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Video and audio quality in hangouts is terrible, it also doesn’t support gallery view so groups larger than 2 are a lot worse than zoom for that reason alone.

Video and audio quality in hangouts is terrible, it also doesn’t support gallery view so groups larger than 2 are a lot worse than zoom for that reason alone. You also do need gmail, an app, and to have it enabled. Zoom is in a class of its own in terms of actual call quality and UX, it’s a lot better.

fock 7y ago
so, do you mind telling me, how I can get this fantastic video quality. Since we (university) don't want to share our whole desktop (and some are using Windows, so xephyr is out as well), a lot of people got OBS+some virtual webcam. Now, I spotlight my video, it's okish on my screen and the receivers get garbage with nonlegible text, doing a live-coding demo is basically impossible (the same with math-heavy slides). Works as expected in Jitsi though (but everyone needs chrome there for it to work - or the app. But who uses the jitsi-app...). So: can you tell me, what I'm doing wrong and how I can get this fantastic video quality of Zoom every shill is writing about?
- tobyhede 7y ago
  You don't have to share the whole desktop on zoom. You can share single apps or even windows of an app. Use it all the time and it is flawless. I am unsure what OBS is but it sounds like you're recording your screen via webcam and then streaming that ... My guess is the compression on talking heads is aggressive and has a different profile to a screenshare.
  - fock 7y ago
    well, if I could share more than one app, it would be fine, but I can't. And sincerely: just sending everyone a 1440p@4fps stream of a presentation is both wasteful and useless (I the receiving party has a FHD screeny), very far from perfect ;). And even with the talking heads compression: why can't I disable it (I and most colleagues have solid broadband)? We have a nice FHD (Sony A6400 to HDMI-capture) webcam as well and the picture there is also far from superb. But well, this all might make sense if the target is just to make sure, we don't increase their AMZ-bill too much after our uni had setup their license-agreement with them...
    - fossuser 7y ago
      https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  I don't know, I can just tell you it was night and day for my company. We were really trying to use different solutions, because of all of the problems Zoom has. We just had constant quality issues that made it really hard to hear people. Then we tried Zoom one day and it was incredible how good it was in comparison.
thesandlord 7y ago
> it also doesn’t support gallery view so groups larger than 2 https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/22/21231294/google-meet-gallery-tiled-view-roll-out-globally-zoom https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/22/21231294/google-meet-gall... > You also do need gmail, an app, and to have it enabled. What do you mean? Calls are had at meet.google.com, nothing to do with gmail?
- ricefield 7y ago
  > > it also doesn’t support gallery view so groups larger than 2 > https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/22/21231294/google-meet-gall.. https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/22/21231294/google-meet-gall.... This only applies to Google Meet, not Google Hangouts (the non-enterprise version)
- fossuser 7y ago
  Looks like that gallery view is from last week? Also meet only, not hangouts, and not rolled out to everyone yet? Either way it’ll be nice if they do that. Other comment was a reply to the parent comment, I was stating that you still need gmail for hangouts and to have it turned on in your email settings, or you need the specific app. I know less about meet - I think that’s some corporate google product I don’t have access to? Google’s strategy around messaging is impossible to understand so it’s possible I’m wrong about that.

fock 7y ago

so, do you mind telling me, how I can get this fantastic video quality. Since we (university) don't want to share our whole desktop (and some are using Windows, so xephyr is out as well), a lot of people got OBS+some virtual webcam. Now, I spotlight my video, it's okish on my screen and the receivers get garbage with nonlegible text, doing a live-coding demo is basically impossible (the same with math-heavy slides). Works as expected in Jitsi though (but everyone needs chrome there for it to work - or the app. But who uses the jitsi-app...). So: can you tell me, what I'm doing wrong and how I can get this fantastic video quality of Zoom every shill is writing about?

tobyhede 7y ago
You don't have to share the whole desktop on zoom. You can share single apps or even windows of an app. Use it all the time and it is flawless. I am unsure what OBS is but it sounds like you're recording your screen via webcam and then streaming that ... My guess is the compression on talking heads is aggressive and has a different profile to a screenshare.
- fock 7y ago
  well, if I could share more than one app, it would be fine, but I can't. And sincerely: just sending everyone a 1440p@4fps stream of a presentation is both wasteful and useless (I the receiving party has a FHD screeny), very far from perfect ;). And even with the talking heads compression: why can't I disable it (I and most colleagues have solid broadband)? We have a nice FHD (Sony A6400 to HDMI-capture) webcam as well and the picture there is also far from superb. But well, this all might make sense if the target is just to make sure, we don't increase their AMZ-bill too much after our uni had setup their license-agreement with them...
  - fossuser 7y ago
    https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
I don't know, I can just tell you it was night and day for my company. We were really trying to use different solutions, because of all of the problems Zoom has. We just had constant quality issues that made it really hard to hear people. Then we tried Zoom one day and it was incredible how good it was in comparison.

thesandlord 7y ago

> it also doesn’t support gallery view so groups larger than 2 https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/22/21231294/google-meet-gallery-tiled-view-roll-out-globally-zoom https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/22/21231294/google-meet-gall... > You also do need gmail, an app, and to have it enabled. What do you mean? Calls are had at meet.google.com, nothing to do with gmail?

ricefield 7y ago
> > it also doesn’t support gallery view so groups larger than 2 > https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/22/21231294/google-meet-gall.. https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/22/21231294/google-meet-gall.... This only applies to Google Meet, not Google Hangouts (the non-enterprise version)
fossuser 7y ago
Looks like that gallery view is from last week? Also meet only, not hangouts, and not rolled out to everyone yet? Either way it’ll be nice if they do that. Other comment was a reply to the parent comment, I was stating that you still need gmail for hangouts and to have it turned on in your email settings, or you need the specific app. I know less about meet - I think that’s some corporate google product I don’t have access to? Google’s strategy around messaging is impossible to understand so it’s possible I’m wrong about that.