161–170 of 293 posts
I'm curious... between Whereby and Jitsi and I assume other browser-based video solutions relying on WebRTC... ...how big is the barrier these days to building a "videoconferencing platform" supporting millions of people... that runs on a single server? Because if you need to do is build a pretty website that essentially just keeps track of meeting names and the names and IP addresses of participants... ...while each…
I've tried Jitsi Meet and found it to be smooth. During a hangout call with a group of ~8 friends I introduced it as an alternative. User experience comparison: Onboarding: Jitsi: Click a URL. No accounts. Hangouts: Google account. Need to individually invite other Google accounts. Video Quality: Jitsi: Decent, slightly better than hangouts. Hangouts: Passable but grainy. Video Layout: Jitsi: Automatically big-screen…
I proposed Zoom vs Jitsi Meet the other day for a virtual hangout with a group of friends. They initially wanted to try Zoom... because of the virtual backgrounds. Yup, that is what they wanted. I shall suggest Jitsi Meet again soon ;).
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Facetime has the best audio/video quality of any conferencing software I've used by a mile. If free software, vendor lock in, excluding those without Apple products, etc. etc. aren't sticking points for you, Facetime is awesome for a family/group of friends with iDevices.
I try to avoid Apple products. They're not worth the high price.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I proposed Zoom vs Jitsi Meet the other day for a virtual hangout with a group of friends. They initially wanted to try Zoom... because of the virtual backgrounds. Yup, that is what they wanted. I shall suggest Jitsi Meet again soon ;).
It isn't just a gimmick, it is a legit feature when working from home and you don't want everyone to see your messy kitchen or bedroom. Sadly the chrome app version you have to use for ChromeOS doesn't support that feature anyway :(
Zoom and GoToMeeting offer the option for for these backgrounds without needing to do a green screen or anything. Yes, the backgrounds are insanely silly. Like a stock photo of a beach, outer space, a meadow, etc.. I don’t know why one of these companies isn’t smart enough to just put a picture of an empty room as one of the backgrounds. Yes you can tell that the user is using a background still, and it occasionally clips the background wrong for a few seconds, especially during sudden subject movement, but it does largely protect employee’s embarrassment which is a legitimate reason to offer it.
The absolute best implimentation of this background thing is Microsoft Teams’ video chat platform. It does a “blur” background that actually looks pretty good. It is an extreme blur that makes it almost impossible to tell what is in the background, but it looks sort of like a high end camera with low depth of field. Obviously it isn’t going to fool anyone into actually thinking it is real, but it is the least-distracting and most appealing option I have seen yet. Kudos to Microsoft for that one.
Here is what the Microsoft Teams one looks like: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/blur-your-backgroun...
(I have no dog in this fight, just sharing experience. I don’t work for Microsoft. Use whatever you guys want. I am just offering my 5 years of experience fighting with employees about video conferencing. I have heard all the problems with it, but the embarrassment of their background is always the biggest and most common one. Other common ones include wardrobe malfunctions (from employees getting dressed really quickly before a meeting), Significant others saying or doing embarrassing things on camera unknowingly, employees saying embarrassing things while thinking they are on mute, and so on. But the most common complaint is the stupid backgrounds.
I've tried Jitsi Meet and found it to be smooth. During a hangout call with a group of ~8 friends I introduced it as an alternative. User experience comparison: Onboarding: Jitsi: Click a URL. No accounts. Hangouts: Google account. Need to individually invite other Google accounts. Video Quality: Jitsi: Decent, slightly better than hangouts. Hangouts: Passable but grainy. Video Layout: Jitsi: Automatically big-screen…
There is no gallery view available for Google Hangouts (I've searched heavily for it in the past week, if it exists please enlighten me).
It's very disheartening that when you try to connect with firefox, it says you should use chrome. This is a direct stab in the heart of the people who would favor it over zoom because it is free software.
[1] https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/214629443-Zoom-Web...