Watch movie on my computer w/friends: Zoom? Discord? Skype? GChat?

December 26, 2020 12:09 PM

Six people want to watch the same movie at the same time, but it's a video file on my computer, not something on Netflix or whatever. What's the easiest/cheapest (free would be great) way to do this?

We want to be able to pause and chat and then resume without having to do "okay, I'm at 1.06.14..." synching and such--we only want one source for the A/V.

I teach webinars on a platform called Zoho that allows me to share my screen and play videos for the students who are logged in to the webinar; the audio comes from my computer's microphone picking up my computer's speakers. It seems to work okay. I don't know anything about Zoho other than how to navigate it, though (my employer set it all up).

What's the smartest way to go about watching a movie that's on my hard drive with six people online while at the same time being able to hear each other and talk to each other?

posted by tzikeh to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

Cytube works well for streaming like that. You'll need to upload the video somewhere - people often do a private Youtube video (of the "only people with link can view" kind) or Google Drive (requires an extra script), but it's watched through the Cytube page, controlled by the host, and text chat happens there as well. Voice chat would require something else running in parallel.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:19 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I'm sorry I should have been more detailed: we must have audio chat as part of it, preferably A/V chat.
posted by tzikeh at 12:54 PM on December 26, 2020

We've had some success in using Discord for this. Last spring though, Discord "improved" the format so that the video was no longer showing full-screen, but showing smaller within a frame that seemed to have some options for scrolling to other functions to the left and right. I'm not sure if this has changed back as we've moved to simultaneously running Discord for voice chat and Plex for video.
posted by past unusual at 1:07 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

Zoom works really well for this. One person can share their screen, and everyone will see what they're seeing with an overlay of the video chat. You just need to check the box that says "Share computer audio" when you share your screen, and it will directly share whatever audio your computer is playing directly, without having to go through the speakers -> microphones route with the attendant loss of quality.

Two caveats:

- Zoom audio tends to come in pretty loud, so you may need to lower the volume on the video player way down in order for people to be able to hear each other talk.
- You'll need someone with a paid Zoom account to host the meeting if you want it to last longer than 40 minutes.
posted by firechicago at 1:15 PM on December 26, 2020 [3 favorites]

1. I thought i heard that Zoom suspended the 40-minute limit during covid.
2. If not, when the call ends, pause the movie and start up the call again.
posted by scorpia22 at 2:11 PM on December 26, 2020

We tried this with zoom and the result was unwatchable. Horrible audio and choppy video. So I would do a test and make sure your upload speeds are fast enough to host this in an acceptable way. Someone way smarter than I on here will know what the requirements are.
posted by miles1972 at 2:32 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]

Seems zoom unlimited is only certain days this week. From their website:

Here are the dates and times for unlimited meetings:

10 a.m. ET Thursday, Dec. 17, to 6 a.m. ET Saturday, Dec. 19
10 a.m. ET Wednesday, Dec. 23, to 6 a.m. ET Saturday, Dec. 26
10 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Dec. 30, to 6 a.m. ET on Saturday, Jan. 2
posted by AMyNameIs at 2:33 PM on December 26, 2020

You may get the best clarity here by streaming the video via Kast and then doing voice chat on Discord.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 2:37 PM on December 26, 2020

The MST Club does a watch event, uses cytube.
posted by theora55 at 3:04 PM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]

Discord, Kast+Discord, or Kosmi+Discord have been my most successful approaches in this space
posted by CrystalDave at 3:09 PM on December 26, 2020

When you share your screen on zoom, you need to check the box that says “optimize for video clip playback.” This will help keep the video smooth and keep audio and video in sync. If you check that box I have found zoom to work quite well for this.
posted by mekily at 3:16 PM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

Syncplay is what you’re looking for. We’ve been using it for more than a year to do a film club with a group of friends in different cities. Everyone downloads the same file (so someone has to coordinate getting & distributing it), then the app syncs, keeps time, and pauses for everyone simultaneously. (It requires a little bit of setup to make sure everyone’s using the right settings, so plan for time accordingly.)

For audio, we use Discord with a mic setup, and have successfully used Zoom for a different group-watch project. This can take some adjusting, as the mic can pick up the audio sometimes, so it helps if people watch with headphones, or if non-headphone users turn the volume down a bit and use subtitles.

We also had a great experience this weekend setting up a Discord stream that people could tune into at their leisure. If you go with that setup, you’ll need a different computer/account to join as an audio/video user if you’re the one sharing screen.
posted by lhall at 1:41 AM on December 27, 2020 [2 favorites]