3 ms·

Has everyone forgotten about Skype? My D&D group switched from Zoom to Skype and the performance/quality is noticeably better. There's 5 of us and it's great.

by rewgs 6y ago

Has everyone forgotten about Skype? My D&D group switched from Zoom to Skype and the performance/quality is noticeably better. There's 5 of us and it's great. Free, no time limits, etc.

deadbunny 6y ago
My group (6 of us) did the oposite. We used to use Skype till we had continual problems of people getting infinite "loading" screens, we switched to Zoom the last 3 or 4 games because of it. I have to say the video quality is much better and the DM being able to screen share while we can still see each other is great. Also the "Brady Bunch" view is great, being able to see everyone at once is awesome. I'm not very happy with all of the news trickling out about Zoom but I really do like their product.
- tkgally 6y ago
  > I'm not very happy with all of the news trickling out about Zoom but I really do like their product. That's my position, too. I teach at a large public university in Japan, where the school year begins in April. At the beginning of March, we were expecting to start classes in person as normal a month later. By around March 20, we had decided to teach most of our classes online; a week later, "most" had become "all." Teachers and students had little to no prior experience with online education, and their level of general digital literacy varied widely. From the plethora of tools available, we had to choose software that everyone could use and that would be reliable and scalable. Despite concerns about security issues, Zoom was chosen as our videoconferencing platform. That seems to have turned out to be a good choice, as it is stable, can handle large groups, and offers features (breakout rooms, video and audio recording, attendance reports, etc.) that are useful for university classes. That fact that it hasn't (yet) been blocked in China was also a factor in choosing it, as we have students stuck overseas who need to take part in classes. Anecdotal reports from colleagues who teach at other universities in Japan suggest that the non-Zoom platforms have not performed as well. Now that teachers and students are used to online classes, I hope we can also try other tools in the future. But considering how well Zoom performed during our hectic ramp-up to online teaching, I give it my grudging support for the time being.

by rewgs 6y ago

Has everyone forgotten about Skype? My D&D group switched from Zoom to Skype and the performance/quality is noticeably better. There's 5 of us and it's great. Free, no time limits, etc.

deadbunny 6y ago

My group (6 of us) did the oposite. We used to use Skype till we had continual problems of people getting infinite "loading" screens, we switched to Zoom the last 3 or 4 games because of it. I have to say the video quality is much better and the DM being able to screen share while we can still see each other is great. Also the "Brady Bunch" view is great, being able to see everyone at once is awesome. I'm not very happy with all of the news trickling out about Zoom but I really do like their product.

tkgally 6y ago
> I'm not very happy with all of the news trickling out about Zoom but I really do like their product. That's my position, too. I teach at a large public university in Japan, where the school year begins in April. At the beginning of March, we were expecting to start classes in person as normal a month later. By around March 20, we had decided to teach most of our classes online; a week later, "most" had become "all." Teachers and students had little to no prior experience with online education, and their level of general digital literacy varied widely. From the plethora of tools available, we had to choose software that everyone could use and that would be reliable and scalable. Despite concerns about security issues, Zoom was chosen as our videoconferencing platform. That seems to have turned out to be a good choice, as it is stable, can handle large groups, and offers features (breakout rooms, video and audio recording, attendance reports, etc.) that are useful for university classes. That fact that it hasn't (yet) been blocked in China was also a factor in choosing it, as we have students stuck overseas who need to take part in classes. Anecdotal reports from colleagues who teach at other universities in Japan suggest that the non-Zoom platforms have not performed as well. Now that teachers and students are used to online classes, I hope we can also try other tools in the future. But considering how well Zoom performed during our hectic ramp-up to online teaching, I give it my grudging support for the time being.