Checklist.video – Research backed tips for great video calls | Hacker News Reader

Checklist.video – Research backed tips for great video calls

checklist.video

105 pointsjeztek39 comments

It’s been a whole year since the pandemic started and video calls are still terrible. We've been doing a lot of research into how to make them better and wanted to share what we've learned.

We were aiming for something whimsical and easy to read so the tips primarily focus around illustrations that were inspired by IKEA instructions. For people who are interested in delving into the details we put the meat of the advice behind a "Why?" button.

This was also our first foray into writing a responsive site that renders well on mobile and desktop, built using Next.js and Tailwinds CSS.

What are some of your favorite video call hacks or tips?

Does “research backed” mean studies were done, or does it mean that you read a bunch of stuff and called it research?

If the former, can you link to any relevant papers, etc? I was looking for specifics on this for a project myself.

Hey supermatt, thanks for the feedback, that's good to know! Is there an alternative wording you would suggest? We meant to imply that the tips were primarily derived from findings from published research.

I’d be interested in the links to the published research!

If it’s actual research, I think the naming is fine. If it’s reading a bunch of “top 10 tips for looking great on webcam” then it’s not.

When I clicked on “why” I was expecting some actual information. As is, it just reads like an opinion piece IMHO

For example, you state an arms length as the optimal distance - but this would be different based on FoV, etc. There’s no real data I can see that would lead to make that statement.

It's at the bottom of the page: https://checklist.video/checklist/#references

Ah, okay I'm trying to understand your recommendation. Is it because not every tip has a research finding tied to it, which seems incongruous with the title? Or is it that the research finding doesn't explicitly tie to the recommendation?

Most of the tips do reference research findings, and you can find the reference by clicking on the subscript numbers or scroll down to the references section.

Some tips are more common sense and/or geared towards addressing a research finding. In the "arm's length" tip for example, the referenced paper discusses the importance of eye contact in computer mediated communications but doesn't explicitly say you should keep an arm's length to achieve the best eye contact. Was your expectation that the tip should link to research determining the optimal distance from the camera to achieve good eye contact?

> Was your expectation that the tip should link to research determining the optimal distance from the camera to achieve good eye contact?

Yep, that would "back" the statement with research, otherwise it is conjecture. As mentioned, this particular statement is easy to dismiss given the wide variety of FoV on webcams - but other statements are equally unfounded.

To clarify - I like the site, and im sure it is useful to many, but its very misleading to state that it is backed by research when it isnt.

> It’s been a whole year since the pandemic started and video calls are still terrible.

Because it's hard. Just going through the list in the article:

> Use a cable to connect to the Internet

Difficult if your house isn't wired for ethernet and the modem is in an inconvenient spot, or in a room which contradicts tip #4. Do you let a long cable drift along the floor?

Powerlines will work in some houses, but not others, and can occasionally introduce their own connectivity problems.

> Make sure your upload speed is >3 Mbps

And if your ISP doesn't offer that much upload bandwidth, well then I guess you're SOL.

You can setup Ethernet through your power outlets with something like this https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-AV600-Powerline-Ethernet-Adap...

Yep, I mentioned those! They're great when they work, but it depends on how your house is wired.

For me: Powerline was better than wifi from the router, but worse then adding a mesh network. Running a cable would have been very expensive (under concrete + outside).

The other maker of Checklist.video here :)

Yeah, definitely agreed with you that it's difficult if your house isn't wired for ethernet. I actually do let a long cable drift along my floor :P Having a strong upload speed is crucial to letting others be able to hear you without any lag - and that's one of the most important factors to having a great video conference. This is why we wanted to emphasize a wired connection, but we also provided the specific upload/download speeds that could get you the high quality call as well.

I really like this, a few comments

Why not have the homepage be the checklist? Seems odd to have a page that says click here to see the checklist

Can you send this to the one guy on our Zoom calls who logs in 3 minutes after meeting starts, futzes around with camera/microphone/sound for 5 minutes and then 8 minutes into the call announces he’s online and wants to be filled in on what he missed?

From video production the one takeaway I have is key light vs backlight, webcams like key light and webcams struggle with back light

Lolol!!! Happy to send this to that guy if you somehow provide us his contact information :) I'm on Twitter here if you wanna DM me: https://www.twitter.com/melissadooo.

And yes, absolutely. Webcams - and actually cameras in general - REALLY struggle with back-lighting. Having a key light pointed at a wall so it's more diffuse and so it can cast a softer glow onto your face is ideal.

Videographers learn about 3-point lighting for ideal lighting situations in film school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-point_lighting.

It's interesting to me that nobody's really taken the initiative to come out with a high-quality video-only UVC camera yet. I have in mind something like Arducam's offerings* but with autofocus. Even taking a Raspberry Pi high-quality camera and trying to make a webcam out of it is difficult.

I have no interest in buying a thousand-dollar mirrorless camera for this purpose, and even less interest in taking Michael Lopp's advice and buying a $4,000 BlackMagic camera for this. All the pieces are in place for a decent autofocus dedicated UVC camera with good color imaging, but for some reason the market hasn't landed there, and I'm curious why.

The closest is probably the Logitech Brio, but even that camera is horrible in lighting environments in which the Arducam's manual-focus larger lens excels.

* https://www.arducam.com/product/arducam-high-quality-complet...

Apparently you can use Android and iPhones as webcams (e.g. see https://reincubate.com/camo/ ).

have you used these apps before? what's the experience like?

I have not, though my coworker does sometimes (Camo) and the video quality is quite good.

I've tried a few of them on iOS and they have all worked well. Some work over wifi and some over a connected USB cable. I tested these: http://iriun.com (open source, free, works over wifi) https://reincubate.com/camo/ (free, upgrade for more features, works over cable) https://neural.cam/live/ (free, upgrade for more features, works over cable)

noob question - what is the difference between a typical webcam (i have the logitech c925) and a "UVC camera"? i mean i get theres a price difference and i can see the difference, I just don't exactly know what causes it and why i need to pay $1k for it.

hey swyx! a "UVC camera" simply refers to a camera that connects to your device over USB. most "typical webcams" are actually UVC cameras. the ones that are not, are the fancy SLR set-ups that you have to jerry-rig to your computer with multiple connectors and hubs. these are the setups that typically cost at least $1k.

ahhh ok ok. yeah. i want the dslr quality without the fuss and at maybe 1/3 the price tag. haha.

I use one of those fancy video setups. It consists of a tripod, the camera body & lens, dummy battery for power, and USB-C cable from camera to the mac, no jerry-rigging required. It's a Canon EOS R (a mirrorless camera). Modern cameras have gotten extremely good at this, there's no need for HDMI video cap boxes and so forth anymore.

Ooo awesome :) What lens do you use with your EOS R?

the other maker of Checklist.video here :)

stonogo -- you've hit the nail on the head! we asked ourselves the exact same questions.

There was a really great HN thread about it a few months back, did you see it? link here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25504771&p=3

It seems like cameras with decent sensors start around $500, though most cluster around $700+. I sort of wonder if no one has had the chutzpah to test whether there's a market for $500 webcams. I was personally a little surprised when I went remote three years ago that a "premium" webcam only costs $200, and looks like shit. Based on the number of people with fancy mirrorless setups now, I suspect a $500+ turnkey webcam could do well.

For your specific situation, a used Panasonic G7 and a $20 Chinese capture card would probably work if you're interesting.

Glad to see “hide self view” on this list - that’s made a huge difference for me in the last few months.

I’d suggest removing the need to click through the “read now” button - seems like if I’m on the page, I want to read the tips.

Self-view together with this semi formal workspace environment makes this whole video experience really unnatural. Although I doubt it can be deactivated on many video conferencing platforms.

Yeah, as we point out in the Checklist.video site, unfortunately only Zoom, Google Meets, and WebEx give you the option to turn off self-view. (Notable lack of this ability in Microsoft teams!)

> Keep an arm's length away from your camera

> Eye contact is incredibly important for showing others you're engaged and paying attention. Taking a small step back from the camera will decrease the angle between your eyes and the camera, making it seem more like you're making eye contact.

this is actually a really great trick! and straightforward explanation.

thank you, nice project, wondering why you made it a standalone site. are you intending to build on this further?

Thanks swyx, we're glad you enjoyed the site!

It's a standalone site because we wanted people to be able to easily share it with their teammates right before important video calls.

A few people have given us really helpful feedback about more information to include (e.g. setups for different types of remote workers). But we haven't decided how we'd like to build on it further yet. If we did, what would you like to see from the site? / what would be most helpful to you?

I would add to the reasons for "Use wired headphones or speakers" is that many (all? not sure) combination "bluetooth headphones with mic" hardware will bottleneck at the bluetooth link. You end up sounding like you're on an old landline (and incoming audio is equally low-fi).

I ended up using my bluetooth headphones just for incoming audio; and a dedicated mic on my desk for my speech. It improved both my voice and everyone elses' dramatically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bluetooth_profiles#Han...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bluetooth_profiles#Hea...

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40951060/how-to-make-a2d...

https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/44sxms/bluetoo...

Ended up with the same setup.

Qc35 + Razer seiren mini work great together.

I've also noticed in my case that bluetooth headphones interfere with my laptops wifi, but am not sure why. And the hardware bottleneck makes a lot of sense for me because those headphones didn't interfere when weren't connected to the laptop (the same happens to me with my phone)

Same, except it's the other way around - my wifi interferes with all audio bluetooth devices I've tested. It causes a stutter about once every five seconds that goes away as soon as I disable the wifi.

Fortunately, it only happens when I'm connected to a 2.4ghz network so I was able to fix it by switching to 5ghz - but even with the modem in the hall outside my office, I'm at the extreme limit of 5ghz reception. It really does not travel far.

Yeah, I noticed recently that my headphones have two modes - sound only, where they sound great, and wireless headset mode, where the sound is awful.

However, it's only awful for music. It's fine for voice, really. I only noticed the two modes when they got stuck in headset mode after I finished a call and I was wondering why the music I put on suddenly sounded bad.

OTOH, this list has made me wonder how much of the delay I hear in video calls is due to bluetooth. Cutting 300ms of delay is much more important than improving already serviceable sound quality.

>Make sure your face is well lit

To do this, make sure you have your window in front of you, and certainly not behind you (backlighting is awful)

If you are on a call at night, or in a dark place, make sure your laptop screen is not your main source of light: if someone shows a red slide, you will look red.

> make sure your laptop screen is not your main source of light: if someone shows a red slide, you will look red.

Haha, this is such a great point - thanks for noting this!

Why the additional button click to show the checklist? Why not display the checklist when opening the checklist?

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