Hangouts On Air – some questions

I did a practice run with some selfless volunteers last night using Hangouts On Air.

Overall, I was pleased enough that I’ll use it for my upcoming video panel discussion this weekend.

I do have some questions, though, and if there are users out there with more experience at this than I have who can answer, that would very much help me.

* Is there a way to restart a broadcast once you stop? Once I clicked “End Broadcast” to stop recording, it seems the only way to restart and capture another “segment” is to go into the open screen, re-invite everyone (and ensure they’re off the previous call), and start all over again.

* Is there a way to NOT broadcast this to the entire planet? I guess I don’t mind, but I’d really like to capture the video, edit it on my own, and then release it into the wild.

* Hangouts “Lower Third.” It works great for me, but occasionally not for others. Does it always work if you use Chrome? Are there extensions or applications that interfere with it? Will it work with any browser? Having the name and affiliation of each speaker on the screen as they talk is a great help to understanding.

* For moderation purposes . . .is there a good way, or any way, to “recognize” a speaker so that everyone knows who “has the ball,” so to speak? Would be quite useful since there will be as many as eight people potentially chatting at once!

Can’t wait to see how this works out, and I hope it’s at least as good as the interview I did with +Sean Punch. But feeling a little nervous at the number of things that could go wrong that don’t involve the moderator acting like an ass.