breakout rooms are not recorded, these captions will also not be available with recordings.
Universal Voice/Mixed Audio will be available within Breakout Rooms. Universal Voice/Mixed Audio is a way to build a bridge between telephony communication and VoIP communication so that users connected from VoIP can communicate with users connected from telephony and vice versa. Presently, the UV functionality is limited to the Main room only.
The Engagement Dashboard will only report the participant engagement by default. The roles to be used for engagement calculation can be customized by visiting the Tracking option from the Engagement Dashboard pod menu.
A setting to control the playback speed of recordings will be available. The setting will offer different speed options to slow down or fasten the playback speed.
PDF documents sharing in share pods has been improved to optimize the use of the space available. Earlier the documents did not scale up to occupy the maximum possible space available and this hindered the sharing of documents especially presentations in PDF format.
Adobe Connect classic mobile applications (‘Adobe Connect Classic’ on Android and ‘Adobe Connect’ on iOS) are being retired, and going forward only the new and enhanced versions of the mobile applications (‘Adobe Connect’ on Android and ‘Adobe Connect New’ on iOS) will be supported. Users can no longer enter sessions held on Adobe Connect 12.6 version, from the classic mobile applications. Any user accessing Adobe Connect 12.6 rooms from classic mobile applications will be prompted to install the new application.
For more information, see Upgrade from classic to new Adobe Connect mobile application
On 31st May 2024, Adobe Connect classic mobile applications will be removed from the Google Play and Apple App Store. While current users can still access the application on their phones, new users won't have the option to download and install it any longer.
The Adobe Connect 12.5.1 release is focused on stability and brings in improvements to the microphone rights request and raise hand workflows, supports additional languages for Automated Closed Captions, introduces enhancements to Adobe Connect Central home page, adds an option to room access settings to augment security, and fixes to various issues.
b. When enabled, participants will be able to request microphone rights.
c. Hosts will be able to approve/reject the requests for microphone rights.
2. Raise Hands
a. Participants will continue to be able to raise their hands as today.
b. Hosts will see a notification when any participant raises their hand. The host can clear the status or let the hand be raised. Raised hands can also be viewed in the Attendees pod.
The Automated Closed Captions will now be available for these languages as 'Beta': Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish, Korean, Portuguese, Chinese, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish. The host can select the captioning language from the room preferences menu.
Users on Mac devices will be able to share system sound when sharing their screen from Adobe Connect application for Mac. This feature was already available on the Adobe Connect application for Windows.
NOTE: This feature will only be available from MacOS 13.0 (Ventura) onwards.
The new Adobe Connect Central home page introduced with the Adobe Connect 12.4 release has been enhanced to be more actionable.
A new access option “Account members may enter the room without host being present” has been introduced for meeting rooms, virtual classrooms, and seminar rooms. When this option is enabled, only account members will be able to enter the room (as participants) and access the shared content without needing the host to start the room.
This release introduces Chat Panel — an in-room chat for more collaborative experience within room.
Multiple accessibility issues mostly related to keyboard access and a few related to contrast ratio have been fixed.
MISCALLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES
UPDATED INSTALLER FOR ON-PREMISE CUSTOMERS
An installer will be available for on-premise customers to upgrade to 12.5.
Live quizzes are an important element of a virtual instructor led training. In this release, a new Quiz pod is being introduced which will allow trainers (hosts) to conduct and monitor quizzes natively in Adobe Connect virtual classrooms, seminar rooms and meeting rooms.
ENHANCED EVENT TEMPLATES AND CATALOG
With the increasing usage of Internet browsing on mobile devices, there are more chances that a visitor discovers an event while using a phone. Therefore, it becomes important to allow users to register for events easily, even if they are on a smaller screen.
To address this need, the Events Module of Connect has now been enhanced to enable creation of responsive event registration pages and event catalog.
The event templates and event catalog have now been enhanced to take advantage of the responsive design features supported by Adobe Experience Manager 6.5. In addition, we are making additional fonts available for users to design their event microsites.
When editing a template in the authoring view, the user can customize the design for mobile devices as well as desktop.
A new default event template and event catalog are now available, which are responsive by design.
User can clone these new responsive templates to customize it for their organizations, as before.
Note that the old components and the old templates in an account will still be available. The event administrator has been provided two options to plan on when they want to introduce the new responsive templates.
A new option has been provided to Event Administrators to choose whether they want new events to be created only based on the new default event template.
Similarly, another option has been added to allow Event Administrator to use the new catalog, when they are ready
Note: On Premise customers will have to upgrade to AEM 6.5 to use this feature
RECORDING EDITOR
Hosts will be able to edit recordings for Enhanced Audio Video enabled rooms. The new recording capability works from browsers and allows hosts to edit out sections of recording without needing to download the desktop application.
The new recording editor will have various usability enhancements to allow the host to easily navigate to a specific point in time on the seek bar for granular editing.
The recording editor playbar will also show thumbnail preview allowing the host to edit at the right frames.
The recording url will not change after edits have been done. The recording URL will always point to the most updated edited version of the recording.
The host can revert to the original recording at any point in time.
SUPPORT FOR 1080P SCREEN RESOLUTION IN RECORDINGS
Hosts will now have the option in Adobe Connect room preferences to increase the resolution of recordings to 1080p from 720p.
AUTOMATIC CLOSED CAPTIONS (BETA)
Automated closed captions are now available withing all Adobe Connect rooms. The host will have an option to enable it for the room. Once enabled by the host, participants will be able to turn on closed captions display. Hosts will also be able to email the generated closed captions to themselves or download it as a text file. The automated closed captions will also be visible in the recordings (if the closed captions was turned on for the room when recording was started).
MODERNIZED ADOBE CONNECT CENTRAL HOME PAGE AND NAVIGATION
The Adobe Connect Central home page has been modernized and simplified. The modernized home page will have the dashboard view for hosts which provide them a quick glance of their sessions – upcoming webinars or trainings, recently completed webinars or trainings, recently used rooms and recent recordings. In addition, the host can also see a calendar view.
For first time users a ‘Quick Overview Widget’ has also been introduced to provide contextual help guides for Adobe Connect Webinar and Training workflows.
The host and learner views have been segregated to give de-cluttered experience for the host.
NEW LICENSING STRUCTURE FOR HOSTED DEPLOYMENTS
With this release, we are introducing more flexible and competitive licensing for hosted deployments.
The existing customers can move to the new structure at the time of their license renewal.
For more details, please reach out to your respective partner or sales contact.
VIRTUAL VIDEO BACKGROUND
This 12.2 beta feature is now fully supported. Please check the system requirements for the publisher sharing video with virtual backgrounds at Adobe Connect technical specifications and system requirements.
ACCESSIBILITY FIXES
Multiple accessibility issues mostly related to keyboard access and a few related to contrast ratio have been fixed.
UPDATED INSTALLER FOR ON-PREMISE CUSTOMERS
An installer will be available for on-premise customers to upgrade to 12.4.
With this new feature, we are extending the capability of Breakout Rooms, by allowing hosts to specify if participants would be able to self-select the rooms that they wish to participate in.
Until now, the Breakout Room functionality was available by clicking on the Breakouts icon in the application bar. In this release we have replaced this icon with a Breakout Bar just below the application bar.
A new option has been added in the Preferences that allows host to indicate whether participants should have this flexibility of choosing the breakout room they want to join.
When a host enables this option and starts the breakout rooms, participants are notified that breakouts have started, and they will also see the new Breakout Bar below the application bar.
At the centre of this bar, the current room of the participant is displayed; and the participant can also select another breakout room they want to enter from the dropdown list. A participant can switch rooms at any time, and as often as needed.
Once the host ends the breakout session, the participants are notified and brought back to the main room.
NEW OPTION TO DISABLE HYPERLINKS IN CHAT, Q&A, POLLS AND NOTES PODS
Some hosts consider live URL’s in some pods like the Chat Pod as a security risk and would like to mitigate the same by disabling participants from clicking on them.
A new option has been introduced in Compliance and Control under Pods Management that provides hosts the option to disable participants from clicking on hyperlinks shared in Chat, Q&A, Notes and Poll pods. If disabled, URL’s will be displayed just like any other string.
The Room Entry Screen where Attendees select the audio and video devices they want to use before joining the session has been redesigned and following improvements have been made:
PAUSE CHAT
CHROME OS SUPPORT
DIAGNOSTIC TEST PAGE
Adobe Connect 12.0 introduces an entirely new Enhanced Audio/Video Experience. Adobe Connect’s backend media server infrastructure has been upgraded to a modern cloud-native technology stack which is optimized for delivering a highly scalable and reliable high-quality audio & video experience for users joining from any device
The Enhanced Audio/Video experience is now the default experience for all existing and newly created rooms. Here are the various new capabilities and improvements available in Enhanced Audio/Video Experience.
For more information on Enhanced Audio/Video Experience vs Standard View capabilities, see Capabilities and Limitations.
Account administrators have the option to either force Enhanced Audio/Video Experience for all rooms or force Standard View for all rooms or let hosts decide for each room (default option).
Account administrators can also choose to Switch all existing rooms to the Enhanced Audio/Video Experience or the Standard View. This option is only visible when the 'Application and browser interface settings' is set to Let the hosts decide for their room.
When the Account administrator has set the Application and browser interface settings to Let the hosts decide for their room, then the hosts can choose between the Enhanced Audio/Video Experience or the Standard view for each room.
Adobe Connect 12.0 introduces improvements to many commonly used workflows to enhance ease of use for all users. Here are the workflows which have been improved in this release:
The option to access an Adobe Connect room with Classic View has been removed from all room launch workflows. With the release of Adobe Connect 12.0, users will not be able to join any Adobe Connect rooms with the Classic View.
For more information, see Adobe Connect Classic View End of Life (EOL).
Play MP4 files embedded on slides
New Compliance and Control settings for greater security
Account Administrators can now remove the public access options for rooms and recordings to ensure greater security.
Limited Beta for improved Audio/Video Experience{BETA}
Adobe Connect 11.4 introduces an entirely new audio/video delivery experience as a beta feature. The new audio/video beta feature is available to customers upon request by the account administrator.
Some of the existing features like telephone-based audio integration, mobile app support, and the creation of interactive recordings, are not yet available when the new audio/video experience is enabled in a room. For more information see Capabilities and Limitations.
New Closed Caption providers (1CapApp, Ai-Live, and VITAC) are now built-in, persistent provider tokens can be created, and we've improved the provider integration workflow. For more information, see Closed Captioning in HTML client.
Chat and Poll pods have had significant updates to better support screen readers, numerous UI elements have been fixed, and keyboard navigation has been enhanced.
Adobe Connect 11.2 is available for all server deployment environments - hosted, managed services, private clouds, and on-premise servers. This document describes what’s new for all customers
New Meeting Application for Mac
Greater Accessibility - Native Closed Captioning
The new Adobe Connect Mac application allows hosts, presenters and participants to enjoy the new user interface across all meeting types, including virtual classrooms and seminar rooms. Presenters can access all features, including HD cameras and screen sharing, with superior meeting performance. Improvements include a new launch experience, greater ease of entry, and an updated screen sharing palette.
With Adobe Connect 11.2, hosts and administators can choose to enable the Enhanced Audio experience for all users in their rooms using Voice over IP, Universal Voice, and Integrated Telephony. The Enhanced Audio experience will be delivered using modern audio codec (Opus) for rooms set to Standard view only. The Enhanced audio is supported in the latest versions of Adobe Connect applications for Windows and Mac and HTML client. It is not supported in the Classic Adobe Connect applications. It is also not supported in the mobile applications yet.
For more information, see Create meetings.
Adobe Connect 11.2 now includes a built-in Closed Caption display option in every meeting room. Meeting hosts can either integrate professional captioning services from third-party captioning providers, or they can choose anyone in the meeting to be a captioner. Meeting participants can choose to view or hide the captions and can customize the caption font size and color for better readability. Each participant can change the size and placement of the floating caption window to best meet their needs. Multiple simultaneous captions can be provided to support multiple languages, or to provide separate captions during breakout sessions. Captions from live meetings can also be displayed in recordings.
For more information, see Closed captioning in HTML client.
From Adobe Connect 11.2 onwards, meetings will need to be in either Standard view or in Classic view only. The option to have a mix of views within a single meeting room will not be available.
This will allow the hosts to better prepare and deliver meetings – knowing that the content will display consistently for all users, that each user will have the same user interface and experience, and that the capabilities will be the same for everyone. This will also remove the potential problems introduced by the need to support ‘hybrid’ content.
A new set of configuration options will be available at the account level and at room level allowing Account admins or Hosts to choose from amongst the below options.
For more details see Key changes in Meeting Launch & Recording Playback workflows with upcoming Adobe Connect 11.2 release
Q&A Pod Improvements
Adobe Connect 11.0 is available for all server deployment environments - hosted, managed services, private clouds, and on-premise servers. This document describes what’s new for all customers – some features may have been available in previous limited releases.
Browser Client for Hosts and Presenters
New Meeting Application for Windows
With Adobe Connect 11.0, hosts and presenters can now start and manage meetings with only a web browser, and without downloading additional software.
From a browser, hosts are able to:
Additionally, both hosts and presenters will now be able to:
Participants who have been granted enhanced rights, or are participating in breakouts, will also be able to share their cameras, use the whiteboard drawing tools, edit notes, and share content.
Browser limitations for all users include screen sharing and video camera display. Users will need to install and launch the new Adobe Connect meeting application in order to share their screen or to view more than two live camera streams during meetings.
All users may continue to join through the Adobe Flash player in a browser, however many new features will not be available to Flash users.
For more information on what is supported, see Adobe Connect Capabilities in HTML Client.
Account administrators and room owners can choose whether to enable or disable the HTML client for participants at the account or room level. For more information on how to enable these settings, see Enabling Adobe Connect HTML Client.
The new Adobe Connect 11 Windows application allows hosts, presenters, and participants to enjoy the new user interface across all meeting types, including virtual classrooms and seminar rooms. Presenters can access all features, including HD cameras and screen sharing, with superior meeting performance. Improvements include a new launch experience, greater ease of entry, and an updated screen sharing palette.
Significantly improved audio output in browsers. Microphone audio, broadcast telephony, and Universal Voice audio all benefit from critical updates to audio delivery. This applies to all meetings, virtual classrooms, webinars (seminar rooms), and recording playback in HTML.
Participants can now access subtitles and additional audio tracks embedded in MP4 videos. Uploaded PDF content can now be read by screen readers. The new interface offers new keyboard shortcuts, improved tab navigation, and better support for screen readers.
All Flash-based interfaces have now been updated to HTML including the home page calendar, recording editor, diagnostic test page, seminar calendar, event reporting, course content players, and all other dashboards and charts.
Adobe Connect 10.8 is a limited release and as such will only be available for on-premise and Managed services deployments. It will not be rolled out to the Hosted services.
HTML Client for Hosts and Presenters
With Adobe Connect 10.8, the hosts and presenters will be able to seamlessly start a meeting, a virtual classroom, or a webinar with HTML client in their web browser without downloading additional software.
Inside the HTML client, hosts would be able to
The only restriction of the HTML client is that the hosts cannot screen share from the browser. They will need to install and launch the existing Adobe Connect meeting application in order to share their screen.
Apart from the HTML client, hosts and presenters can continue to join through the previously supported methods—the Adobe Connect desktop application and the Adobe Connect Flash-based browser client.
For more information on what is supported, see Adobe Connect Capabilities in HTML Client.
Account administrators and room owners can choose whether to enable or disable the HTML client for participants at the account or room level. For more information on how to enable these settings, see Enabling Adobe Connect HTML Client.
Following improvements and new features will be available to hosts and presenters in the HTML Client:
Notes Pod
Chat Pod
Attendee Pod
Breakout Rooms
Share Pod
Whiteboard
File Share Pod
Layouts
Host and Presenter Area
Prepare Mode
Miscellaneous Improvements
Option now shown to all browser users joining a virtual classroom, a meeting, or a webinar session to join through browser (with HTML client or with classic Flash client) or Connect desktop application meeting.
The participants can now be given enhanced rights for various pods including webcam rights and drawing rights in the HTML client. The participants in HTML client will now get presenter rights when moved to breakout rooms.
The content uploaded and shared from Adobe Connect Central pages will now open in HTML format.
With Adobe Connect 10.6, users can now watch HTML versions of Adobe Connect recordings in an web browser on most platforms and try a new 'beta' HTML viewer for mobile browsers.
Benefits of HTML-based recordings include:
The new HTML viewer for recordings is only available if the HTML client has been enabled for the meeting room where the recording took place, or if the recording has been moved to the content library.
Any non-hybrid custom pods or non-hybrid content (i.e. SWF, FLV, Presenter, Captivate, etc...) present in the recordings will not be visible in the HTML viewer. To view this content, users should switch to the classic view.
With the 10.6 release, the curriculum viewer has also been redesigned in HTML, creating a faster and more accessible experience with a modern user interface.
With the HTML client, participants can seamlessly join a meeting, a virtual classroom, or a webinar in their web browser without downloading additional software. Inside the HTML client, users can view shared screens and content, interact with notes, leverage VoIP in the form of transmitting and receiving audio, and view a shared live video. Users can also participate in polls, chat, and Q&A.
Apart from the HTML client, participants can continue to join through the previously supported methods—the Adobe Connect desktop application and the Adobe Connect Flash-based browser client.
The HTML client supports the most commonly used features for attending and participating in meetings, virtual classrooms, or webinars. However, the HTML client in its current form does not contain every capability that the other Adobe Connect meeting clients possess. For more information on what is supported, see Adobe Connect Capabilities in HTML Client.
Account administrators and room owners can choose whether to enable or disable the HTML client for participants at the account or room level. For more information on how to enable these settings, see Enabling Adobe Connect HTML Client.
HTML client now supports viewing various content types shared by Hosts:
Existing user content support
New content support
Added support for display of annotations done by Hosts and Presenters, to participants joined via HTML client:
Custom pods are now supported in HTML clients. However, the existing custom pods need to be converted to hybrid format (HTML and Flash) to be able to work in the HTML client. The latest SDK to build HTML-friendly custom pod is made available to existing development partners.
A new Account-level setting is added in Connect Central administration pages for HTML client under Compliance and Control to let adminstrators enable or disable custom pod in HTML client.
Connect meeting URL parameters
Changes to ‘Turn on HTML client for participants’ flag
Other enhancements
The HTML client includes the following changes for an improved user experience:
The login screen components are streamlined to reduce load time. You can customize the login screen, if necessary.
Here is a list of changes:
Adobe Connect now includes an HTML-based meeting client for desktop participants. The new client provides a more responsive and accessible experience for participants who join Adobe Connect meetings, virtual classrooms, or webinars.
With the HTML client, participants can seamlessly join a meeting, virtual classroom, or webinar with their web browser. They need not download any additional software. Inside of the HTML client, users can view shared screens, interact with notes, leverage VoIP in the form of both transmitting and receiving audio, and view shared live video. Users can also participate in polls, chat, and Q&A.
In addition to being able to join via the HTML client, participants can continue to join through the previously supported methods: the Adobe Connect desktop application and the Adobe Connect Flash-based browser client.
The HTML client supports the most commonly used features for attending and participating in meetings, virtual classrooms, or webinars. However, the HTML client in its current form does not contain every capability that the other Adobe Connect meeting clients possess. For more information on what is supported, see Adobe Connect Capabilities in HTML Client.
Account administrators and room owners can choose whether to enable or disable the HTML client for participants at the account or room level. For more information on how to enable these settings, see Enabling Adobe Connect HTML Client.
A new HD (720p) option is now available when setting your video quality in Adobe Connect 10.
For more information on this feature, see Share HD video from webcam.
Adobe Connect 10 has out-of-the-box single sign-on (SSO) capabilities to link accounts with third-party SAML 2.0 based identity providers (IDP). This feature greatly improves the entrance and security workflows when accessing one’s account.
For more information on this feature, see Enabling single sign-on in Adobe Connect.
You can now select a connected speaker using the new Select Speaker option in the Audio Setup Wizard. The wizard is available in the Meeting menu from inside a meeting room and from the pre-meeting test page when Adobe Connect application for Windows is installed.
When recording a meeting, if the audio is disabled, you can now easily enable it by selecting Turn On Audio Conference. Alternatively, you can record the meeting without audio by clicking Record Without Audio.
Tomcat is upgraded to version 8.0.50. JRE is upgraded to version 1.8.0_162.
For more information, see the following pages:
For more information, see Adobe Connect Central home page.
Adobe Connect 9.7 offers an application for desktop that is available for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh users. Now you can easily join and manage meetings from your desktop. The Adobe Connect application is a stand-alone application that replaces the old add-in. With the new Adobe Connect application, users do not need Adobe Flash Player installed or enabled in browsers to join or conduct meetings.
The new stand-alone application is available to all users. Also, users who have Adobe Flash fully enabled in their browser, can continue to attend sessions in browsers.
Using the Adobe Connect application, users can bookmark frequently visited rooms and view the history of recent meetings. For more information, see Adobe Connect application for desktop.
Users can now run pre-meeting diagnostic tests to check if their system meets the requirements necessary to attend an Adobe Connect session without using Flash in their browsers. The test prompts users without Flash to install the new application in advance.
For users using Adobe Connect’s built-in Voice over IP (VoIP) features, the new test page has an option to pre-configure and test microphones and speakers before they join a meeting. For more information, see Adobe Connect diagnostic test.
The Adobe Connect Central home page has been redesigned using HTML5. Users can seamlessly find and manage meetings, recordings, and training catalogs without enabling Adobe Flash Player. Users can find the recordings created by them or shared with them, directly from the home page. For more information, see Adobe Connect Central home page.
Adobe Connect 9.7 includes a new MSI installer for the Adobe Connect application for desktop. Administrators can manage the enterprise-wide distribution and deployment of the Adobe Connect application using SCCM.
The MSI installer for IT administrators can be downloaded from: http://www.adobe.com/go/Connectmsi. For more information, see Install Adobe Connect application for desktop.
The Presenter Only Area remains open when starting a Breakout session. This allows the Hosts to retain the pods available in the POA during the Breakout session. When the attendees are in breakout rooms, the Hosts can continue to work with the pods they opened in POA. See Create and manage breakout rooms for more information.
Hosts and Presenters can use the Engagement Dashboard to view participants’ attention and interactivity levels in a session. Now the Dashboard is available for Meetings without the need for Events or Training modules. See the article View meeting reports for more information.
An archive of the how-to help articles is now hosted at www.adobe.com/go/AdobeConnect_Offline_Help for on-premise customers. Administrators can download and update the local help files so their users get the latest help content.
Adobe Connect 9.6 now supports Java 8 to continue to provide a secure experience to its customers. Java 7 is no longer supported and further security patches will not be available.
Adobe Connect 9.5 comes out with a new, refreshing logo that replaces the existing logo. It is the first thing you notice when logging in to Adobe Connect.
Adobe Connect 9.5 onwards, the conversion to MP4 format happens directly on the user's machine and there is no server-side queuing. You can control the quality and the size of the final output file using the available settings.
The actual resolution of the output MP4 file depends on the screen size and the supported resolution of the machine used to create the offline recording.
See Record and playback Adobe Connect meetings for more information.
The Filmstrip mode is enhanced to ensure a better webcam video experience inside Adobe Connect. Filmstrip mode is especially useful when many users share their feed and the active speaker is in the focus. Adobe Connect 9.5 onwards, the Video Pod better recognizes the visible feeds and automatically pauses the feeds not visible to a user. This change translates in to lesser bandwidth and processing power requirements improving the overall quality of the meeting experience. When the user shuffles the feeds and brings in view the previously hidden and paused streams, Adobe Connect 9.5 automatically starts playing the now visible feeds.
The meeting connection status icon, found in the upper-right corner of a meeting room is redesigned (
) to indicate the quality of the available network connection. It depicts the meeting room connectivity status.
See Adobe Connect meeting room basics for more information.
Virtual Classroom users can now share the HTML content created using Adobe Captivate and Adobe Presenter as long as they use the add-in. The user experience to share content remains at par with other content types in the Share Pod, as this content type supports syncing, quizzes, and recording, and the supported reporting capabilities.
A few requirements to use this functionality are:
To use HTML content in a VC, all attendees are required to upgrade to the latest add-in. Adobe Connect prompts users to download the add-in when HTML content is shared.
To avoid a prompt in the middle of a VC session, pre-install the new add-in.
The Adobe Connect notifier prompts the Host or the Presenter sharing HTML content, to check if all users in the classroom are ready to view the shared HTML content. Users who cannot view the shared HTML content are marked in the Attendee Pod with 
icon against their name. The components required to display the shared HTML content automatically downloads. Participants are able to view the shared HTML content in some time. The automatic download of the required components is a one-time activity that happens without any intervention required by the user. Similarly, Adobe Connect automatically downloads the required components when a user attempts to view, for the first time, a VC recording with HTML content shared in it.
The Virtual Classroom email notification now includes instructions and the add-in download link for attendees to prepare for the session in advance. You can modify these email notifications and the instructions as required.
See About Adobe Connect courses and curricula for training for more information.
Adobe Connect 9.5 offers two new reports that allow Administrators to understand the usage of their Adobe Connect accounts. These reports are part of the System Usage reports in the Reports tab. You can download either report in CSV format for further analysis.
The Meeting Sessions Usage report provides a summary of Meeting, Seminar, or Virtual Classroom sessions that happened over a user-defined period and provides start and end time, duration, session type, total and peak participants, and so on.
The Meeting Usage report provides a summary of meeting activity over a period. For each date, it provides Peak Concurrent Meeting users and Total User Minutes.
See Generate usage reports in Adobe Connect Central for more information.
