Finding Webinar Slides Without Following the Speaker's Camera

Technical reviewer: Victor Sineglazov, AI Scientific Advisor.

Our first slide detector missed seven of thirty known transitions in a synthetic lecture. Raising its tolerance for camera movement would not recover those transitions. The detector needed to distinguish small changes in slide text from movement elsewhere in the frame.

We were adding recorded lectures to a professional learning platform for aesthetic medicine. A slide needed a searchable representation and a time interval linking it back to the video. On October 12, 2026, we tested a simple image-difference approach before adding another model to the ingestion pipeline. The test exposed separate problems in transition detection, cropping and duplicate segments.

Build a video whose changes can be counted

The synthetic recording contained thirty slides across thirty-one showings. One slide appeared twice. Several slides built their bullet lists incrementally, another faded to black and a brief forward transition showed a slide for two seconds. A changing waveform occupied the lower-right area in place of a speaker's camera.

That waveform mattered. A detector that simply counted changed pixels could interpret the simulated speaker area as a continuous source of new slides. A detector that excluded everything moving could lose the text changes it was supposed to find.

We paired the synthetic recording with one real FDA webinar. The layouts differed: the webinar placed the slide beside a speaker camera and included full-screen title cards. The synthetic ground truth supplied known boundaries; the webinar supplied layout behavior that the generator did not reproduce.

Neither recording represented a library of camera angles or procedure videos. This was a bounded engineering test of slide-based lectures.

Different slide text can change very little of a thumbnail

The detector compared neighboring thumbnail images. At 160 by 90 pixels, lines of text become small gray bands. Replacing text inside the same slide template may change much less of the image than a viewer expects.

In the synthetic recording, adding a bullet changed up to 1.7% of the frame. Known slide transitions included changes around 2.7% and 3.0%. Quiet seconds stayed at or below 0.35%. A 5% threshold therefore removed meaningful transitions along with noise.

The threshold change recovered the known boundaries. It did not establish that the extracted image showed the entire slide or that the segment sequence was useful for indexing.

Separate scene changes from evidence about the slide region

A single region-frequency setting could not find a suitable crop in both recordings. One setting left the webinar crop covering the entire frame. A stricter setting cut off the synthetic title slide and a slide with seven lines of text.

We changed how pixels contributed to the region estimate. Changes affecting more than half the stationary pixels were treated as scene changes and excluded from that calculation. A pixel also needed at least a quarter of its changes to coincide with slide transitions before it could contribute to the slide region.

Those rules addressed different evidence. A full-screen title card should not enlarge the crop used for ordinary slides. A waveform edge should not enter that crop merely because it sometimes changes when a slide changes.

With both adjustments, the synthetic crop retained the text and excluded the waveform. The webinar crop isolated its slide area. Treating the two adjustments as independent variables made the result easier to inspect than tuning a single percentage until one example looked right.

A brief visit to the next slide can duplicate the current one

The webinar speakers sometimes opened the next slide for one or two seconds and returned. The existing handling of these brief segments merged a glimpse with the following segment. That could leave two neighboring segments representing the same image.

We added a pass that merged adjacent segments when their images differed by no more than the selected change threshold. The webinar sequence fell from eighty-one segments to seventy-one. The synthetic sequence did not change under the selected setting.

That reduction was a count of segments produced from this recording. It was not a measured reduction in model cost or a general estimate of how often speakers revisit slides. Increasing the merge threshold too far also merged genuine synthetic slides, so fewer segments alone could not choose the setting.

A correct boundary does not guarantee a complete image

The common webinar crop clipped seven full-screen inserts, including title and speaker cards. The region that worked for ordinary slides could not describe those inserts completely. The detector had found a usable recurring region while retaining a documented exception.

The later live checks on October 13 and 14 recorded all thirty synthetic boundaries within one second of ground truth. The staging run reported a maximum difference of 380 milliseconds. The real webinar produced seventy-one boundaries matching the spike to the recorded second. These checks supported the implementation's handling of those files.

They did not prove the correctness of generated slide descriptions. They also did not make every slide retrievable: one synthetic slide remained below the retrieval cutoff, as described in our case about corpus-dependent retrieval thresholds.

For the next evaluation, we would keep boundary error, crop completeness and retrieval outcomes in separate records. The seven clipped inserts belong in the crop record even when every transition has a matching timestamp.

Evidence: the October 12 video spike, October 13 and 14 live checks and October 14 release note in our development records. The synthetic recording and one webinar define the sample. We have not rerun the detector for this publication or redistributed the source video.

FAQ

Last updated: October 17, 2026

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• How long have you been in business?

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  Pharos Production has been in business since 2013, with over 13 years of experience in custom software development. During this time, we have delivered over 110 applications for 200+ clients across 28 industries, including FinTech, healthcare, crypto and e-commerce. We are rated 5/5 on Clutch based on 107 verified reviews (2026).

• What services do you provide?

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  Pharos Production provides six core service categories: AI Development (LLM applications, AI agents, machine learning and computer vision), Blockchain and Web3 (smart contracts, DeFi, tokenization on Ethereum, Solana, TON and other chains), FinTech Development (payment platforms, digital banking, KYC and AML integration), Software Development (mobile apps, web platforms, database design, UI/UX), Security and QA (code audits, penetration testing, smart contract audits, manual and automated testing) and Consulting (architecture design, MVP validation, startup consulting).

• Where is Pharos Production located?

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  Pharos Production is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (5348 Vegas Dr, Las Vegas, NV 89108), with an engineering office in Kyiv, Ukraine (44-B Eugene Konovalets Str. Suite 201, Kyiv 01133). We work with clients worldwide and provide remote collaboration across all time zones. Visit our contact page for directions and scheduling options.

• How big is your team?

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  Pharos Production has a team of 90+ engineers, including software developers, blockchain specialists, QA engineers, DevOps experts, UI/UX designers, project managers and solution architects. Our founder, Dr. Dmytro Nasyrov, holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and leads the technical direction of all projects.

• What types of customers do you serve?

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  We serve a wide range of clients, from startups and product companies to mid-sized enterprises and large institutions. Our clients include crypto exchanges, FinTech providers (like Pleenk), healthcare organizations, sportsbook operators (like Pro Gambling), e-commerce platforms and SaaS companies. Pharos Production has worked with 200+ clients across 28 industries since 2013, adapting engagement models to match each client's stage, whether it is MVP validation for a startup or enterprise-scale development for an established business.

• How is a custom software development company different from an agency?

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  A custom software development company like Pharos Production assigns one dedicated engineering team that owns your product across multiple release cycles, instead of handing it off once a contract ends. Agencies more often rotate staff between clients and optimize for fast delivery over long-term product ownership.

  Pharos Production keeps the same team on your codebase through 2-week sprints, so there is no re-onboarding cost each time you request a new feature.

• How much does custom software development cost?

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  Custom software development costs vary based on project scope and complexity. At Pharos Production, typical project ranges are: MVP development ($10,000-$25,000), suitable for startups validating a product idea; full-fledged production ($25,000-$50,000), for established businesses scaling a proven concept; and full-cycle development ($50,000-$80,000+), for complex enterprise-grade systems. These ranges include architecture design, development, QA testing and deployment. Hourly rates range from $50 to $99 depending on role and seniority. Final pricing depends on technology stack, number of integrations and engagement model (staff augmentation, dedicated team or project outsourcing).

• How long does it take to develop a custom software application?

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  Development timelines depend on scope and complexity. At Pharos Production, a typical MVP takes 2-4 months, a production-ready application takes 4-8 months and a complex enterprise system can take 8-12+ months. We use an agile methodology with 2-week sprints, delivering working increments after each sprint. Every sprint includes a retrospective, progress report and planning session for the next iteration. This approach ensures transparency and allows businesses to launch faster by prioritizing high-impact features first. Get a timeline estimate for your project.

• What industries does Pharos Production serve?

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  Pharos Production serves 28 industries: FinTech, MiCA Compliance, Banking, Insurance, Crypto, Healthcare, Fitness, E-Commerce, Food & Restaurant, On-Demand, Manufacturing, Automotive, Energy, Oil & Gas, Supply Chain, Construction, Real Estate, Gaming, Streaming, Media, Telecom, Education, Aviation, Travel, Logistics, Marketing, Agriculture and Recommender Systems. Our deepest expertise is in FinTech, blockchain and healthcare, where we have delivered compliance-ready platforms (HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR) and high-load systems handling thousands of concurrent users. For the latest industry insights, read our guides on FinTech trends in 2026 and the Web3 technology stack.

• Why hire a software development company instead of building in-house?

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  Hiring a software development company offers faster time-to-market, lower upfront costs and access to specialized expertise without long-term employment commitments. According to Deloitte's 2024 Global Outsourcing Survey, 57% of companies outsource software development to access skills they cannot hire internally.

  Factor	In-house team	Software development company
  Time to assemble	3-6 months (recruiting + onboarding)	1-2 weeks
  Upfront cost	High (salaries, benefits, equipment)	Lower (project-based pricing)
  Specialized expertise	Limited to who you can hire locally	Access to 90+ engineers across blockchain, AI, FinTech
  Scalability	Slow (each new hire takes months)	Fast (scale up or down per sprint)
  Long-term commitment	Full-time employment contracts	Flexible engagement models
  Risk	High if key engineers leave	Company ensures continuity and knowledge transfer

  For businesses that need blockchain, AI or high-load architecture expertise, outsourcing to a specialized firm like Pharos Production reduces risk and accelerates delivery.

• What projects does Pharos Production not take on?

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  Pharos Production focuses on mid-to-large custom software projects with budgets starting at $10,000. We do not take on template-based websites, WordPress theme customization or short-term contracts under one month. We also do not provide non-technical staffing (marketing, sales or design-only roles). Our strongest fit is blockchain, FinTech and healthcare projects where security, compliance and high-load architecture are critical. For smaller projects or MVPs under $10,000, we recommend exploring freelance platforms or no-code tools as a more cost-effective starting point.

• Why does Pharos Production use agile methodology?

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  We use agile with 2-week sprints because it reduces the risk of building features that miss the mark. Each sprint ends with a working demo, a retrospective and a plan for the next iteration.

  This means clients see progress every 14 days and can adjust priorities based on real results, not assumptions. We chose this approach after years of experience showing that rigid, fixed-scope contracts lead to scope creep, missed deadlines and products that do not match market needs by launch day.

• When should you NOT hire a custom software development company?

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  Custom development is not the right choice in every situation. You should not hire a custom software company if: your problem is fully solved by an existing SaaS product (e.g. Shopify for e-commerce, Salesforce for CRM); your budget is under $10,000 and timeline is under 4 weeks; you need a simple landing page or marketing website (WordPress or Webflow is faster and cheaper); or you are still validating the idea and have not spoken to potential users yet.

  In these cases, off-the-shelf tools or no-code platforms offer better ROI. Custom development makes sense when you need unique workflows, regulatory compliance, high-load architecture or competitive differentiation that packaged software cannot provide.

• What kind of projects has Pharos Production delivered?

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  Here are three anonymized examples from our recent delivery history:

  FinTech startup - payment platform (MVP)
  Scope: mobile app + backend API with bank-grade encryption. Team: 4 engineers, 1 QA. Timeline: 10 weeks. Budget: $38,000. Result: launched on schedule, processed $2M+ in transactions within the first quarter.

  Healthcare provider - patient portal (Full product)
  Scope: HIPAA-aligned web platform with EHR integration, appointment scheduling and telemedicine. Team: 6 engineers, 1 DevOps, 2 QA. Timeline: 6 months. Budget: $120,000. Result: 15,000+ active patients, zero compliance violations in two annual audits.

  Crypto exchange - trading engine (Complex)
  Scope: high-load matching engine handling 50,000+ orders per second, multi-chain wallet infrastructure on Ethereum and Solana. Team: 8 engineers, 2 QA, 1 security auditor. Timeline: 11 months. Budget: $340,000. Result: 99.97% uptime, passed three independent security audits.

  See more projects: NoMoreBets, Pulse, Sagas, Gambit Stream and Pleenk. For the full portfolio, visit our case studies. Learn more about the technology behind these projects in our guide to stablecoins and crypto infrastructure.

Dmytro Ihnatov is the Lead Backend Developer at Pharos Production. He documents backend architecture and research experiments from the team's work on a professional learning platform for aesthetic medicine.