
Improving Remote Meetings and Presentations - pmlnr
https://aaronparecki.com/2020/03/24/4/tips-and-tools-for-remote-meetings-and-presentations
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acidburnNSA
I have a $15 USB headset with a mic that comes out in front. It the sound
quality is absolutely awesome. I don't personally mind the look of a little
mic like that.

I also have my house wired with raspberry pis on WiFi hooked up to stereos on
different floors linked using snapcast. It's cool because I can pipe the audio
from a long meeting that I'm listening in on to it and then walk around the
house.

Since I can get my phone to play the snapcast feed too, even the hottub
Bluetooth speakers can now be playing the all-hands meeting ;)

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PaulRobinson
Seems to be getting HN hug of death, but my tips:

Plantronics Blackwire headsets don't cost much and the noise cancellation of
background noise on the microphone is superb. Your colleagues will thank you
for it. I don't need noise cancellation on the headphones myself, but getting
something with a decent noise cancelling mic will make life more pleasant for
others, so do invest.

One place I worked a few years back was almost entirely remote before it was
fashionable, and the #remote channel in Slack had a topic of something like
"Wires are great. Trust me: _wires_ " or similar.

I have come to agree - WiFi is more a packet loss protocol than it is a
networking protocol, especially in built-up areas with neighbours networks,
microwave ovens and other disturbances. An ethernet powerline extender giving
me effectively ethernet from my Mac mini to my DSL router might be the best
investment I've ever made for home working.

Bluetooth is possibly the same: being wireless might look like you're from the
future, but nothing beats wired headsets, keyboards and mice, period.

Zoom, WebEx, Google Hangouts, etc. all have preferences and settings. Learn
them and get used to them, and learn shortcuts. For example some people still
aren't aware you can stay on mute in zoom and just hit the spacebar when you
want to talk. This is great when you're not presenting.

Lastly, dedicated webcams are worth it _unless_ you're on an iPad Pro. I think
you'd have to spend hundreds to get a webcam as good as the front facing
camera on an iPad Pro. Otherwise, a decent Logitech camera can make you look
less tired - trust me! :-)

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goatherders
Becoming a master of the mute button is, in my book, the modern remote
equivalent of knowing how to use Excel or Salesforce.

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acidburnNSA
In Jitsi there's a cool push to talk feature where you hold down the space bar
to unmute and when you let go it mutes again.

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goatherders
What a great idea. Would love to see this in Zoom or Hangouts

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torgoguys
Zoom has this available to turn on in options (on the Windows client at
least).

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allannienhuis
isn't that the default behaviour when you're muted? pushing the spacebar
unmutes until you let go. Is the option for turning that feature OFF?

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torgoguys
There is, at least in Windows. Advanced options screen.

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SkyPuncher
I have a Logitech C920 (or very similar). I feel like he didn't even make an
attempt to make it look decent. The brightness is completely blown out (and it
is adjustable via software). I certainly wouldn't say a C920 is as good as a
dedicated camera (with a much better lens setup), but it's much better than
what's represented.

I have a less than ideal setup and I get results closer to the Canon camera.

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cs02rm0
I'd agree use of the mute button is the single biggest difference you can
probably make.

The next best free technique is possibly not using the laptop camera from the
desk. No one wants to see up your nose. There was a UK pub quiz last night
(some 180k people joined), one of the many things that people are trying
online at the moment, and the host was struggling not to show everyone the
light on his ceiling.

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m0zg
One thing the quarantine made me realize is how atrocious the image and sound
quality is for videoconferencing. It doesn't need to be atrocious in this day
and age. It's just that we don't demand a better product, so companies keep
feeding us barely functional garbage to save costs.

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thedance
Zoom is a lot smarter than this blogger implies. Even if I sit with my back to
the sun, it still tracks my face and differentially exposes the image so I am
not a silhouette.

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pmlnr
This commenter doesn't seem to understand the article is not for exclusively
for Zoom but for any video/audio recording.

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choeger
Funny thing is I cannot use my rather expensive Bose QC53 because my Bluetooth
audio insists on mono playback when using the microphone. And that really
sounds horrible.

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rgoulter
This has to do with the bandwidth of Bluetooth.
[https://www.howtogeek.com/354321/why-bluetooth-headsets-
are-...](https://www.howtogeek.com/354321/why-bluetooth-headsets-are-terrible-
on-windows-pcs/)

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dbbk
I'm surprised this is still an issue, even after Bluetooth 5. Anyone know if
there are plans to fix it?

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LasEspuelas
If you are streaming HD video, bandwidth becomes important. This is especially
true for internet services with slow upload speeds.

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tonetheman
finding those capture cards now for hdmi is not cheap anymore :(

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acidburnNSA
I found a VIDBOX on eBay that shipped in 2 days and got it yesterday to hook
up my 2012 HD camcorder as a webcam in Linux. It is an amazing upgrade and was
indeed hard to find. Luckily I already had a few HDMI mini adapters.

Last night I got a v4l2loopback working from Open Broadcast Studio with it and
now can have "pro" transitions and compositing of my camera, my screen, text,
images, etc. in Teams and WebEx or whatever. Pretty neat.

Keep trying, it's worth it.

