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Jitsi Meet: An open source alternative to Zoom

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Re: Jitsi Meet: An open source alternative to Zoom

#251

Post by vikramkr »

pugworthy wrote: post #152
ElijahLynn wrote: post #107

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 ;).

Honestly the backgrounds are goofy and non-essential, but it's been a huge positive icebreaker for the adjustment to all online meetings.

I'd be far more willing to turn the video on in my calls of people weren't going to see the messy room in the background, and the calls I'm in have an awful lot of blank screens that would be better if people turned on there video for some face-to-face communication. I think it's less non-essential than you might imagine, this is a really well thought-out feature, and probably pretty technically challenging to implement too.

Re: Jitsi Meet: An open source alternative to Zoom

#252

Post by EGreg »

hanniabu wrote: post #161
crazygringo wrote: post #41

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'd be interested in seeing a P2P serverless option

We built one

https://github.com/Qbix/Platform

Just install it and video conferencing is one of the free features out of the box

All you do is call Q.Streams.WebRTC.start()

Re: Jitsi Meet: An open source alternative to Zoom

#253

Post by emiliosic »

ISO-morphism wrote: post #49
judge2020 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hangouts: Google account. Need to individually invite other Google accounts. Hangouts (now Meet) is better geared towards GSuite orgs where you're already logged into Google since you have to be to access almost all of your other internal company/school resources, including gmail. It also solves the contacts problem since everyone will be in the company directory.

> Hangouts (now Meet) Ah-ha! Google Hangouts Meet is indeed the GSuite video conferencing solution, complemented by Google Hangouts Chat, the GSuite Slack competitor. Google Hangouts is "deprecated" but still alive, and with a plain-old gmail account I don't see an option to use Hangouts Chat nor Hangouts Meet, only Hangouts. As a user in a GSuite org, Chat and Meet exist, and plain-old Hangouts text messages are mir…

I'm not sure is deprecated. If you're free (paid by your own data), Hangout is the 'consumer' version. Meet is the paid platform, with more business oriented features.

Re: Jitsi Meet: An open source alternative to Zoom

#255

Post by distances »

rvz wrote: post #16

That's the problem. This is supposed to be the time for Jitsi to be widely used and is a credible and a privacy-respecting, open-source alternative to Zoom. But will it break out from the free and open source audiences and reach into the mainstream where Zoom is? I hope so and it should. Open-source, iOS and Android apps, self-hosting, video chat and first class web client support are all attractive and competing req…

I don't know the story behind the name, but I didn't realize it was clever and I do consider it very user friendly -- short, memorable, stands out, easy to pronounce.

Re: Jitsi Meet: An open source alternative to Zoom

#256

Post by distances »

systemvoltage wrote: post #50
ummonk wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I normally complain about terrible open source branding but didn't have a negative reaction to this branding when I saw this post. Goes to show how important it is to do user research on a broad swath of the population to make sure you have branding that isn't off-putting to a significant subset of people.

Definitely. There is also universal agreement in good branding vs bad branding. I’ve been browsing the top branding blog for over 12 years now: https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/ Still subjective but let’s compare Jitsi brand with something from https://www.cghnyc.com/ There is certainly a huge difference even though it’s not a quantitative measure. Jitsi brand just sucks so bad. :(

I think there's some irony in complaining about "Jitsi" and proving a link to "cghnyc".

Re: Jitsi Meet: An open source alternative to Zoom

#257

Post by cjwebb »

justaj wrote: post #238
cjwebb wrote: post #234

Whilst its great that people are iterating on existing products out there, I feel slightly sad that we just have a load of "alternatives" that don't play nicely with each other. It would be much nicer if I could use FaceTime, whilst speaking to someone on Hangouts, plus someone else on Jitsi. Apart from discovery, what is stopping that? I'm assuming they all use basically the same underlying codecs, of course!

Matrix is trying to close that gap, so definitely something to take notice of.

This is the first I've heard of it, so thanks for the tip. I'll be reading all of https://matrix.org tonight!

Re: Jitsi Meet: An open source alternative to Zoom

#258

Post by InternetOfStuff »

tatersolid wrote: post #245
InternetOfStuff wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facetime has the best audio/video quality of any conferencing software I've used by a mile. Out of curiosity: can you compare it to Google Duo? Because it has the best quality and stability of any 1:1 product I've ever tried (never tried Facetime)

WTH is Google Duo? They have a third video conferencing solution besides Hangouts and Meet? Madness.

So they do :-D

It's getting long in the tooth by Google standards I suppose. Who knows when they'll axe it.

I think it's strictly 1:1 (which, I gather, Facetime isn't?). It has good video quality, but what I like most about it is that it's nicely resilient on dodgy connections.

I've often used it wandering around my garden, at the fringe of Wifi range, and it does the right thing: tries to stay on Wifi, but switches over to 4G if the connection becomes too dodgy, then back to Wifi once that's stable again. All of that with pretty minimal artefacts.

Re: Jitsi Meet: An open source alternative to Zoom

#259

Post by jamesponddotco »

GordonS wrote: post #240

Hmm, I wonder if it would be possible to create an "official desktop client" using Electron? Given Jitsi is only reliable with Chrome (for now at least), that might be a more appealing options for users that use different browsers.

It seems like they already did that[1].

[1] https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-electron

Re: Jitsi Meet: An open source alternative to Zoom

#260

Post by _red »

jacurtis wrote: post #168
eagsalazar2 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :(

Confirming that it isn’t a gimmick. I have been working on distributed WFH Teams for the past 5 years now (long before COVID19) and this has been a consistent point of embarrassment and/or trouble with video conferencing. I can’t begin to tell you how many times we have had people that need extra time to prepare for a meeting because of the background. As a manager, I have had lots of personal conversations with empl…

>cheesy virtual backgrounds or blur real background

Seems like a stock slightly blurred image of a wall or bookshelf would be best option

The problem I have with the stock backgrounds is they impart a non-professional feel to the meeting....do i really want to show I’m mentally ‘sitting on the beach’ or ‘out in space’ while talking about who gets downsized?

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