As Director of a Session, it’s important to have information about the devices you’re operating through OpenReel to record your Subjects. This article will detail what information you have at your disposal and what information you should check when a Subject first pairs into a room before you begin recording.

When a Subject pairs into a Session room, you will notice a popup box that says “New Device Joined!”, detailing information about the device including:

Once your subject is joined to the room, you can pull this prompt back up to review by going to: Session Options > Remote Devices > Select the Device Info Button next to the device.

For Subjects using an iOS device, look in the top right corner of the Subject screen to view their battery level. They’ll want to have as close to 100% charge as possible because you don’t want them charging during recording. Recording and charging both take up a lot of processing power (though battery consumption varies depending on the device) and you could risk overheating their phone.

Since the video files are temporarily stored on the device, the remote device will need to have available space to store and upload the video file. Look to the lower right, just under the Subject screen to see the available storage on the device. This number will update in real time during the shoot. We need a minimum of 5 GB of storage available before going into a shoot.

If the phone has limited storage space you can free up space by uploading every video file after it is recorded. Once a video file is uploaded it is deleted from the phone and frees up available space.

When a user enters a room for the first time, OR Capture Runs an internet speed test. Internet speeds will not affect recording quality but will impact the flow of the shoot. Both the director’s & subject’s upload speed should be: GREATER THAN 3Mb/s for best performance.

If you experience any internet connection issues, here are some handy tips for troubleshooting.