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I've used google hangouts and then Meets at my work and it's fine. It does not require any special training to use, it works as you'd expect, and basically gets

by rsj_hn 5y ago

I've used google hangouts and then Meets at my work and it's fine. It does not require any special training to use, it works as you'd expect, and basically gets out of your way. I've used Zoom for online classes (as a student) and don't see any difference or advantage between it and Meets. You still click a link and and a window open ups, your camera turns on, there is a chat box, etc.

bostik 5y ago
I use Zoom and Meet daily too. They are both functional on the bare-bones level but fail miserably with anything more complex - such as a 10+ person meeting. Or screen sharing. Meets craps its UI dimensions when you open chat. Zoom pops the chat window up in the middle of the screen, which is only slightly less bad. Both have problems if you have detachable video camera(s) in addition to laptop's own. And don't get me started on the audio path: even if you do manage to pick the right input and output, there's no guarantee the audio actually gets routed through. Expect to restart the video call software 25% of the time and pray it reconnects the streams all the way through. Oh, and Zoom's screen sharing experience on multi-monitor OSX setup is unforgivable. When you choose to share a screen, it triggers a sequence where the audience sees your shared view but you do not. The window you chose to share gets hidden locally. Whoever thought that would be an acceptable user experience needs to have their head examined. Possibly with a trepanner.
- gabrielhidasy 5y ago
  Wow, the word sounds bad on the OSX land. I have a couple meetings/day on Meet, some small, some 20+, usually with screensharing by others, with a laptop with two webcams, 3 mics (internal, external webcam and dedicated mic) and 4 audio outputs (internal, each of two monitors (but only one has speakers connected) and Bluetooth headphones). The settings seem to always pick the right choices of inputs and outputs by default but change is easy. The only thing that sometimes gives me trouble is the Bluetooth headphones connecting to my phone instead, but that's once in a blue moon. The thing that is somewhat broken is sharing my screen, but sharing an application works so not a big deal. Not sure about Zoom land though, only watched a couple classes over it.
gota 5y ago
Zoom allows annotation and drawing on top of a shared screen - actual shared screen, not a separate "whiteboard" This means I can circle a word or append a box to a diagram on a pdf my colleague is screensharing with me. I can have non-technical meetings on whatever. But annotation over shared screens is 100% the feature that keeps me on Zoom for all tech work

by rsj_hn 5y ago

bostik 5y ago

I use Zoom and Meet daily too. They are both functional on the bare-bones level but fail miserably with anything more complex - such as a 10+ person meeting. Or screen sharing. Meets craps its UI dimensions when you open chat. Zoom pops the chat window up in the middle of the screen, which is only slightly less bad. Both have problems if you have detachable video camera(s) in addition to laptop's own. And don't get me started on the audio path: even if you do manage to pick the right input and output, there's no guarantee the audio actually gets routed through. Expect to restart the video call software 25% of the time and pray it reconnects the streams all the way through. Oh, and Zoom's screen sharing experience on multi-monitor OSX setup is unforgivable. When you choose to share a screen, it triggers a sequence where the audience sees your shared view but you do not. The window you chose to share gets hidden locally. Whoever thought that would be an acceptable user experience needs to have their head examined. Possibly with a trepanner.

gabrielhidasy 5y ago
Wow, the word sounds bad on the OSX land. I have a couple meetings/day on Meet, some small, some 20+, usually with screensharing by others, with a laptop with two webcams, 3 mics (internal, external webcam and dedicated mic) and 4 audio outputs (internal, each of two monitors (but only one has speakers connected) and Bluetooth headphones). The settings seem to always pick the right choices of inputs and outputs by default but change is easy. The only thing that sometimes gives me trouble is the Bluetooth headphones connecting to my phone instead, but that's once in a blue moon. The thing that is somewhat broken is sharing my screen, but sharing an application works so not a big deal. Not sure about Zoom land though, only watched a couple classes over it.

gota 5y ago

Zoom allows annotation and drawing on top of a shared screen - actual shared screen, not a separate "whiteboard" This means I can circle a word or append a box to a diagram on a pdf my colleague is screensharing with me. I can have non-technical meetings on whatever. But annotation over shared screens is 100% the feature that keeps me on Zoom for all tech work