COVID Video Conference Woes
The great thing about WFH is not having to see other peoples’ faces .Every chump ran out for a high quality “HD webcam” like it was a big celebration and they are not better than the webcam you had built in. Well, marginally better but not where it counts. I own the 920c and Brio from Logitech, what a waste. I also own a DSLR and the Elgato HD60 capture dongle. Not worth it for chatting.
At least we can see we are human from the chest up these days, but a lot of you need a god-damned bucket of paint, maybe a poster. We know you are a mess at the office, please have some part of your act together, you are an adult now. Act like company is coming over not just “this is me now”.
HD/4K ARE UNATTAINABLE IN ZOOM, SLACK, SKYPE, MS TEAMS, ETC
No desktop nor app-based video conferencing apps support 4k. Rare few on their best day get HD aka 1080p. WEB CHATS ARE 720p ONLY.
- you don’t have the hardware to encode it
- you don’t have the bandwidth to send it
- the app servers can’t handle 4k outside enterprise devices, and 1080p is uber-rare
- #2 is made worse by the sudden deluge of new chatters
- your YouTube home studio get up is not going to make your chats look awesome
- everything is downsampled
- your gear might only be able to livestream cool stuff to social media and YouTube if you meet #1, #2, and #5
- your (and my) blue yeti sucks and is mega noisy
- your decor is awful
- nobody is paying attention anyway
Buy a Logitech.
Logitech has a terrible app called “Logicapture” I use it to have a banner with my name and company on it. Logicapture makes the fans on my heavily spec’d out Alienware laptop go full jet engine. But I can switch sources without a degree in broadcast journalism.
Like, forever, I have always used a webcam on online calls, it is more personal and professional IMHO, I wear silly hats a lot, it is like a thing people tune in for. Sure OBS exists, but you want to chat and go, not vlog. Nobody wants to see your vlog.
Anyway, expensive webcam expenditures are pointless. That is all.