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I might be unusual, but my experience with videoconferencing has been that ambient noise is rarely a major problem. The big issue is audio cutting out due to a

I might be unusual, but my experience with videoconferencing has been that ambient noise is rarely a major problem. The big issue is audio cutting out due to a shaky network. When ambient noise is a problem, it's not so much someone typing as their spouse talking in the background or a fire engine going by -- and at that point the solution is for them to hit mute.

gav 6y ago
Most of the issues I have with ambient noise on call could be solved with people investing in a better headset. It's a significant improvement over using your laptop's built in one. The issue I find a bigger problem is lag causing people to talk over one another. I've been on a lot of calls where the call quality was fine but conversations were difficult because it was hard to judge when the other person had stopped talking.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  All voip seems to have terrible latency and it's so frustrating! Mumble does a really good job with this and has for years, why can't we get that in a mainstream solution?
adrianmonk 6y ago
> at that point the solution is for them to hit mute From a technical point of view, that is really the best thing. It works, and sometimes it's the only thing that works. But if you try to get people actually do it, you run into problems: (1) They don't realize it's them. AFAIK the system doesn't play their audio back to them, so while everyone else hears the noise, they don't. The one person who needs to take action is the one person who doesn't know action is necessary. (2) They are distracted. When their spouse is talking, they are focused on whatever their spouse is saying, not on how it affects the meeting audio. Or the meeting is boring and they're not paying attention. (3) They just don't care enough. They are there to attend a meeting, not fiddle with computer stuff. Some people will never take the time to learn where the mute button is in the software. Perhaps #1 could be improved, though, with some kind of blindingly obvious indicator in the UI. If "YOUR MIC IS WHAT EVERYONE IS HEARING RIGHT NOW" flashes when your mic takes the floor, maybe you'd notice it lighting up when you didn't intend for it to.
- dddddaviddddd 6y ago
  An attentive moderator can address all these issues, but it's frustrating to be just a regular participant who can't mute others.
- ShroudedNight 6y ago
  AWS Chime has significant drawbacks, but one of the things I most liked about it was that anybody could mute anybody else. The number of calls where that significantly cut down on audio discomfort was surprising. For those wondering, unmuting is a privileged operation that only the user could do themselves.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
    Same with Meet, at least if you're using the regular enterprise/GSuite version (probably different for schools and/or the nerfed version you get with a personal account, since kids muting the teacher gets old really quick).
kyriakos 6y ago
In my experience kids randomly talking is worse than any constant background noise.

gav 6y ago

Most of the issues I have with ambient noise on call could be solved with people investing in a better headset. It's a significant improvement over using your laptop's built in one. The issue I find a bigger problem is lag causing people to talk over one another. I've been on a lot of calls where the call quality was fine but conversations were difficult because it was hard to judge when the other person had stopped talking.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
All voip seems to have terrible latency and it's so frustrating! Mumble does a really good job with this and has for years, why can't we get that in a mainstream solution?

adrianmonk 6y ago

> at that point the solution is for them to hit mute From a technical point of view, that is really the best thing. It works, and sometimes it's the only thing that works. But if you try to get people actually do it, you run into problems: (1) They don't realize it's them. AFAIK the system doesn't play their audio back to them, so while everyone else hears the noise, they don't. The one person who needs to take action is the one person who doesn't know action is necessary. (2) They are distracted. When their spouse is talking, they are focused on whatever their spouse is saying, not on how it affects the meeting audio. Or the meeting is boring and they're not paying attention. (3) They just don't care enough. They are there to attend a meeting, not fiddle with computer stuff. Some people will never take the time to learn where the mute button is in the software. Perhaps #1 could be improved, though, with some kind of blindingly obvious indicator in the UI. If "YOUR MIC IS WHAT EVERYONE IS HEARING RIGHT NOW" flashes when your mic takes the floor, maybe you'd notice it lighting up when you didn't intend for it to.

dddddaviddddd 6y ago
An attentive moderator can address all these issues, but it's frustrating to be just a regular participant who can't mute others.
ShroudedNight 6y ago
AWS Chime has significant drawbacks, but one of the things I most liked about it was that anybody could mute anybody else. The number of calls where that significantly cut down on audio discomfort was surprising. For those wondering, unmuting is a privileged operation that only the user could do themselves.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
  Same with Meet, at least if you're using the regular enterprise/GSuite version (probably different for schools and/or the nerfed version you get with a personal account, since kids muting the teacher gets old really quick).

kyriakos 6y ago

In my experience kids randomly talking is worse than any constant background noise.