As companies prepare to send their staff home to work remotely a question that we are asked everyday is “What software would you recommend for video conferencing?”. The answer is not as straightforward as you would think.
There’s a couple of things you need to consider when choosing the right one.
- Price
- Mobile Friendly
- Security
Features to consider
- Screen recording.
- Screen sharing.
- Transfer media.
- Number of users per call.
If your company is seminar/lesson based (yoga, teaching ect) you may want to record your videos and publish them at a later date. If this is you, check out the optimised setup for delivering high quality and basic videos below.
If your company is focused solely on jumping into a video call there’s tons of options available. Each platform offers similar features with varying price plans. Cloud platform options are easily accessible and most allow for mail, calendar and contact integrations.
Here’s our Top 5 platforms:
Zoom
- Security – Yes
- Time Limit – 40 Minutes
- Up to 100 participants
- Video Recording
- Annotations
- File Sharing
- White Boarding
- Mail Integration Outlook -Chrome
- Price Enterprise €19 a month
Microsoft Teams
- Security – Yes
- Time Limit 110 Minute
- Up to 250 participants
- Video Recording
- Chat with Attendees
- File Sharing
- Clever SLACK like feature
- Mail Integration Outlook -Chrome
- Price €6.70 per user monthly
Google Hangouts Meet
- Security – Yes
- Time Limit – 110 Minutes
- Up to 100 participants
- Video Recording
- Presentations
- File Sharing
- Low Code App Development
- Mail Integration
- Price €10.00 per user monthly +
- Mobile Friendly – Yes
- Until July 1 2020, Enterprise-level features such as meetings of up to 250 people, recording to Google Drive and more are available for free.
Cisco WebEx Meetings
- Security – TLS 1.2 and AES 256-bit encryption
- Time Limit – Unlimited
- Up to 100 participants
- Video Recording
- Presentations
- File Sharing
- Mail Integration
- Currently Free +
- Mobile Friendly – Yes
GoToMeeting
- Security – 128-bit Advanced Encryption
- Time Limit 120 Minutes
- Up to 250 participants
- Video Recording
- Presentations
- No File Sharing
- Hand over feature
- Mail Integration
- Price €14.00 monthly
- Mobile Friendly – Yes
Seminar/class based company
If you are constrained to your home but still want to deliver your classes through an above platform, here’s a recommended setup to deliver high resolution video.
What you will need:
A Camera, this can be a DSLR, Video Camera, Action Camera with a HDMI connection.
A Tripod to secure the camera.
A Laptop to connect the camera to, which will run any of the above platforms.
And finally a Elgato Cam Link, this allows you to connect your camera to your laptop, providing HD or even 4k playback.
If you want a simple budget friendly setup you can always use the camera built into your phone or laptop. A private Facebook group is a quick solution for delivering content to your clients. You can GoLive which is only visible to people within that group.As the spread of CoronaVirus increases so does the demand for companies like Google, Microsoft and others to offer free software solutions. Keep an eye out online, you might pick up a lengthy free subscription.
If you have any questions on the above, contact anthony@portershed.com
