Hacker News Reader

Comment by polishdude20 | Hacker News Reader

This is why I almost always minimize my own video on my screen. Just seeing myself makes me really self conscious.

Unless I’m presenting or speaking for more than an interjection, I generally turn off the sending of video. There’s little value (IMO) in 320p/720p low bitrate “facial expressions” which are just as often compression artifacts as they are information about emotional state.

Maybe once video calls are routinely 1080p/2160p it will matter more, but 320p (the default for most systems today) at a low bitrate isn’t really doing much. You might as well shut it off unless you’re leading the meeting at that moment.

Contrariwise, when you are speaking/presenting, use an external camera (the one in your laptop/ipad/phone is optimized for thickness and thus the lens sucks) and a good soft key light.

> Contrariwise, when you are speaking/presenting, use an external camera (the one in your laptop/ipad/phone is optimized for thickness and thus the lens sucks) and a good soft key light.

I recently did a fair bit of research into this exact setup and landed on a Logitech StreamCam and a Elgato Key Light.

Well worth the money if you’re interested in achieving a high consumer grade level of quality, just be sure to purchase an adapter for the StreamCam as it is (infuriatingly) wired with a USB C connector.

I find it infuriating when things still use old, non-reversible USB. Everything I plug my Logitech 4K camera into has USB-C ports.

That’s fair, but for something like a 1080 webcam used by amateur streamers, USBC seems like a poor choice. Perhaps there’s a bandwidth issue I’m missing.

720 is the default for Google Meet and gives a decent quality picture imo. There's definitely value in seeing others at that resolution - the restricting factor is people's unreliable or narrow bandwidth internet connection.

also why I don't like seeing pictures of people everywhere (e.g. Outlook, WebEx), especially myself. It's not really useful information and only distracting. At least give us an option if we want to see all this stuff (in Outlook it's possible to hide profile pictures, in WebEx it's not).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com