Best social video conferencing ?
Discussion
Hi all
Appreciate some advice and a thread may be useful for all.
Along with 7 other mates, we had a “House Party” beer on Friday night. The App worked reasonably well but did drop out and was a bit glitchy at times. Sound was usually good but video was a bit temperamental. We weren’t sure if it was the individual house WiFi/internet connections or the app itself in that we were at the max of 8 participants.
It seems that HouseParty, Zoom & Hangouts are popular.....I’ve only tried HouseParty.
Are there any technical reasons why one is better than others ? The group above are going to meet again in a few weeks and I’m also using House Party with family so was wondering if there was a “better” free and easy to use app for social video conferencing that allowed multi users.
Appreciate some advice and a thread may be useful for all.
Along with 7 other mates, we had a “House Party” beer on Friday night. The App worked reasonably well but did drop out and was a bit glitchy at times. Sound was usually good but video was a bit temperamental. We weren’t sure if it was the individual house WiFi/internet connections or the app itself in that we were at the max of 8 participants.
It seems that HouseParty, Zoom & Hangouts are popular.....I’ve only tried HouseParty.
Are there any technical reasons why one is better than others ? The group above are going to meet again in a few weeks and I’m also using House Party with family so was wondering if there was a “better” free and easy to use app for social video conferencing that allowed multi users.
From my very limited experience having only used House party and Zoom once each.
Houseparty: three way conversation very good with seamless crossover between all parties.
Zoom: two way conversation very laggy, simultaneous talking very difficult.
I should think that a lot is dependant on the connection quality of all participants, time of day and so on...
Houseparty: three way conversation very good with seamless crossover between all parties.
Zoom: two way conversation very laggy, simultaneous talking very difficult.
I should think that a lot is dependant on the connection quality of all participants, time of day and so on...
One of my friends used zoom to initiate a group friends call earlier today - he told us it cost £15/month but he was happy to pay to connect to friends/family. It didn't cost us invitees anything and the ease of connecting was fine. Good video and audio quality too.
Perhaps Zoom gives a premium service to a paying subscriber.
Perhaps Zoom gives a premium service to a paying subscriber.
Mojooo said:
we have MS TEAMS at work and I think we were all surprised at how seamless it was. I only use it on my computer but there is an app
likewise, i think it is free to invite note subscribers.
We had a MS Teams meeting with 65 people signed in today. Worked seamlessly, but only one person sharing video and most on mute for the majority of the time. Works very well for up to 8 video sharing too, but you can only see 4people at a time, however it shows who is talking at the time automatically. You can tell those with slow internet connections though.likewise, i think it is free to invite note subscribers.
We have used Facebook messenger at home too but only with 4 people. Seems to work pretty well.
Kids have used Google Hangout but they moan about it 'glitching'. Not tried myself.
Mike
We use Skype for Business at work call and it works well, mainly talking in turns and without video, max of around 3-4 people with mic turned on at any time, but it bring up the name and profile image of people talking, I think about six at a time on PC, with the others shown in small below.
We also use MS teams, some reporting it as less glitchy than Skype but seemed similar to me, only four on screen at any one time as said, but it brings up the people speaking. Again, mainly without using video and muting when not speaking, and again on the PC not a phone.
Partner uses Zoom on her iphone, seemed to either show only one person +inset of you (changed depending who was speaking) or page through 3+1 of the other ten or so, but no way to see 4-6 core people auto switching? Didn't seem great and merging voices but then obviously difference discipline levels than a company team meeting! Times out after 40min as said.
Daniel
We also use MS teams, some reporting it as less glitchy than Skype but seemed similar to me, only four on screen at any one time as said, but it brings up the people speaking. Again, mainly without using video and muting when not speaking, and again on the PC not a phone.
Partner uses Zoom on her iphone, seemed to either show only one person +inset of you (changed depending who was speaking) or page through 3+1 of the other ten or so, but no way to see 4-6 core people auto switching? Didn't seem great and merging voices but then obviously difference discipline levels than a company team meeting! Times out after 40min as said.
Daniel
Edited by dhutch on Monday 6th April 15:32
Because of contracting for several companies, I now regularly use:
Teams is pushed a lot because a lot of people make heavy use of the Microsoft stack. I have to say I like how meetings are done and it has a lot of functionality. A simple one is for example sending pictures while GTM and WebEx allow only simple chat.
For personal use however, and I don't think I've ever used it for screen sharing, just video calls, I always use Hangouts. When my friend was travelling Asia it was also the most consistent one on bad internet connections. But in general, it just seems to work. If I'd want to do a group call I'd take that every time. The web interface is great as well. On top of that it's free, all you need is a google account, which most people have anyway.
WhatsApp is pretty terrible imho. It's just there because a lot of people have it. One of the biggest limitations for me is that it only works on a device with a sim card/phone number. So not your laptop/pc/tablet. While -as far as I know- the others all work on all devices. My son has a Chromebook that we often use these days and all of these seem to work well on that except for WhatsApp/Facetime.
I haven't yet used Zoom or House Party.
TL;DR My 2 cents:
GoToMeeting for big meetings or presentations
Teams for company stuff, mostly internal with colleagues
Hangouts for private video calls/group calls
- GoToMeeting
- Slack
- Teams
- WebEx
- Hangouts
- Skype
Teams is pushed a lot because a lot of people make heavy use of the Microsoft stack. I have to say I like how meetings are done and it has a lot of functionality. A simple one is for example sending pictures while GTM and WebEx allow only simple chat.
For personal use however, and I don't think I've ever used it for screen sharing, just video calls, I always use Hangouts. When my friend was travelling Asia it was also the most consistent one on bad internet connections. But in general, it just seems to work. If I'd want to do a group call I'd take that every time. The web interface is great as well. On top of that it's free, all you need is a google account, which most people have anyway.
WhatsApp is pretty terrible imho. It's just there because a lot of people have it. One of the biggest limitations for me is that it only works on a device with a sim card/phone number. So not your laptop/pc/tablet. While -as far as I know- the others all work on all devices. My son has a Chromebook that we often use these days and all of these seem to work well on that except for WhatsApp/Facetime.
I haven't yet used Zoom or House Party.
TL;DR My 2 cents:
GoToMeeting for big meetings or presentations
Teams for company stuff, mostly internal with colleagues
Hangouts for private video calls/group calls
Edited by ZesPak on Wednesday 1st April 10:55
Type R Tom said:
Google Duo announced yesterday they are upping the limit to 12 people now. Could be worth a look
I have a large family group on WhatsApp but that's for text-based comms only.I'd like to get some of them onto a VC from time to time - good to keep in touch. I've looked through a number of the usual VC suspects and I reckon Google Duo is worth investigating further:
1. it's free, and
2. now that you can have 12 people on a call, it's about as many as you'd want. Any more and you'll likely face too many wanting to talk at the same time.
Has anyone an opinion about the scare-stories relating to HouseParty security?
condor said:
One of my friends used zoom to initiate a group friends call earlier today - he told us it cost £15/month but he was happy to pay to connect to friends/family. It didn't cost us invitees anything and the ease of connecting was fine. Good video and audio quality too.
Perhaps Zoom gives a premium service to a paying subscriber.
Its free for basic, but you are limited to 40 mins if more than 2 people, although the past few sessions I've been in Zoom have extended this on the fly free of charge.Perhaps Zoom gives a premium service to a paying subscriber.
My wife has been using Zoom solidly all week 6 hrs a day for her business on the freebie in 1:1 meetings. She's experienced zero issues.
All these platforms will be ramping their services up and down to meet demand and their success will depend on how easy it is for them.
We plan on buying in to the paid service cos we have courses to run, but at the moment we are assessing if people are comfortable attending online.
Watchman said:
I have a large family group on WhatsApp but that's for text-based comms only.
I'd like to get some of them onto a VC from time to time - good to keep in touch. I've looked through a number of the usual VC suspects and I reckon Google Duo is worth investigating further:
1. it's free, and
2. now that you can have 12 people on a call, it's about as many as you'd want. Any more and you'll likely face too many wanting to talk at the same time.
Has anyone an opinion about the scare-stories relating to HouseParty security?
At this point I don't see the benefit of using Duo over Hangouts, unless I'm missing a party trick?I'd like to get some of them onto a VC from time to time - good to keep in touch. I've looked through a number of the usual VC suspects and I reckon Google Duo is worth investigating further:
1. it's free, and
2. now that you can have 12 people on a call, it's about as many as you'd want. Any more and you'll likely face too many wanting to talk at the same time.
Has anyone an opinion about the scare-stories relating to HouseParty security?
I thought they set up Duo as a competitor for FaceTime? Anyway, as far as I can see Duo is limited to smartphones as well, which puts it in the same boat as WhatsApp?
Seems like there isn't a consensus then :-) as expected.
I don't want to use paid for service, this is just a few mates having a beer on line every now and then....and or smaller numbers with family. This wasn't meant to be a discussion on what works great for the work or professional scenario (FYI I use Teams with work and it has worked seamlessly).
Is it true that hangouts has 1 video feed when that person talks whereas HouseParty you are all visible all the time ?
Sounds like I hit the right app for my needs first time with House Party then ?
I don't want to use paid for service, this is just a few mates having a beer on line every now and then....and or smaller numbers with family. This wasn't meant to be a discussion on what works great for the work or professional scenario (FYI I use Teams with work and it has worked seamlessly).
Is it true that hangouts has 1 video feed when that person talks whereas HouseParty you are all visible all the time ?
Sounds like I hit the right app for my needs first time with House Party then ?
You can use Teams now as an individual, though when you set it up with a Microsoft Account you don't have an O365 Tennant behind it, so things that rely on that aren't there.
I don't know if there are any further limitations on calling with it, but I guess it's advantage now is that very few individuals will be using the capacity in general, so while other services may suffer from quality issues, Teams might work better.
Might be more of a pain to get everyone on it perhaps too.
I don't know if there are any further limitations on calling with it, but I guess it's advantage now is that very few individuals will be using the capacity in general, so while other services may suffer from quality issues, Teams might work better.
Might be more of a pain to get everyone on it perhaps too.
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