Dial-in

After joining a conference room, you can decide whether to use a microphone or listen only.
(If only the "Listen only" option appears, the use of the microphone for viewers of the conference has been restricted by the organizers).

Selection dialog for audio dial-in
Audio selection

If you are dialing in with Microphone, please turn it on first. If you have not given permission for the used BigBlueButton server in the past, your web browser will ask you for permission to access your hardware after selecting the option. In some web browsers you can already select the desired microphone you want to use, otherwise you will be automatically dialed in with the default device. Then allow the access.

Dialog microphone permission Firefox
Firefox permission dialog
Chrome permission dialog
Chrome permission dialog

Inhaltsverzeichnis

The connection to the audio conference is now established.

connection establishment
connection establishment

You have now joined the room. In the lower bar the buttons for microphone and audio are active. Your microphone can be (de)activated via the microphone button, you can leave the audio conference via the second button with telephone symbol:

Darstellung des Mikrofon- und Audio-Buttons

If you only want to listen, select the "Listen only" option. Then you can hear what is said in the room and your microphone is deactivated. This is indicated by the button with the headphone icon, which you can also use to leave the audio conference, in the bar at the bottom:

Darstellung des Audio-Buttons

Mute notification

If you are muted and talking, a notification appears above the media control. If you do not want to continue receiving the notification, you can click on it so that it does not appear until the next time you mute the microphone.

Hint about mute

Microphone change

If you want to change the microphone, call up the corresponding menu via the Audio button and select the appropriate device in the upper section "Microphones". In the lower section, you can also set the desired speakers for audio output.

Audio menu for selecting microphone and loudspeaker

Firefox sometimes does not display devices under Speakers. To change the browser's settings, type "about:config" in the address bar and press Enter. Then you have to confirm that you really want to change the configuration. You can find the option "media.setsinkid.enabled" using the search field and change it to "true" by clicking on the arrow symbol to the right of it.

Echo test

To help you join a conference more quickly, the echo test does not appear when you enter a BigBlueButtons room at TU Dresden.
All subsequent joins to the audio conference include the echo test, so you can test your microphone by joining again. To do this, first leave the audio conference: Call up the corresponding menu via the audio button with the telephone symbol and click on the lowest button "Leave audio".

Audio menu with "Leave audio" option highlighted

Click the audio button again with the phone icon now crossed out to re-establish the audio connection.

illustration of the join audio button

Then select "Microphone" again in the dialog and you will get to the echo test.

Echo test
Echo test

When you say something into your microphone, you should be able to hear yourself offset slightly. If this is the case, confirm with "Yes". Now you are connected to the audio conference again.

Selecting "No" will take you to the audio settings, where you can select the microphone and speakers and test the latter. After you have made the correct configuration, "Retry" will take you back to the echo test.

Dialog for audio settings
Audio settings

Music transmission

In general, BigBlueButton is not suitable for transmitting music via the microphone, since automatic optimizations of the audio transmission are carried out on many levels (driver, operating system, web browser), which should lead to a better voice quality. Among other things, echo and noise suppression as well as automatic gain control are used. You can turn off the optimization by the web browser via the audio filter option in the room settings. This should allow music to be transmitted better. However, you should make sure to use a headset to suppress echoes. When speaking, on the other hand, it is recommended to activate the audio filters.

Tips

When connection an external microphone to a cmputer running Windows 10, it may be disabled in the settings and must be manually reactivated.