How do people allow their guests to “test” Mimocall? Is there a testing meeting ID that perhaps I’m unaware of?
We use MimoLive on a diverse number of generally non-technical minded users (at least not computer video conferencing technical…they are nurses, so lots of very different technical knowledge)
A couple of times a guest has come on and they have a problem with the connection, audio, video etc. We have taken a couple approaches, both of which have failed a few times. One is scheduling a “pre-call” with them to check technical connection etc. This of course requires additional time and coordination. Also, since they subsequently disconnect, we’ve had a couple times it happen that the pre-call goes fine, but then there is some technical problem at the time of the call that they cannot connect. The other strategy we have used is to have guests come on 15 min early… when it works it is great, but then we are just waiting for 15 min (which is generally fine), however when something does go wrong we’ve had it that 15 minutes is just not enough time to trouble shoot the issue with them before the call. We’ve had to revert to Zoom a few times.
Ideally I think MimoLive would have a “call tester” so that a user can call into a meeting and like the Skype test call, the user could ensure that their receipt of the audio and video is working, and then they could record a snippet to ensure that they could see and hear themselves.
Any thoughts by others? What strategies do you use?
Hi @Kebbel Thank you for your thoughts. I will record this as a feature request.
mimoCall needs to become easier, but unfortunately, OS and browser vendors are working towards the opposite, making it more difficult for users to manage access to cameras and microphones and their settings.
Basically, I do both: A “tech check” call a couple of days before the show and I have guests call in 15-30 min before the show so that we can see if anything is different from the tech check.
Many people do not understand why they need to do the tech check using the exact setup they plan to use on the show, so it is important to explain it to them. Also, many, even professionals, resist the use if headphones which makes audio much more unreliable. I blame Skype and Zoom and their “just good enough” approach to audio which makes people believe that using the built-in microphone and speakers of their laptops should work fine (which it really doesn’t even in Zoom or Skype).
Sorry for the rant, I should finish the “How to look and sound good on a mimoCall” documentation…
@Kebbel What you are describing is a very common problem. I know I experience a lot of the same issues. Especially with non technical people.
Even in cases with users who regularly join via mimoCall they have the same setup issues. I would expect that they would learn from use, but with some users this just doesn’t happen.
@Oliver_Boinx I’ve often thought it would be fantastic to be able to control the remote mimoCall settings from my end rather than the novice users end. Would this be possible?
If not even to have a remote view of their desktop while they setup would be great.
I’d love to see the stuff that Riverside.fm has built in…. through them I can see which microphone etc the user is using (can’t see all the options, but at least I can know that the fancy microphone that I’ve sent them is actually being used rather than their echo-y standard internal microphone.
I echo @Oliver_Boinx 's rant… I can’t get some of my regular guests to use headphones. One of my hosts can’t use in ear headphones due to specialized hearing aids and is planning in the future to replace them with bluetooth, but when multiple guests are all not using headphones it can become a jumbled mess of echo… I sit on the levels constantly trying to mitigate it, and not prevent people from talking That said… other than adjusting levels, what can be done about that? Zoom and Teams really have taught people that this is ok… For my hosts I bought them both the rode podmic which is a fairly high quality dynamic microphone that reject most of the speaker sound… As per my post on another thread I’d love to be able to use a noise gate (and other audio filters) on any audio source including mimocalls! It would be even better if on the output side I could select whether the audio source is filtered or unfiltered so for example, I could have my show using a noise-gate and compressor but having the source audio recorded unfiltered….
On a related note, has anyone tried Zoom ISO (https://www.liminalet.com/zoomiso) via either NDI or Syphon into MimoLive instead of MimoCall? I’ve just submitted a request to have my zoom account upgraded to full HD and (hopefully) once that happens I have the option of using Zoom ISO to extract 720p streams. I think I prefer MimoCall from a technical and quality perspective, but fortunately or unfortunately everyone seems to know how to use zoom and has their system configured to use it
Zoom-ISO? Sounds performance intensive. No, I never tried it.
Yes, all are trained to use zoom. Some broadcasters try to noise-reduct the audio. Horrible. It sounds like an early try of noise reduction in final cut. Most of the participants are not realy understandable.
I will use mimoCall from september on. But I also will use more instances of zoom (up to 3 accounts). Old macBooks + IO bi-directed into/out of a BMD DeckLink Quad 2. Same PGM-image, different mixed minus audio track. Whenever the caller is visible, just the video output will be changed to a view to the host. (By a script). And back, when another person is talking.
I tested it (trial), but found it too CPU intensive. More like Mimocall. Or I use Teams NDI and use NDI Virtual Input to send back audio+video to Teams/Zoom. We will test Zoom Rooms with NDI soon.
It’s just a pity that NDI inputs are shuffled all the time. It’s a by chance thing, which input will be an input for what ever. This is the reason, why I decided to use a hardware solution for it. My life is to short to reconfigure this daily. But yes, I use one NDI-Input also. So it cannot be shuffled.
ZoomISO can also provide Syphon feeds out which require less processing. Of course this means you need to use the one machine for Zoom and mimoLive. But it works well on a suitable specified system.
I would love to test it instead of mimoCall but mimoCall has the advantage because it provides a return feed to the caller.
I would really like to be able to specify the resolution of the mimoCall stream I receive from the remote contributor, at the moment I am at the mercy of the setup at their end. If I have a 720p project and the contributor sends 1080p I have no way of forcing them to send 720p instead.
You can also have a separate Zoom machine and take it to mimolive via HDMI using a blackmagic box or similar. This is kind of nice as you can control the scale, have separate operators, is low overhead, etc. but it doesn’t involve the network at all.
Lot’s of ways to do it, but they all have some trade-offs.
I’ve now used Microsoft Teams and NDI out, and Zoom with zoom ISO. Both performed poorly in real world use despite testing in advance on my hardware. I used a separate machine for Teams or Zoom and mimoLive on a second machine.
Mimocall just seems to work the best for me at least, and uses just a single machine. It has a larger “barrier to entry” and the occasional glitch but the quality is much better in my experience, and I can do it all on one machine.
I also have been doing what @Oliver_Boinx was suggesting for all my guests - tech check a day or two ahead of time, and then connecting at half-hour before the live-stream starts. One advantage to the tech check is that you have the opportunity to see and hear people and recommend adjustments or trobleshoot without the pressure of about-to-be going live.
I have had one guest on via Skype/NDI which worked fine, and if you don’t mind their logo being in the upper left or right corner – by now we all see this on TV all the time anyway – it might be a good alternative. I’d imagine it’s better video quality than Zoom has.
