David A. Cox: Hey, folks. Today, I am going to teach you five simple tricks to increase
the production quality of your video conferencing calls. These tricks work for both Mac and Windows
users, and are compatible with all video conferencing software including Zoom, Skype,
Google Meet, WebEx, Microsoft Teams, and a lot more. So, please understand, when I say I am
going to teach you how to "Zoom like a pro", I am really including all of those other apps as well.
That being said, "How to zoom like a pro?" coming up next on Tech Talk America.
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David:
Hey, folks, and welcome to the class. Before we begin, I want you to know that two of the
items on my list are hardware recommendations, which address the topics of lighting and sound.
The other three items all involve using software to digitally enhance the audio and video quality.
So, even if you are not in the market for new sound or lighting equipment, I encourage you to
seriously consider watching these software solutions that I am going to recommend
because for many of you, that might be in fact all you need.
Everything boils down to three items, lights, camera, and sound.
Lighting and sound equipment are relatively inexpensive, but not everyone has thousands
of dollars to spend on the latest and greatest, mirror-less camera.
But what a lot of people do have is an old iPhone or iPad lying around that they are
not using anymore, which we can now re-purpose, and this brings me to the first item on my list.
Several months ago, I was invited to beta-test a piece of software called Camo, which is made
by the software company Reincubate. They just recently released the final version of Camo,
and I think, you guys are going to like it. Camo works with both Mac and Windows,
and it allows you to turn your old iOS device into a high-definition webcam,
which you can use with any major video conferencing software.
So, I wanted to give you guys an example of how well this technology works. So, right now,
you are seeing me and hearing me from the — just the built-in software. It is my built-in
webcam on my MacBook Pro, as well as the audio. Now, let us switch it over to Camo.
So, right now, you are seeing me through my iPhone 11 Pro running Camo, and as you can see here,
it is a lot better color. I have the background out of focus, so it has that
really great low depth of field, look to it, and it just looks a lot more professional.
Let me show you what Camo looks like from the back end. Let us go to my Mac.
So, let me give you a little tour of Camo. So, here, at the top left, you can see we have the
source — very simple, it is coming from my iPhone. For lenses, we can choose between which lens we
use. So, right now, we are on the Telephoto, that is how we are able to get that low depth of field
look. If we go to Wide, you can see this is, kind of, your normal standard lens — by the way,
welcome to Beech forest in the National Seashore of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Let us go now to Ultra-wide — there you go. All right. Let us go back to Telephoto,
and as you did see there — there is also an option to use the Selfie-side,
which is pointed in the opposite direction. There is my car, by the way, over there.
All right. Let us switch it over back to Telephoto,
there we go. So, let us look at a couple of the other things here. So, one thing you will
notice right here is we can manually turn on the flash. So, if I need a little bit of extra light,
I am backlit right now. It is fairly far away, so I do not know how well it is going to show. So,
right now, it is on, off, on. It does not do a heck of a lot, but we are outside right now.
If we need to rotate my image, we can do that. Let us not do that. Also, you can manually control the
zoom. So, if you want, you can zoom in a little bit more, and then what I can do down here is
I can move it around. So, if I want to just focus on my hat. All right. Over here, on the right-hand
side, we have your capture settings. So, if I want to lock in the focus, so that it does not try to
auto-focus, I can do that. And usually, what I do for this is I just really look at the beard,
and there we go. So, now, beard is in focus, everything else, out of focus. We can also
control the exposure, white balance, brightness, hue, saturation, contrast, gamma, and sharpness.
One thing to be aware of, you do need to plug your iPhone into your computer for this to work,
so if you do not already have one, you might want to consider picking up
something like this. This is my — one of my Joby tripods.
It is under $50, and really, really handy. I know you guys appreciate when I disclose pricing,
right up front, so here is how it works. There is a free limited version of Camo, which is probably
fine for a lot of you, or you can upgrade to the paid version for a one-time payment of $39.99.
But do not do it yet. If you have watched my YouTube channel over the last eight years,
you are probably aware that when I find a piece of software that I fall in love with,
I tend to reach out to the company and see if they will offer me some sort of a discount link
to give to all of you. Now, sometimes, that comes in the form of a coupon code,
other times, it is a special hyperlink. So, I reached out to the folks at Reincubate,
and they were very happy to give me a discount link, which you can use to save 10%
off the pro version. Now, just to clarify, you can also use that link to download the free version,
which you will find down below in the video description.
At number four, I wanted to talk a little bit about lighting solutions. One of the challenges
with working from home is that lighting conditions are constantly changing, depending on the weather,
what time of day it is, what season is it, nuclear winter — so, many different factors.
My favorite lighting solution for folks who do a lot of video conferencing calls are the
Elgato Key Light, and the Key Light Air. As you can see here, these lights have a super
slim design, and you can either get them with a clamp, so that they can lock onto your desk,
or you can now also get them with a stand. The one challenge with these lights is that they are
extremely popular, and extremely hard to find these days. So, I will put links to them down
below in the video description, but I will also put a few other similarly priced items as well.
The main thing you want to look for when purchasing lighting is light that is heavily
diffused. And of course, you also want the ability to easily control the brightness
and color temperature. When it comes to placement, you really do not want the light to be right
behind the camera, but instead, off to the side. One of the old sayings in video production is that
while most people will forgive bad video, very few will forgive bad audio. Working from home can
present a lot of challenges in this department, between kids, pets, and noisy neighbors. Now,
I do not have pets or kids, but I definitely have that last one for two more weeks.
Now, there are two things that I am going to recommend to help improve the audio quality.
The first, is that I recommend upgrading to a better microphone than the one that came
with your computer. And the second, is to use a piece of software which intelligently identifies
any sounds that are not you and effectively mutes them. When it comes to microphones,
the good news is you can now get a great quality microphone for around $100.
Specifically, for video conferencing, I strongly suggest that you check out the
Blue Yeti Nano. Not only does it sound great, it looks great. I mean, come on,
that is a sexy microphone, which will look perfect on your desk right next to that big
bag of Triscuit that you, for whatever reason, just will not stop eating — stop.
Now, pay attention business-people, this one is for you. At number 2,
we have a highly intelligent little app called Krisp. Krisp is available for Mac,
Windows, and iOS, and I highly recommend it, and you will see why in just a moment.
What Krisp does is it uses artificial intelligence to isolate and filter out any noises that are
not you. And what is great about it is that it works on both ends of the conversation.
I wanted to give you a real-life example of how to use Krisp. So, right now,
once again, we are here in the National Seashore. There is a lot of birds, and bugs,
and all sorts of noise. There are people in the background, so it is pulling you away from my
voice. But right now, what I am going to do is I am going to switch the audio over to Krisp.
So, now, my audio is being filtered by Krisp, and you should notice that
you hear a lot less of those other noises, and it really just focuses in on my voice.
Krisp has both a free and paid version. The free version gives you a 120-minute a week,
which is great for people who do not do a lot of video conferencing, whereas the paid version
is more geared towards professionals, and gives you unlimited usage, and allows you to install
it on up to three devices. The pro version costs a little bit over three dollars a month if you pay
annually, which comes out to around $40 a year. Once again, I reached out to the folks at Krisp,
and they came through for me, so if you want to save 10% off the pro version of Krisp,
I have a special discount link for you down below in the video description.
I wanted to end this video with a fun, free tool, which I admit, may not appeal as much
to some of you, business folk, but as you are about to see, it is most definitely entertaining.
The folks at Snapchat recently came out with a free app for both Mac and Windows called
Snap Camera. This allows you to add all sorts of different types of visual effects to your webcam.
So, for example, right now, there is a big challenge going around on the internet for guys
with beards, where you show a photo of you with a beard, and a photo of you without a beard. Well,
I am not shaving this thing off, so let us give it a shot. Here I am with a beard,
let us launch the no-beard filter, and there I am without the beard. That is interesting.
Now, I know I said that this app is not for business, but you know, I think,
you guys could get creative. Hey Bob, welcome to the virtual employee review.
Times are crazy right now. I just want to say, "Hey, thank you so much for all
the hard work over the last 30 years". What was that BB-8? Oh, BB-8 says, you are fired.
One quick programming note before we go, I have one more video to come out before I
pack up the studio here in Provincetown, and then I will begin my move out west.
Now, I am telling you this because I am going to be vlogging the trip across America,
in the middle of a global pandemic, before the most controversial election in history, what could
go wrong? Well, stay tuned and find out. Thank you for watching everyone. This is David A. Cox,
with Tech Talk America. I will see you next time. Thanks for watching everyone, class dismissed.
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David: Do you know
what is funny? You do not really see a lot of vampires with beards. Why is that?
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