Webcam/video chat options - The Bear and Badger

Facewon

So is it just a mixed bag of stuff?

Suddenly everyone is using zoom? It seems so meh.

I skype with my parents. Does that do groups?

Hangouts is going.

Whatapp doesnt do vid on laptop.

Discord is gaming focused, but does it actually win a bit? Video on phone and laptop? Group video?

Lay it out folks. And should we be adding handles to support thread and chatting?

GooberTheHat

For business, I would say teams is your best bet.

For family I use Skype on the xbox with the kinect. Its great quality and nice and wide so everyone can get in the picture on the sofa.

poprock

I’ve been having to jump between different apps for calls with different clients. Been using Skype, Microsoft Teams and Zoom. They all do much the same thing, at a basic ‘making video calls’ level.

FaceTime is best if you’re all on iPhones or iPads. Great pic quality.

Houseparty is the one folk seem to be using for non-work social stuff.

Teams seems to be the most secure, so is favoured by bigger organisations who have the IT depts to get everyone set up properly on it. And it’s well integrated with Office etc, for sharing presentations and stuff.

I dunno. They all work fine.

Main thing I’ve learned is that having an external speaker/mic makes a huge difference. I have a Bang & Olufsen bluetooth speaker, and it turns out that works as a conference call mic as well. It keeps the sound of me typing from overwhelming the video call (which happens a LOT when everybody is on laptops).

afgavinstan

Me and the gf have been WhatsApp vid calling a lot as we're apart. Insta has that function now too and it's pretty good.

nick_md

Is hangouts going? I use it everyday, and Teams for calls with publishers.

Have also used High5 and Skype in the past. As long as it works I'm happy.

@pop excessive typing that isn't part of the meeting itself (i.e. isn't taking notes, which is fine) during meetings really annoys me, like reeeeeally fucks me off. I find it incredibly rude. It happens quite a lot to me, people continuing to work whilst 'just sitting in' your meeting. If you need to work then don't attend the meeting. I normally try to keep my laptop lid half shut to show I'm giving my full attention, and just check periodically.

Sometimes I'll stop talking in a meeting after covering a particular section and look around, wait for those typing (who often are smiling so you know they're chatting away to their partner or mates) to realise. It really fucks me off.

Bit of a rant, sorry!

Wookienopants

I use WhatsApp video for chatting with my mum. My wife uses Facebook video for her parents but my dad has no internet access at his place and only has an old Nokia phone with no internet capabilities. So I can't use video chat with him which means he hasn't seen his grandkids in weeks and probably won't for a few months yet

nick_md

Can he get mail, wooks? Old school Polaroid photo posted once a week with humourous updates could be great.

davyK

Six of used the Houseparty app last night in place of our regular Wednesday night get together. Worked really well.

You can also play a few silly games like trivia quiz - seemed to work but we were only investigating what it could do. I put some ambient music on the hifi and sat close to it so the boys could here it and we drank and talked shit from 9pm - after 1am.

davyK

nick_md wrote:

Is hangouts going? I use it everyday, and Teams for calls with publishers. Have also used High5 and Skype in the past. As long as it works I'm happy. @pop excessive typing that isn't part of the meeting itself (i.e. isn't taking notes, which is fine) during meetings really annoys me, like reeeeeally fucks me off. I find it incredibly rude. It happens quite a lot to me, people continuing to work whilst 'just sitting in' your meeting. If you need to work then don't attend the meeting. I normally try to keep my laptop lid half shut to show I'm giving my full attention, and just check periodically. Sometimes I'll stop talking in a meeting after covering a particular section and look around, wait for those typing (who often are smiling so you know they're chatting away to their partner or mates) to realise. It really fucks me off. Bit of a rant, sorry!

If typing a lot or just listening - mute your mic - we have had that on occasion if someone is taking notes / actions etc.

nick_md

davyK wrote:

nick_md wrote:

Is hangouts going? I use it everyday, and Teams for calls with publishers. Have also used High5 and Skype in the past. As long as it works I'm happy. @pop excessive typing that isn't part of the meeting itself (i.e. isn't taking notes, which is fine) during meetings really annoys me, like reeeeeally fucks me off. I find it incredibly rude. It happens quite a lot to me, people continuing to work whilst 'just sitting in' your meeting. If you need to work then don't attend the meeting. I normally try to keep my laptop lid half shut to show I'm giving my full attention, and just check periodically. Sometimes I'll stop talking in a meeting after covering a particular section and look around, wait for those typing (who often are smiling so you know they're chatting away to their partner or mates) to realise. It really fucks me off. Bit of a rant, sorry!

If typing a lot or just listening - mute your mic - we have had that on occasion if someone is taking notes / actions etc.

Yeah I've had clients ask if people can stop typing because they hear it through the chat room.

I'm talking people in the same room as me though, hammering away on a keyboard throughout the whole meeting, it's rude imo. If you're stacked with work just say you can't attend, not everyone has to be in every meeting.

afgavinstan

There's a vid of a guy on groups ripping hits from his bong and being told to stop that's went viral, I'll try and find it. Lad.

nick_md

afgavinstan wrote:

There's a vid of a guy on groups ripping hits from his bong and being told to stop that's went viral, I'll try and find it. Lad.

This actually happened to me many years ago and it's a legendary story - big meeting across timezones, about 15 people on the call, dude has his camera off. Sometime into the meeting his camera comes on and you see his face appear on the big screen, does a huge hit off a bong, then camera goes off. Clearly he thought his camera was on, and that he'd switched it off to hit the bong. Was hilarious and still gets talked about today.

nick_md

It was like 8am in his timezone too, getting that morning bake in.

djchump

IIRC Zoom isn't very secure - their TOS states that they're scanning all applications you have running on your PC and there's some kind of "attentional tracking" as to what you're using and doing (presumably mouse cursor and other interactions). Just a reminder that "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product".

Facewon

Yeah, a further check seems to agree with that.

Hangouts is going soon. Google doing their killing serviceable apps thing.

poprock

nick_md wrote:

Yeah I've had clients ask if people can stop typing because they hear it through the chat room. I'm talking people in the same room as me though, hammering away on a keyboard throughout the whole meeting, it's rude imo. If you're stacked with work just say you can't attend, not everyone has to be in every meeting.

Totally with you on all of that, it’s a justified rant.

That’s why in real face to face meetings I still take notes longhand in a notebook. I do need to take notes in meetings and workshops. It’s part of how I do my job. But I dislike people who type notes on a laptop when they should be engaging properly. I can’t explain why it’s different from writing with a pen and paper, but it just is. It feels rude.

All I was saying that when you’re on a laptop, typing anything disrupts your microphone. It drowns you out. So having a separate mic/speaker is a massive plus.

afgavinstan

I didn't miss the casual B&O flex you tart, you.

poprock

Heh. I’m dead impressed with it. Bought it years ago a speaker for the kitchen and now they’ve rolled out a firmware update so you can use it for conference calls. Nice example of a company doing something helpful.

Kow

Webex is supposed to be decent but haven't used it. I have Zoom for an upcoming client but haven't tested it yet. Teams is solid for multiple cams and has a lot of very useful features.

Skerret

Zoom, Teams, Discord for virtual office (and side rooms) and Skype when slumming it with admin team

poprock

A couple of my colleagues have been banging on about how amazing GoToMeeting is. I don’t need yet another platform, they can fuck right off.

Skerret

I've used, it's piss

Diluted Dante

poprock wrote:

A couple of my colleagues have been banging on about how amazing GoToMeeting is. I don’t need yet another platform, they can fuck right off.

Have you tried UpDog?

poprock

You can fuck right off too.

Gamermike

I would steer clear of Zoom - lots of people/businesses championing it at the moment but unaware of how unsecure it is - a quick Google search will demonstrate this.

Rev

I'm using teams for work which does on a bad connection.

A mixture of Skype and discord for podcast chats

WhatsApp for family chats.

LivDiv

How long before all these services get overrun with traffic and businesses have to start using Chaturbate?

Eric

We use a shit load at work Skype, Teams, Polycom, Blue Jeans and Zoom

Blue Jeans seems the best as you can share video audio which seems to be an issue with other providers.

But what a shit name!

nick_md

Hannah Montana's horse was called Blue Jeans.

Kow

You can share video with audio on most platforms I think. Certainly on Teams, Hangouts and Skype.

Facewon

How do you video chat on discord. Is it just a case of setting up a dm group? It's hidden well.

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