Do you want better Zoom audio? Well in this video, I'm talking about remote work
tips for Zoom meetings so you can hear and communicate more effectively on your
next Zoom call. Coming up!
Hi, I'm Dr. Derek audiologist with Pro Fit Hearing.com
bringing you the best insight in today's latest hearing aids and audio
technology to improve your life. If you have concerns about your hearing, always
consult with your local physician or audiologist. On this channel we provide
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OK, let's jump into the video.
Today, I'm talking about what you can do to improve
your audio and video quality of your next Zoom call for better communication.
I know a lot of us are working from home right now and may be learning how to use
video conferencing software for the first time. There are several tips and
equipment options that we'll share today that can dramatically improve your
overall audio and video quality. This is especially important if you have hearing
loss or struggle with communication.
I will leave links to all the products I
discuss today in the description below so you can check them out for yourself.
Understanding speech on a Zoom call can be easier if you follow these five steps.
Oh and make sure to watch until the end of the video where I'll walk you
through the specific Zoom software settings that you'll need.
Number one. quiet well-lit environment
Find a quiet environment for your Zoom call.
Use a room that's away from other people and distractions if possible. Being in a
quiet environment is especially important if you have to use a laptop
without headphones. If you must be on your Zoom call in an area with other
people, at least try to have your back facing the wall. That way other people on
the call won't be able to see what's going on behind you and won't be
distracted by it. You can also use a virtual background in the software to
remove whatever is behind you. Also make sure to turn on a light or sit near a
window so that the light can shine onto your face. Having light behind you or off
to the side will create large shadows on your face and lead to a poor image
quality on your camera. Having good image quality means it's
easier to read lips and you'll access visual cues easier for improved speech understanding.
Number two. headphones
Always use quality headphones if possible.
Start with whatever you may have a home.
Do you have Apple earphones
or a headphone/mic combination that came with your phone? Wearing something like
this will not only make it easier to hear and understand people on your next
Zoom call but also having a microphone close to your mouth will dramatically
improve the intelligibility of your voice for other people on the phone call.
So make sure you have headphones that have a built-in mic. This particular
headset has a TRRS audio plug which stands for tip ring ring sleeve. It also has
three lines on it. This type of connection allows you to not only have a
microphone but also stereo audio in your headphones. If your headphones have just
two lines on the audio cable, that means there's no microphone input. If your
headphones do not include a microphone, the laptop computer will likely use the
internal mic to pick up your voice. But the sound quality is not going to be as
good as if you're having the external mic that's close to your mouth.
While basic headphones with a mic will improve your Zoom audio, there are other
headphones that will improve the sound even more. These include passive or
active noise-cancelling headphones. Passive noise cancelling headphones
cover the ear or seal down inside the ear enough to effectively block out
extra noise from your environment. Active noise-cancelling headphones cover the
ear or seal down inside the ear as well, but they include electronics that
produce sounds to help cancel out even more noise. So I have an example of some
passive noise cancelling headphones. These are the Howard Leight Sync
headphones. They're basically like earmuffs with an audio adapter. So this
blocks out the sounds around me and has a very tight seal against my head. I can
plug this into my computer or whatever I'm listening to, and I hear it a lot
better. I don't hear the background noise quite as much, so this is passive.
Bose noise-canceling headphones are an example of active noise cancellation. I'm
going to have a review about this product in an upcoming video, and I'll
leave a link to that and the suggested videos above
as soon as it's available. But, active noise cancellation includes the use of
electronics to help filter out more background noise.
If your headphones have a microphone and are connected to your computer by Bluetooth,
they will transmit both your voice and the Zoom call audio.
Number three. external microphone
So I recommend using a headphone/mic combo to not only improve what you hear but also
to make it easy for the people on the call to understand you. If you're looking
for a more professional setup, you can go one step further and buy a standalone
external mic to use with your Zoom call. It could be something like this a AKG
C214 large diaphragm condenser mic or other broadcast quality mic, however this
kind of microphone will require an additional sound interface to use with your computer.
Something I use is the Focusrite Scarlett USB interface that allows
you to connect your microphone in the front, adjust your volume, and then on the
back it has a USB adapter that goes into your computer. However if you aren't
really interested in having this kind of a level set up, you can have an easier to
use mic like a USB mic so the mic will plug directly into the computer and you
won't have to mess with any interfaces like this. Something I know right now
that's popular is the Blue Yeti USB mic. It's very popular with podcasters and
other creators, and it's an easy way to significantly improve the quality of
your voice for others on the call at a reasonable price.
Number four. camera
When it comes to cameras, most of us just use the included
webcam on our laptops. The quality is usually adequate but just make sure the
camera is clean. Nobody likes a blurry image. Also put
your webcam at an eye level if possible. If you want a professional set up, I
recommend the Elgato Camlink 4k. This is an interface that allows you to connect
any HDMI output camera through USB to your laptop or whatever computer that
you're using. You can then replace the default webcam with your external camera
for professional image quality. Image quality can be just as important for
Zoom calls as audio is. Being able to clearly see the person speak will help
improve your ability to understand them, especially if you have hearing loss or
have difficulty with communication. I will leave links to all the products I
discussed today in the description below so you can check them out for yourself.
Number 5. Zoom audio and video settings
OK, so let's take a look at specific
software settings that you can use today to improve the quality of your Zoom
meeting audio and video for better communication. You can also review your
video and audio settings whenever you join a meeting.
So the first thing you want to do is download and install the Zoom app on your computer. And when you
first open Zoom, you'll see this little box here. But, you want to go up here to
the preferences tab. Under preferences, you'll see first thing is the microphone
input level. So you can see in this case, my microphone input level is still in
the green. I'm using my interface so this is my external mic with interface. The
interface is called the Scarlett solo USB. I just adjusted my microphone input level
on my interface. So in this case, I'll just have have the input level set at a
fixed setting. I've already checked this on my external device, so I don't really
need to worry about it. But if you are using another kind of
microphone if you're using just a USB microphone, you would select it from this
menu here or if you're using your built-in microphone. In this case, I have
a laptop so a built-in microphone is selected right now. You can see my voice
level input. You can have it automatically adjust your microphone
level if you want to do that. You also have the option to join audio
by computer whenever you join the meeting. That just means that you can
hear the participants as soon as you join the meeting. You can mute your
microphone when you join the meeting by default, and you can press and hold the
space key to temporarily unmute yourself. This is something that I like to use, so
that by default my microphone is muted. And only when I press and hold on the space
key will my microphone unmute and send my voice out to all the other
participants. This way if somebody's presenting a topic or having a
discussion, they won't be distracted by noise background noise from all the
other participants. The other thing to consider is advanced settings tab. If I
hover above this, you can see that it turns off audio enhancements such as
echo cancellation and noise suppression. So the sound quality is not as processed
as it would be otherwise if you weren't using this feature. If you don't want to
use that, you can just have the computer do everything automatically for you. This
way it automatically suppresses background noise and echo cancellation.
But if you want to have a better sound quality of your voice going out to
everybody, if everybody on the call wants to have a better audio quality for the
other members, I do encourage you to select this option. When you are on the
call, you'll see a little box pop up that allows you to click to enable original sound.
So other than audio, we want to consider video.
Under the video tab we have the ability to select which camera we want to use,
so in this case I have my
FaceTime HD camera which is just the embedded webcam on my laptop.
Or you can have the Cam Link 4k if you have that device. This would be like my external
camera, so I can select between whichever camera feed I want to use.
Enabling HD gives you a better quality of your video that's being sent out to everybody.
Touch up my appearance might be something worth trying if you don't like the
quality of your video.
Then you have these other options as well.
Something I like is turning off my video when joining a meeting that way
when I first join the call, I have to enable my video so that way I know I'm
ready to send out my image to everybody on the call. So if you're just kind of
getting set up and you're joining a phone call and you're not a hundred
percent ready to be seen by everybody, that might be something you want to use.
And something also that's very handy is this video preview dialog box. So
whenever you go to join a meeting, you'll see your image. So you can adjust your
image quality before everybody sees it.
And the last thing I would look at would be the accessibility tab.
This is where you can adjust the appearance of
your subtitles. So if you want to make your subtitles larger so you can see
them a little bit better, that's where you would do it.
So closed captioning can significantly improve communication for hearing impaired Zoom
meeting members. So you definitely want to use this functionality if possible. Or
you can skip this option if no one on the call needs it.
But to use closed captioning, the meeting host must activate it. If you're the host of the
meeting in order to activate closed captioning, you need to first sign into
your account. Go to account management and then account settings and under the
meeting tab you click the enable closed caption. Meeting participants then can
click on the closed captioning option on the bottom of the screen to activate
closed captioning, but you need to make sure to select a participant in the
meeting that can manually type in the text for closed captioning in real-time.
Or you can use a third-party transcription service.
For more information on closed captioning and third-party transcription setup,
check out the video and help center guide from Zoom in the description below.
So once you've made your changes, go ahead and close the box and join your meeting.
So for today's question, have you tried any of these remote work tips for your Zoom
meeting? If so, did you notice any audio or video improve and was it helpful for
communicating with your group? I'd love to know your thoughts so please comment
below and let's connect.
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Remember Pro Fit Hearing brings you the best
insight in today's latest hearing aids and audio technology to improve your
life. If you have concerns about your hearing, always consult with your local
physician or audiologist. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next
video.