Audio Visual tips for Zoom, OBS, Youtube etc

Practical tips to improve Internet, Lighting, Sound and Video for online calls and presentations

Published: Thursday, Dec 31, 2020 Last modified: Saturday, Mar 23, 2024

Record yourself to benchmark your setup.

Make recordings, organise media into YYYY-MM-DD folders and scrutinise the A/V quality! You will make mistakes and have learn along the way.

Use ffprobe from the https://ffmpeg.org/ to work out the resolution of your recording btw. Aim for 16:9 aspect ratio and a minimum of 1920x1080 resolution.

Network 🔌

Go wired! Get connected 🎶

typical GOOD wireless connection wired connection

Be wary of routes with ☠️PACKET LOSS☠️ Exhibit A Exhibit B … only really noticed with monitoring.

Good options to getting wired (single USB-C) for Apple MBP:

Under the door

Lighting 💡

Ring light demo

Entry level suggestions:

5600K colour temperature seems to be a sweet spot.

You will get used to a bright light in your face.

Audio 🎤

condenser microphone demo

Avoid wireless. I love my Air Pod Pros too, but they are not as good as you might think!

Best sound treatment for a room is soft furnishings: Curtains, carpet, pillows, throws … a bedroom can be pretty good. Hard surfaces suck.

👏 Clap test 👏

Video 🎥

eye level graphic from signmediasmart.com

Get a Laptop Notebook Stand to get camera at optimal eye level.

Test your setup

  1. Record yourself!
  2. What could be be better? FOCUS ON AUDIO. Is there something distracting?
  3. Go to step 1

Practice makes perfect.

Really next level stuff

The problem of “making eye contact” is quite difficult to solve if your camera isn’t mounted on your screen

Green screen - less distracting than a virtual background. Pull up and under-the-bed storable indicative prices:

  1. 5m x 2m $189SGD
  2. 3m x 2m $249SGD

Remember you only need to green screen your outline/silhouette, not your back wall!

Take aways - #priorities

Record yourself to benchmark your setup.

  1. Wired Network
  2. Audio
  3. Lighting

TODO: Watch some Zoom tutorial videos for understanding some advanced features like Spotlight and hand gestures

Credits: