[HN Gopher] Show HN: Checklist.video - Research backed tips for ...
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Show HN: Checklist.video - Research backed tips for great video
calls
Author : jeztek
Score : 70 points
Date : 2021-04-26 16:26 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (checklist.video)
(TXT) w3m dump (checklist.video)
| [deleted]
| Mulpze15 wrote:
| >Make sure your face is well lit
|
| To do this, make sure you have your window in front of you, and
| certainly not behind you (backlighting is awful)
|
| If you are on a call at night, or in a dark place, make sure your
| laptop screen is not your main source of light: if someone shows
| a red slide, you will look red.
| mdu96 wrote:
| > make sure your laptop screen is not your main source of
| light: if someone shows a red slide, you will look red.
|
| Haha, this is such a great point - thanks for noting this!
| npilk wrote:
| Glad to see "hide self view" on this list - that's made a huge
| difference for me in the last few months.
|
| I'd suggest removing the need to click through the "read now"
| button - seems like if I'm on the page, I want to read the tips.
| blablabla123 wrote:
| Self-view together with this semi formal workspace environment
| makes this whole video experience really unnatural. Although I
| doubt it can be deactivated on many video conferencing
| platforms.
| mdu96 wrote:
| Yeah, as we point out in the Checklist.video site,
| unfortunately only Zoom, Google Meets, and WebEx give you the
| option to turn off self-view. (Notable lack of this ability
| in Microsoft teams!)
| swyx wrote:
| > Keep an arm's length away from your camera
|
| > Eye contact is incredibly important for showing others you're
| engaged and paying attention. Taking a small step back from the
| camera will decrease the angle between your eyes and the camera,
| making it seem more like you're making eye contact.
|
| this is actually a really great trick! and straightforward
| explanation.
|
| thank you, nice project, wondering why you made it a standalone
| site. are you intending to build on this further?
| mdu96 wrote:
| Thanks swyx, we're glad you enjoyed the site!
|
| It's a standalone site because we wanted people to be able to
| easily share it with their teammates right before important
| video calls.
|
| A few people have given us really helpful feedback about more
| information to include (e.g. setups for different types of
| remote workers). But we haven't decided how we'd like to build
| on it further yet. If we did, what would you like to see from
| the site? / what would be most helpful to you?
| [deleted]
| stonogo wrote:
| It's interesting to me that nobody's really taken the initiative
| to come out with a high-quality video-only UVC camera yet. I have
| in mind something like Arducam's offerings* but with autofocus.
| Even taking a Raspberry Pi high-quality camera and trying to make
| a webcam out of it is difficult.
|
| I have no interest in buying a thousand-dollar mirrorless camera
| for this purpose, and even less interest in taking Michael Lopp's
| advice and buying a $4,000 BlackMagic camera for this. All the
| pieces are in place for a decent autofocus dedicated UVC camera
| with good color imaging, but for some reason the market hasn't
| landed there, and I'm curious why.
|
| The closest is probably the Logitech Brio, but even that camera
| is horrible in lighting environments in which the Arducam's
| manual-focus larger lens excels.
|
| * https://www.arducam.com/product/arducam-high-quality-complet...
| mdu96 wrote:
| the other maker of Checklist.video here :)
|
| stonogo -- you've hit the nail on the head! we asked ourselves
| the exact same questions.
|
| There was a really great HN thread about it a few months back,
| did you see it? link here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25504771&p=3
| swyx wrote:
| noob question - what is the difference between a typical webcam
| (i have the logitech c925) and a "UVC camera"? i mean i get
| theres a price difference and i can _see_ the difference, I
| just don 't exactly know what causes it and why i need to pay
| $1k for it.
| mdu96 wrote:
| hey swyx! a "UVC camera" simply refers to a camera that
| connects to your device over USB. most "typical webcams" are
| actually UVC cameras. the ones that are not, are the fancy
| SLR set-ups that you have to jerry-rig to your computer with
| multiple connectors and hubs. these are the setups that
| typically cost at least $1k.
| swyx wrote:
| ahhh ok ok. yeah. i want the dslr quality without the fuss
| and at maybe 1/3 the price tag. haha.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| I use one of those fancy video setups. It consists of a
| tripod, the camera body & lens, dummy battery for power,
| and USB-C cable from camera to the mac, no jerry-rigging
| required. It's a Canon EOS R (a mirrorless camera). Modern
| cameras have gotten extremely good at this, there's no need
| for HDMI video cap boxes and so forth anymore.
| mdu96 wrote:
| Ooo awesome :) What lens do you use with your EOS R?
| notJim wrote:
| It seems like cameras with decent sensors start around $500,
| though most cluster around $700+. I sort of wonder if no one
| has had the chutzpah to test whether there's a market for $500
| webcams. I was personally a little surprised when I went remote
| three years ago that a "premium" webcam only costs $200, and
| looks like shit. Based on the number of people with fancy
| mirrorless setups now, I suspect a $500+ turnkey webcam could
| do well.
|
| For your specific situation, a used Panasonic G7 and a $20
| Chinese capture card would probably work if you're interesting.
| crummy wrote:
| Apparently you can use Android and iPhones as webcams (e.g. see
| https://reincubate.com/camo/ ).
| mdu96 wrote:
| have you used these apps before? what's the experience like?
| crummy wrote:
| I have not, though my coworker does sometimes (Camo) and
| the video quality is quite good.
| tomg wrote:
| I would add to the reasons for "Use wired headphones or speakers"
| is that many (all? not sure) combination "bluetooth headphones
| with mic" hardware will bottleneck at the bluetooth link. You end
| up sounding like you're on an old landline (and incoming audio is
| equally low-fi).
|
| I ended up using my bluetooth headphones just for incoming audio;
| and a dedicated mic on my desk for my speech. It improved both my
| voice and everyone elses' dramatically.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bluetooth_profiles#Han...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bluetooth_profiles#Hea...
|
| https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40951060/how-to-make-a2d...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/44sxms/bluetoo...
| singold wrote:
| I've also noticed in my case that bluetooth headphones
| interfere with my laptops wifi, but am not sure why. And the
| hardware bottleneck makes a lot of sense for me because those
| headphones didn't interfere when weren't connected to the
| laptop (the same happens to me with my phone)
| jimbogr77 wrote:
| Ended up with the same setup.
|
| Qc35 + Razer seiren mini work great together.
| jeztek wrote:
| It's been a whole year since the pandemic started and video calls
| are still terrible. We've been doing a lot of research into how
| to make them better and wanted to share what we've learned.
|
| We were aiming for something whimsical and easy to read so the
| tips primarily focus around illustrations that were inspired by
| IKEA instructions. For people who are interested in delving into
| the details we put the meat of the advice behind a "Why?" button.
|
| This was also our first foray into writing a responsive site that
| renders well on mobile and desktop, built using Next.js and
| Tailwinds CSS.
|
| What are some of your favorite video call hacks or tips?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > It's been a whole year since the pandemic started and video
| calls are still terrible.
|
| Because it's hard. Just going through the list in the article:
|
| > Use a cable to connect to the Internet
|
| Difficult if your house isn't wired for ethernet and the modem
| is in an inconvenient spot, or in a room which contradicts tip
| #4. Do you let a long cable drift along the floor?
|
| Powerlines will work in some houses, but not others, and can
| occasionally introduce their own connectivity problems.
|
| > Make sure your upload speed is >3 Mbps
|
| And if your ISP doesn't offer that much upload bandwidth, well
| then I guess you're SOL.
| mdu96 wrote:
| The other maker of Checklist.video here :)
|
| Yeah, definitely agreed with you that it's difficult if your
| house isn't wired for ethernet. I actually do let a long
| cable drift along my floor :P Having a strong upload speed is
| crucial to letting others be able to hear you without any lag
| - and that's one of the most important factors to having a
| great video conference. This is why we wanted to emphasize a
| wired connection, but we also provided the specific
| upload/download speeds that could get you the high quality
| call as well.
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| You can setup Ethernet through your power outlets with
| something like this https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-
| AV600-Powerline-Ethernet-Adap...
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Yep, I mentioned those! They're great when they work, but
| it depends on how your house is wired.
| [deleted]
| supermatt wrote:
| Does "research backed" mean studies were done, or does it mean
| that you read a bunch of stuff and called it research?
|
| If the former, can you link to any relevant papers, etc? I was
| looking for specifics on this for a project myself.
| jeztek wrote:
| Hey supermatt, thanks for the feedback, that's good to know!
| Is there an alternative wording you would suggest? We meant
| to imply that the tips were primarily derived from findings
| from published research.
| supermatt wrote:
| I'd be interested in the links to the published research!
|
| If it's actual research, I think the naming is fine. If
| it's reading a bunch of "top 10 tips for looking great on
| webcam" then it's not.
|
| When I clicked on "why" I was expecting some actual
| information. As is, it just reads like an opinion piece
| IMHO
|
| For example, you state an arms length as the optimal
| distance - but this would be different based on FoV, etc.
| There's no real data I can see that would lead to make that
| statement.
| jeztek wrote:
| Ah, okay I'm trying to understand your recommendation. Is
| it because not every tip has a research finding tied to
| it, which seems incongruous with the title? Or is it that
| the research finding doesn't explicitly tie to the
| recommendation?
|
| Most of the tips do reference research findings, and you
| can find the reference by clicking on the subscript
| numbers or scroll down to the references section.
|
| Some tips are more common sense and/or geared towards
| addressing a research finding. In the "arm's length" tip
| for example, the referenced paper discusses the
| importance of eye contact in computer mediated
| communications but doesn't explicitly say you should keep
| an arm's length to achieve the best eye contact. Was your
| expectation that the tip should link to research
| determining the optimal distance from the camera to
| achieve good eye contact?
| sodality2 wrote:
| It's at the bottom of the page:
| https://checklist.video/checklist/#references
| aborowie wrote:
| I really like this, a few comments
|
| Why not have the homepage be the checklist? Seems odd to have a
| page that says click here to see the checklist
|
| Can you send this to the one guy on our Zoom calls who logs in
| 3 minutes after meeting starts, futzes around with
| camera/microphone/sound for 5 minutes and then 8 minutes into
| the call announces he's online and wants to be filled in on
| what he missed?
|
| From video production the one takeaway I have is key light vs
| backlight, webcams like key light and webcams struggle with
| back light
| mdu96 wrote:
| Lolol!!! Happy to send this to that guy if you somehow
| provide us his contact information :) I'm on Twitter here if
| you wanna DM me: https://www.twitter.com/melissadooo.
|
| And yes, absolutely. Webcams - and actually cameras in
| general - REALLY struggle with back-lighting. Having a key
| light pointed at a wall so it's more diffuse and so it can
| cast a softer glow onto your face is ideal.
|
| Videographers learn about 3-point lighting for ideal lighting
| situations in film school:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-point_lighting.
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(page generated 2021-04-26 23:01 UTC)