Zoom Tips and Tricks for 2021 - DIY in 5 Ep 143

Опубликовано 2 апреля 2021, 17:00

Here’s a few simple tips you can do to take your Zoom game to over 9000 for work, school or virtual game nights.

Versions
Make sure Zoom is updated to the latest version which is currently version 5.5.4. Check this by clicking your photo in the top right corner and go down to "check for updates". Everything we'll discuss today work with this latest free Zoom account. There are more features included with the pro account but we'll save those tips for another time.

Audio
Bad audio in a Zoom meeting is intolerable. If you can’t hear or be heard all bets are off. The latest update to Zoom brought in two features that will make your voice come through like a professional broadcast even if you don’t have a professional streaming or broadcast studio at your disposal. The first is an option to suppress background noise, without buying a fancy microphone! Many higher end microphones will have features to help with this but now, it’s built right into Zoom. Simply go into your audio settings, and about halfway down the page you’ll see options to suppress background noise depending how much background noise you are dealing with - from distant outdoor traffic to loud typing noises or dogs barking in the same room as you. If you are unsure, there’s an auto setting that will do it’s best to tune it out for you. Now for folks using Zoom specifically for music, this may sound like a nightmare, but Zoom has also added a professional music mode which gives you an in-meeting option to turn on original sound. This option automatically disables Zoom noise suppression, removes automatic gain control and high pass filtering and is best for folks using more professional audio equipment specifically for recording or music purposes.

Video
Many of us have probably played around with virtual backgrounds at some point - you know making it seem like you are in space or at that medieval tavern I mentioned earlier. This is good fun, but doesn’t have the same effect if your actual person still looks like you just fought a bugbear. You can now touch-up your appearance and adjust for low light in room both on a sliding scale. Early morning and haven’t had coffee? No problem. Lighting is crud where you are? No problem. Both features can be toggled off or on and adjusted in video settings under the My Video section. If you want to go even farther, Zoom now offers Video Filters as well, allowing you to add hats, borders, artistic photo effects and more and if you want to go even farther the Studio Effects option in the lower right will let you add eyebrows, facial hair, lipstick, etc. and is a real hoot! If you love the new look you’ve created, you can even check the box to set it for all future streams. Hard nope there.

Seeing Everyone
Let’s talk about tips to maximize your experience when zooming with others. If you are all too familiar with having to swap pages in gallery view to see everyone such as teachers with large you’ll be happy to know you can now set your Zoom to show 49 participants in Gallery View instead of 25 with just a quick toggle in video settings. Yes, everyone’s screen is smaller, but the overview is very nice if you need that.

Screen Sharing
If you are sharing a screen with everyone on your call, you now have the option to use a PowerPoint as your virtual background, putting your face overtop your presentation so viewers can watch both at the same time. This is something that used to take external professional broadcasting software and makes presentations much more engaging. Simply go into Background & Filters, click the small plus sign on the left-hand side and choose a PowerPoint file. You can then move your image around to wherever you’d like on top of the PowerPoint while presenting. Let’s say it’s not a PowerPoint type of zoom, it’s virtual game night and you want to share multiple on-screen windows. Rather than swapping back and forth or sharing your entire desktop, you can now go to screen sharing and choose multiple windows at the same time. Sweet! Speaking of multiples sharing at the same time, you can now have two different participants share their screens at the same time as well, rather than having to change who the host is in order to share. As the meeting host, you can choose to allow multiple people to screenshare simultaneously and viewers can swap between which screenshare they’d like to see. Even fancier, if a participant has a dual monitor setup and wants to watch both at the same time, they can do that as well via the “Use dual monitors” option in general settings.

Again, assuming most of us do not have a home broadcast-quality studio wherever we are, it’s really nice that Zoom has incorporated a lot of these things from a software perspective on their side and knowing these simple, free tips can take you to the next level. If you have any specific zoom troubles you’d like the hive mind here at Kingston to help with, put em in the comments and we’ll do our best to help each other out.