# Are there video conferencing programs as good and as simple as Zoom? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 28, 2020, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-video-conferencing-programs-as-good-and-as-simple-as-zoom/854578 "2020-05-28T02:50:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-video-conferencing-programs-as-good-and-as-simple-as-zoom/854578/21 "2020-05-28T18:06:21Z")
> [@Joeu](#): > > 1. Google Meet is definitely easier for first-time use than Zoom (nothing to download, nothing to install). But there aren’t that many first-time users out there anymore since almost everyone has used Zoom. Once you’ve got Zoom installed, it’s pretty much equal in ease of use to Google Meet. > > 2. Jitsy. Fully free! And open source! Serviceable if you just need the very basics. Not big on extra features, but for the basics it’s actually better than the others (more stable, better quality, more tolerant of poor connections). SUPER easy to use and to invite people. No accounts, no installations needed. Just use it. Thank you. 1. I will definitely look at Google Meet. 2. I have Jitsy bookmarked – free and anonymous communication. ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-video-conferencing-programs-as-good-and-as-simple-as-zoom/854578/22 "2020-05-28T18:07:39Z")
> [@XT](#): > > If you want something simple, Zoom is probably the easiest to use. Thank you. Learning new stuff is not that easy for me given my Autism. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-video-conferencing-programs-as-good-and-as-simple-as-zoom/854578/23 "2020-05-28T18:35:11Z")
I have used both Zoom and Google Meet in the past few weeks for family ‘reunions’, with the number of participants ranging from 3 to 20. Both work well, although I prefer Zoom because I think it’s easier to control what I see on the screen. However, Google Meet has a feature that was invaluable when we had our elderly aunts and uncles on the call: the ‘live caption’, or text-to-speech capability. The old folks don’t hear and/or understand all that well, so the ability to ‘read’ the conversation was a huge plus. I don’t believe that Zoom offers that feature. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-video-conferencing-programs-as-good-and-as-simple-as-zoom/854578/24 "2020-05-28T18:36:34Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > Just to chat – nothing scientific. If you are chatting with yourself as you stated, why do you need any software at all? Just talk. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-video-conferencing-programs-as-good-and-as-simple-as-zoom/854578/25 "2020-05-28T19:09:56Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > If you are chatting with yourself as you stated, why do you need any software at all? Just talk. My impression has been that the OP’s issue is finding people to talk with, not with any technology. The goal should be to remove any barriers to connection, which will probably mean Zoom right now, but frankly the features he needs are so basic any of these platforms is perfectly fine. To the OP; stop researching, start communicating. ---
**Author:** ![Joeu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joeu/32/2911_2.png) [@Joeu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joeu)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-video-conferencing-programs-as-good-and-as-simple-as-zoom/854578/26 "2020-05-28T20:58:53Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > However, Google Meet has a feature that was invaluable when we had our elderly aunts and uncles on the call: the ‘live caption’, or text-to-speech capability. The old folks don’t hear and/or understand all that well, so the ability to ‘read’ the conversation was a huge plus. I don’t believe that Zoom offers that feature. I mentioned this above and it’s worth emphasizing. This is a very important and powerful feature, and I don’t think any other platform offers it built-in (you can get transcripts emailed after the fact with some of the platforms, but that’s not at all the same thing as live captioning). For those who have hearing issues (I do) it’s terrific. It’s terrifically useful, too, for people who are not entirely comfortable in English, and for people who have some types of learning differences that make it more difficult to process spoken language. The accuracy is astonishing, in most cases, and there is almost no detectable lag in the transcription. It works for anyone who speaks, too, not just the “host.” ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-video-conferencing-programs-as-good-and-as-simple-as-zoom/854578/27 "2020-05-28T23:54:20Z")
I recently had to use Zoom for a cultural event. It was a small performing arts festival. Participants would be poets,singers, musicians and dancers, each performing from a remote location to an audience. Some had laptops running Windows or Macs running OSX or Linux, some were using smartphones running Android or Iphones running IOS. We did not quite realise how ambitious this was. We found there were a lot of issues with the sound quality. Zoom is tuned to optimise one to one audio. Poets had it easy. Singers, as long as it was without accompaniment. Musicians and dance performances to background music…hideous audio quality. The problem is Zoom does echo cancellation and tries to cut out background noise. All that has stuff has to switched off and it is quite well hidden away. We also had some pre-recorded video material and that has another set of controls with some magic audio settings when you using the screen sharing feature to share a video. Moreover, the Zoom apps for the different computers and smartphones we were trying to use were different. The Linux app on a laptop and the smartphone apps had far less options than the Mac or Windows apps. Zoom Inc obviously have a set of priorities. The result was…a mixed bag of success and failure. But the participants persevered and the audience was very forgiving. I do understand that Zoom and the other videoconferencing programs are aimed at simple office meetings: collections of talking heads and maybe a slide show. But during these locked down times it is being used for many other purposes. There is a huge pent up demand for this technology and uses that go far beyond the rather modest requirements of making office meetings work remotely. I wish there was a simpler program that did not try to be quite so clever with what it thinks is the audio and runs equally on all of the platforms. I think next time we do this I will be more prepared for all of the scenarios but it will still be technical fight to set everything up. Hopefully some software will come along that will make it all much easier. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-video-conferencing-programs-as-good-and-as-simple-as-zoom/854578/28 "2020-05-29T00:21:30Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > Thank you. Learning new stuff is not that easy for me given my Autism. Zoom is definitely the way for you to go, IMHO and all that. It’s fairly easy to learn and use, pretty intuitive, and if you don’t care about potential security threats or your meeting being hacked it’s definitely the right tool for the job. Let us know how it goes for you! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-video-conferencing-programs-as-good-and-as-simple-as-zoom/854578/29 "2020-05-29T13:58:47Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > I recently had to use Zoom for a cultural event. It was a small performing arts festival. Participants would be poets,singers, musicians and dancers, each performing from a remote location to an audience. Some had laptops running Windows or Macs running OSX or Linux, some were using smartphones running Android or Iphones running IOS. We did not quite realise how ambitious this was. We found there were a lot of issues with the sound quality. Zoom is tuned to optimise one to one audio. Poets had it easy. Singers, as long as it was without accompaniment. Musicians and dance performances to background music…hideous audio quality. > > The problem is Zoom does echo cancellation and tries to cut out background noise. All that has stuff has to switched off and it is quite well hidden away. We also had some pre-recorded video material and that has another set of controls with some magic audio settings when you using the screen sharing feature to share a video. Moreover, the Zoom apps for the different computers and smartphones we were trying to use were different. The Linux app on a laptop and the smartphone apps had far less options than the Mac or Windows apps. Zoom Inc obviously have a set of priorities. The result was…a mixed bag of success and failure. But the participants persevered and the audience was very forgiving. > > I do understand that Zoom and the other videoconferencing programs are aimed at simple office meetings: collections of talking heads and maybe a slide show. But during these locked down times it is being used for many other purposes. There is a huge pent up demand for this technology and uses that go far beyond the rather modest requirements of making office meetings work remotely. > > I wish there was a simpler program that did not try to be quite so clever with what it thinks is the audio and runs equally on all of the platforms. > > I think next time we do this I will be more prepared for all of the scenarios but it will still be technical fight to set everything up. Hopefully some software will come along that will make it all much easier. > > 🆒 Fascinating. Every Sunday we attend virtual church services. We happen to watch the YouTube stream, but I know for a fact that the choir segments are pre-recorded on Zoom meetings. The quality is astonishing. The singers- frequently upwards of 20- are as in sync as they are in the choir area in church. I can find out how the conductor ( or the Video person recording it as Host ) accomplishes this. But I do know that almost all of the singers are not using a detached microphone. They are singing towards their device and using the embedded microphone therein. ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-video-conferencing-programs-as-good-and-as-simple-as-zoom/854578/30 "2020-06-01T00:34:45Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > My impression has been that the OP’s issue is finding people to talk with, not with any technology. The goal should be to remove any barriers to connection, which will probably mean Zoom right now, but frankly the features he needs are so basic any of these platforms is perfectly fine. > > To the OP; stop researching, start communicating. Hopefully I am not the only lonely soul in The World. Now most people World over have Internet. ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-video-conferencing-programs-as-good-and-as-simple-as-zoom/854578/31 "2020-06-01T00:37:01Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Zoom is definitely the way for you to go, IMHO and all that. It’s fairly easy to learn and use, pretty intuitive, and if you don’t care about potential security threats or your meeting being hacked it’s definitely the right tool for the job. Let us know how it goes for you! 🙂 Learning. I am grateful to all people who help me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-video-conferencing-programs-as-good-and-as-simple-as-zoom/854578.md?page=1)