[Sam]

Whenever I start a session 90% of the time I have to go into the video settings to change the pixel from 640 to 720 to refresh the screen.

[David Liao]

Dear Sam,

Thank you for your message. Could you share the computer (Windows or Mac) and webcam you’re using?

Is all video (yours and other musicians’) really dark, or just video from your webcam? If it’s just the video from your webcam, could you see whether the same problem happens when you try another webcam? (You can test in a session just by yourself).

If you’re on Windows, could you update your computer’s graphics and camera drivers? These may be downloaded from your computer manufacturer’s website. Alternatively, update graphics and webcam drivers through the Device Manager using Microsoft’s instructions.

Thank you,
David Liao

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by David Liao.

[Leanne]

I am having the same problem with my student. She is running a newly purchased laptop with Windows 11. She is able to see her video feed, and I can see both her video and my own video on my laptop (MBA M1 chip), but she can not see my video feed clearly at all. It apparently looks like a very dark room, she can see some movement from my waving hands and there are little blue and red dots, but no way to adjust/correct things in Far Play. Both our audio feeds are great.

We also were just using Zoom for part of her lesson, where we used the same computer/camera settings for both of us, and there were no problems, just the zoom audio feed quality was not as good, as usual.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 6 days ago by Leanne.

[David Liao]

Dear Leanne,

Thanks for your helpful description. Could you try suggestion 1 below first? If that doesn’t work, please try suggestion 2, etc.

1. During a video chat, click the Video menu at the top of your Mac’s screen, click Video Preferences, change “Your max resolution (width in pixels):” from 640 to 320, and then press OK. If that doesn’t fix the video your student sees, try changing your resolution to 720. If your video still looks dark on your student’s screen, ask her to click the Options menu in her FarPlay Video window, click Video Preferences, change “Your max resolution (width in pixels):” from 640 to 320, and then press OK. She can also try a resolution of 720, if needed. Screenshots of these settings are available for Mac and for Windows.
2. Please ask your student to try downgrading to FarPlay 1.2.7 for Windows (download here).
3. Recommend that your student update her graphics drivers in Windows’s Device Manager using Microsoft’s instructions.
4. Could the student share the model of PC she’s using?

Thank you,
David Liao

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 6 days ago by David Liao.
• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 6 days ago by David Liao.