- Most people use low quality microphones and webcams, which makes them look and sound bad.
- There is a delay between your statement and the moment when your interlocutor hears it - because of this it is difficult to take turns speaking.
- If you use headphones, your voice will be hard to hear.
- Echo cancellation prevents you from speaking while someone else is speaking. As a result, the conversation is not going so smoothly.
I wondered how much nicer video calls would be if I could fix all these problems. Therefore, I spent an unreasonable amount of time fiddling with gadgets and programs. In this article, I'll summarize everything I've learned. In my opinion, these recommendations were not in vain: talking with friends, whose equipment is not worse than mine, I did not get tired even after four hours.
Ben, don't make me read your 4500 word Talmud, just explain what to do.
Here is the order in which I would arrange my advice for me from the past (of course, your personal rating may be different - it all depends on the specific situation):
- Do not work in an area where your noise may disturb other people, and vice versa.
- ($10-30) . , , . , โ , WiFi.
- ($100) โ , .
- ($30) ( -). , . . , , , .
- Zoom โ , , . ยซ ยป, .
- ($200) , Zoom . , . iPad Sidecar. , portable monitor. , .
- , . , . , , .
- ($20-80, ) -. Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon Sony. HDMI, HDMI-. , [dummy battery].
- ($40 ) - Camo [ iOS; Android DroidCamX / . .].
- ($350) , , / , . . .
There is nothing worse for video calls than connection problems. In this case, problems are divided into several types:
- If your connection gets worse, then your voice is interrupted - listening to such a sound is tiring, and it harms the conversation process.
- Poor communication increases delays - the time between the moment you say the phrase and the moment when the other person hears it. Because of the long delays, these unpleasant moments happen โsay you; no, you first. "
- Finally, a poor connection limits bandwidth, which affects picture quality. When using a webcam, this is not so important, but by the end of the post, you may have got a good camera for which it will already matter.
I already wrote a separate article about finding flaws in your home network to improve the quality of video calls, but, in fact, most of the connection problems are due to the fact that WiFi sucks and you can avoid them without using WiFi. Therefore, first try running an Ethernet cable from your router to your computer. If delays and interruptions in communication have not disappeared, or if you cannot stretch the cable, then read the troubleshooting instructions .
Audio
The improvement in the picture is immediately evident and easy to notice. However, the reason why you generally participate in a video call is primarily audio, and sound is much more important. Therefore, we give priority to him.
Move away from other people
Basic requirement. A coworking space or a cafe is fun if you keep quiet all day. However, natural communication is difficult if you are constantly worried about noise levels. If you are going to chat for more than 5 minutes, find yourself a separate place.
If you are determined to make video calls in noisy and crowded places, ignore the next section. Your calls will be of poor quality anyway - unless you can minimize the damage by buying a good head- mounted microphone and installing yourself krisp.ai [or Nvidia RTX Voice / approx. transl.].
Apparently, if you are talking to someone in a noisy place, you can use krisp.ai to filter out their noise, although I haven't tried that.
Get duplex audio without echo
One of the key ingredients of natural voice communication is the ability for both participants to speak and hear the other person at the same time (duplex). Duplex audio is important because it allows you to speak simultaneously with the other person.
You might think that dubbing should rarely happen, as interrupting another person is rude. For the most part, this is true, but speech often overlaps a little to regulate the order of the conversation (when, for example, the interlocutor deviates from the topic), or simply to confirm that we are listening ("aha", "yes, yes" ).
The problem with duplex audio is that when someone speaks, their voice comes from the computer's speakers and back into the microphone. If your computer does not turn off the microphone, the interlocutor will hear an "echo" of his own voice, which is extremely annoying. Therefore, the video communication program tries to filter the sound coming from the speakers to the microphone by doing echo cancellation.
Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to remove only speaker echo from the data stream from the microphone. Therefore, sometimes the software simply mutes your microphone when your interlocutor speaks. If you tried to say something to the interlocutor, and heard how the sound from him is slightly interrupted, you are faced with exactly this.
If your listeners cannot tell you something while you are speaking, it is difficult to know if they are keeping up with you, and it is more difficult to agree on whose turn it is to speak. This makes the conversation feel less natural, especially when there are several people to talk to.
For duplex audio, you will need (a) an audio device that does not produce echoes, and (b) convince your calling software not to try to suppress these echoes.
(a) Audio device does not echo - that is, your microphone should not pick up sound coming from the speakers. In practice, this means that the speakers must be headphones.
(b) Convincing your calling software not to try to suppress this echo turned out to be surprisingly difficult - as each program has its own understanding of when to enable echo cancellation.
I've run my own tests of echo cancellation systems for Zoom, Skype and Hangouts in Chrome and Firefox. I opened a chat between two computers with headphones connected - in this situation, the echo does not need to be suppressed. Then I turned on the music playback into one of the microphones. In another I talked and listened if the music was getting quieter.
Zoom, Skype, and Hangouts in Firefox muffle the audio volume when I speak, which means they can suppress echoes a bit. In Hangouts on Chrome, the audio was completely muted during a call. In Zoom, I was able to turn suppression off completely by enabling the "use original audio" setting, which can be enabled permanently for certain devices. I recommend doing this.
Throw out your wireless headphones
All of the hardware I recommend in this article is wired - not Bluetooth. In theory, Bluetooth should be comfortable, but in practice it has a bunch of terrible problems with audio latency, quality, and reliability. In addition, it seems to me that open headphones with Bluetooth do not exist [ there are wireless, but not Bluetooth / approx. transl.].
Hear yourself with open headphones
Most of the headphones are closed - they form an acoustic shield for the ears, dampening external sounds. This is good for noise isolation when listening to music. This is bad for calls because you cannot hear your own voice, it seems muffled and unnatural. The same goes for almost all earplugs.
When I can't hear my own voice, I am tempted to speak louder during calls. Because of this, the ligaments get tired, and I get annoyed.
To avoid this, you can buy open headphones, which have a mesh instead of a cover. I bought Philips SHP9500and I really like them. Others, however, I have not tested. I took not the best quality headphones, because during calls the audio quality is limited by the quality of other people's microphones - if you want to listen to music in them at the same time, you may want to buy something more serious.
An additional plus of open headphones is that they are not so hot in them. I didn't know how different it would feel to wearing them, but it's amazing to be able to wear the headphones all day without overheating your ears!
Open headphones spread sound, so everyone around you can hear the other person too. If you have your own space, this is not a problem, but they are not suitable for common areas. You might think that the sound will go into the microphone - however, I checked, and the sound is too quiet, unless you crank the volume.
Don't turn off the sound
This does not directly relate to equipment, but affects its choice. To quote Matt Mullenweg, the founder of one of the first and largest companies to work entirely remotely:
One of my unorthodox recommendations for audio and video calls when working remotely is not to mute the sound, if possible. When you speak in silent chat, it sounds unnatural and weird, and you feel like you are alone, even if you see the faces of others. If you ask someone a question, or they want to insert something of their own, you have to wait for them to turn the sound back on. Also, I don't like the tradition of turning on the sound to get attention, as it usually takes root in meetings where people don't listen to each other, but just wait their turn to speak.I agree with this and prefer that the people I talk to don't turn off their microphones, unless someone's microphone is so bad that it picks up too much noise. You won't have that problem when you ...
Buy a better microphone
Most built-in microphones, even those found on fancy headsets, sound so bad that they bleed out of your ears (the microphone in the 2020 MacBook Pro is normal). Buy a better microphone and you will sound much nicer to your colleagues. Hear me reading Edward Lear on different microphones:
2014 iMac - sounds like a tin, and a tin is.
Jabra Evolve 70 - sounds like you have a runny nose
2020 MacBook Pro 13 "-" studio quality ", yeah, of course. Moderate runny nose.
V-Moda BoomPro is a stupid name, it costs $ 30, but it sounds fine.
Best quality without issue is the last option, the V-Moda BoomPro (use a pop filter), which connects to the headphones instead of the standard 3.5mm cable.
That is, the cable must be removed from your headphones. If this is not available to you, the more expensive option would be the Antlion ModMic , which works with any headphones for the price of a separate wire. There are also wireless options, but due to quality and latency issues, it's best not to use them.
BoomPro sounds much clearer without the kind of ducking that all headset microphones suffer from. It also picks up less background noise than any microphone, simply because it's closer to your mouth, making it easier for you to communicate without mute. But it doesn't sound as natural as a separate mic not for headsets.
If you want a microphone that produces a more natural sound, you need something like the AT2005 on a holder that screws to the table. If you do not want the microphone to be visible, the camera will need to adjust the zoom and / or crop of the picture. Compare the sound with the BoomPro (use headphones to hear the difference better):
BoomPro
AT2005
I tested several different microphones and listened to more recordings. I did not learn to distinguish a very slight difference in quality, but my preliminary conclusions are as follows:
- The distance from the mouth to the microphone is more important than all other parameters. For all the microphones I've tested, the 15cm versus 30cm difference sounds like I'm swapping a microphone for another.
Simply from a microphone's point of view, doubling the distance translates into a 4x decrease in volume, or, equivalently, makes the background noise 4x louder. In addition, the echo of the voice becomes louder as well, which makes the microphone sound boomy.
Here are two different microphones that record sound from a distance of 15 cm and 30 cm:
Blue Yeti, 15 cm
Blue Yeti, 30 cm
AT2005USB, 15 cm
AT2005USB, 30 cm
- , โ . , Blue Yeti โ , AT2005USB โ . , , , . , , . , - .
- $50 , . , , โ , . YouTube , , . , .
On this basis, I am ready to recommend the AT2005 as a well-recommended โdoesn't sound like crapโ microphone that can be attached to the holder with minimal problems.
Comparison of other microphones for further study of the issue ( link , link , link , link ).
Listen to yourself
In video calls, unlike in real life, you hear not the same thing that your interlocutor hears. Microphones are a complex topic, so your particular set of equipment means a lot. Therefore, it is very important to listen to how you sound. This can be done using a web application such as miccheck.me . The main problems of microphones are explosive sounds and harsh hiss, so choose offers that have such sounds.
If these consonants sound bad, change the screen or microphone location. For example, place the microphone on your headset near the corner of your mouth, not in front of it, so you don't breathe or spit into it.
Video
Use a separate monitor
Recently I started to display all active calls in full screen mode on the main monitor with a diagonal of 27 ", and use the second monitor for notes and other tasks. It turned out that this makes me immerse in communication in a completely different way. Surprisingly, this approach made me focus on the conversation and not be distracted.Possible reasons:
- In windowed mode, Zoom shows you yourself in a separate window, but in full-screen mode there is no separate window with a title, the window is small (and you can also hide it). It turns out that there is more screen space for other people's videos.
- By removing all window titles and frames, you pay less attention to the fact that you are talking through the computer - the interface does not distract you.
- In windowed mode, I sometimes switch to another window and then forget to switch back. As a result, I spend much less time looking at people, and the presence seems less complete.
I use an iPad for this, but you can also buy the so-called. A "portable monitor" is no more than $ 200, which works well for this purpose.
Improve lighting
The best way to get a sharper picture on any camera is to get more light into the sensor. Laptop cameras have terrible quality, but a laptop camera in good lighting will perform better than a fashion camera in poor light.
2014 iMac Webcam Destroyed by Backlighting The
fancy Sony A6000 also has problems in such cases
The 2014 iMac Webcam produces this picture when a bright light source is directed at the wall in front of me
Two basic lighting rules are as follows:
- More diffused light on the face to brighten the background. Also, the better the scene is lit, the less grainy the picture will be.
- , . โ , , [, , ยซ ยป / . .].
- , ( , ).
- , . ( ) , โ , , . , , โ .
This may be controversial, but I'm speaking from the point of view of being completely immersed in dialogue - not in terms of expressing your personality, wanting to make your coworkers laugh, or hiding a pile of dirty laundry out of sight. In such cases, of course, an artificial background can be used - at the cost of losing the dive.
In Zoom, the background separation algorithm does not work perfectly, it often removes parts of the hair or body, sometimes the background shines through the eyes, etc. Some of the real background will be visible next to the hair, etc.
If you have a good camera and privacy, the picture will be less distracting and more realistic if you don't use an artificial background.
Don't use webcams
It's probably obvious that laptop webcams suck. Even if they are not positioned so that they look into the nostrils , the image from them will be grainy, blurry, and their dynamic range will be tiny.
But it's less obvious that external webcams perform virtually no better. This surprised me, since an expensive webcam like the Logitech Brio costs about two-thirds of a used camera with an interchangeable lens and has one thing to do. At the same time, of course, the Brio picture gives the bestthan most other webcams - and yet much worse than a real camera. For example, I bought myself a Logitech C920, the "best webcam" from Wirecutter's review, but it didn't do much better than the webcam from a six-year-old iMac - largely due to the highly controversial color balance and exposure settings.
The C920 allows you to tweak these parameters, but it took me 2 hours to figure out how to do it, after which I had to purchase a third-party app of terrible quality. Plus, manual adjustments mean you have to change these settings every time the lighting changes throughout the day, which is very annoying.
Camera iMac 2014
Logitech C920 - I, of course, pale skin, but not that much.
Use your smartphone
I expected webcams to be better than smartphones as there is no longer any reason for them to exist. Turns out I was wrong - webcams really don't have much of a reason to exist. Smartphones beat them in terms of sensor size and quality of materials. For example, the iPhone 11 camera costs $ 74.5 and has a 1 / 2.55 "sensor , while the Logitech C920 costs $ 80 and has a 1/3" sensor . So if you need an external webcam, use your smartphone.
Obviously, if your smartphone is inexpensive, the C920 will have better hardware. However, the range of cases in which buying a webcam is better than buying a more expensive smartphone or entry-level camera seems quite narrow.
Logitech C920
iPhone XR with Reincubate Camo App
I've been testing two apps for converting a smartphone into a webcam for a while: Camo and EpocCam . EpocCam is cheaper ($ 8 versus $ 40), but it has a little more glitches (both apps sometimes crash). Both have a free period with a watermark over the image.
The easiest way to mount your smartphone is on a flexible holder . It seemed like you could find a smaller device for attaching your phone to your monitor, but the best I could find was this clip . It covers part of the image, does not have fine adjustment of rotation and is not mounted on rounded monitors such as iMac.
... Or a real camera
Even inexpensive "real" cameras in terms of picture quality will give a smartphone a hundred points ahead. The picture will be clearer, the background will be pleasantly blurred, and all this will draw attention to your face, distracting it from the mountains of dirty laundry.
iPhone XR with Camo
Sony A6000. Its dynamic range is worse, but the image is much sharper.
This is arguably the most notable improvement on the list. I started using my camera when I was giving a presentation at the !! con conference , and received compliments from a couple of dozen colleagues and speakers.
Unfortunately, cameras are not that user-friendly and it takes a lot of work to adapt them for webcams. Non-obvious tips for those who decide to reproduce my set, Sony A6000 + Elgato CamLink 4k:
- , .
- Sony A6000 Video. HDMI , .
- , .
I'm not sure which model will be the best as there are now so many manufacturers offering drivers to turn cameras into webcams. Before the release of the drivers, the Sony A6000 was the most popular recommendation for streaming cameras. It is also often recommended as an entry-level mirrorless camera. But for Mac it can only be used with an HDMI grabber, and for Canon / Fujifilm it is not needed. At the same time Sony promises to release the driver for Mac in "August 2020".
It is better to buy a used camera from a reputable seller ( Keh , B&H , Lens Authority ), since a random Amazon seller may not be able to check the performance of a used camera well enough.
Here's my set of equipment, although I don't necessarily recommend it:
- Sony A6000.
- 16-50mm ฦ/3.5โ5.6 PZ OSS ( 18โ55mm ฦ/3.5-5.6 OSS ).
- Elgato Camlink 4k.
- HDMI to Micro HDMI ( HDMI- A6000 !)
- ( , ).
The main thing that I learned from this experiment is that video calls, like wireless communication, are not working well yet. Each piece of equipment in the kit has its own quirks, which makes it very difficult to choose the right hardware and use it correctly. The software does the dumbest things that you won't notice if you don't know what to look for. You never hear how you sound yourself, so if you sound bad, you won't know. And the causes of many of those problems that you can see, you can hardly trace, since there is no good diagnosis.
If there was a $ 2,000 device that renders this article useless, my employer would buy it without a second thought - as probably any other telecom company. But he is not.