start	end	text
640	6100	All right. Thanks, everybody. Sorry, ran into a couple glitches here, but we're going to get
6100	19600	started now. I'm Spam. I am from DC212, which is New York City area. And this presentation
19600	26060	is called Remote Presentations, Simple Ways to Dramatically Increase the Quality of Your Talks.
26060	33220	It's almost a little ironic, given this in a VR environment, because a lot of what I am
33220	40300	going to talk about is how to increase the quality of your video and also some simple
40300	47100	things you can do for audio. The reason why I think this is really important now is as we are
47100	54560	all holding meetups and in general just having any sort of meeting where we're not physically
54560	61520	close to each other, having a decent audio and video to do your presentation has become much
61520	67140	more important. And a lot of folks are going out and buying all sorts of expensive things to try to
67140	76540	make their presentations look better. And I've found that over time, you can get this down to
76540	82800	some fairly low cost, fairly simple things that give you a very professional look. You don't have
82800	91600	to go out and buy all sorts of super duper expensive high-end webcams and expensive audio
91600	98240	mixing solutions. There's lots you can do with very simple things. It requires a little more
98240	108060	effort sometimes, but you can have dramatic results from it. So first thing is, when we are
108060	112480	looking at this, we're looking for simple solutions, but a lot of times simple doesn't
112480	120740	always mean cheap. We're going to try to keep things both simple and cheap. Sometimes, like I
120740	128040	said, it may require a little more effort on the initial setup or initial configuration side,
128040	134920	but I'm going to try to keep it both simple and cheap because not everybody has a ton of money
134920	143040	to invest in this. So the most important thing that you can focus on, I think, when you are
143040	148060	trying to improve the quality of your video is not getting a more expensive webcam. It's not
148060	156980	going ahead and doing complicated, you know, green screen effects or anything else behind you.
156980	164260	It's focusing on basic lighting. I've seen so many people who get expensive cameras and hook
164260	170260	them up in an attempt to go ahead and have a really high quality setup be let down because
170260	176820	their lighting is not something that's great. So when we're doing lighting, what we're trying
176820	182620	to do a lot of times is emulate almost the lighting that you get from the actual sun.
182900	190600	If you watch any of the late night talk shows in America over the past few months, as they've been
190600	197020	taken out of their professional environments and people have had to do stuff at home,
197020	201380	at first you saw people doing things inside and it was very dark and difficult to make out what
201380	206000	was going on. And then you started seeing a lot of these folks going into their backyards because
206000	209960	if you're outside, you can probably notice even if you're taking photos with your own
209960	215760	personal smartphone, if you go outside, the even lighting that you're going to get from the actual
215760	221200	sun is going to give you much better results a lot of the time. So what we're going to try
221200	227020	to do with lighting is to present very even lighting so that everything that you're looking
227020	248070	at is illuminated well and in some sense is sort of simulating the sun but not necessarily inviting
248070	253270	and move to something where there's a good separation between you and the background.
253270	259150	It's well lit, it looks inviting, and it's going to help you communicate better when you're giving
259310	268450	a presentation. And even a cheap webcam can have it. So this is not me. I'm definitely not this
268450	274710	photogenic. This slide here, this person, this is a guy who has a YouTube channel called Indy Mogul
275170	283530	and this is actually from a video he did on lighting and production with a cinematographer
283530	289490	named Larry Fong who's worked on tons of big budget movies. And they go through how to go from
289490	296190	zero dollar effort to five thousand dollars investments and improve the quality. But a lot
296190	302270	of the stuff is very, very simple. You see everything he has in these two videos,
302270	307830	two screenshots here. This is, I believe, with the exact same camera. So they're not even improving
307830	313110	the quality of the camera but making some simple changes to what's behind him and how he's lit.
313110	321610	We're able to go from that dark shot to the much more pleasant look at shot. So looking at here
321610	329570	what we have on the left versus the right, on the left you see he is seated with a window behind him
329570	336330	which is letting in light, but he himself is very dark. And that's the thing, the first thing I see
336470	343390	a lot of folks don't necessarily think about when they're setting up a shot. We, when you're working
343390	348370	and you have your desk that you're working at, you want to get light so that if you're looking at a
348370	351850	piece of paper or anything on your desk it's going to be illuminated. So you have the light behind
351850	360390	your head. But when you reverse it, the camera, if it's pointed at the light, the way that a camera
360390	366770	works is that bright light that's behind you, it's going to view that as the brightest thing
366770	372650	and then that should be white and it's going to bring everything else darker to compensate for
372650	381270	that. So if we look at the side on the right, what has happened there is we've put over some drapes
381270	387490	on the window and that is going to soften the light a little more and it's going to darken the
387490	393330	room, but they've added in additional lighting to compensate for that and provide a much more
393990	401630	even lighting to everything. And so everything is much more vivid, much more realistic. So I'm going
401630	407990	to go to the first thing in terms of lighting. We want to go ahead and get some lighting that we're
407990	413330	inside of the home. Because while it's great we can cover the window and we're going to lose some
413330	418590	light from that, you can compensate a little bit with lamps you may have around. But I think if you
418590	423830	want to step up your game, we can spend a little bit of money, we can get a lot of bang for the
423830	430290	buck. So the thing that I recommend is getting what's called a softbox if you really want to
430290	436230	step up your game. There's tons of professional lighting equipment that you can get that will
436230	441990	go ahead and do this in a very professional way. But you can find... here's a model I found on
441990	452130	Amazon for under $50. The brand is called Mount Dog and it is an LED light with a softbox that's
452130	459910	going to give you a much more softer light. It's going to spread out like a gel in front of it,
460050	467170	a soft fabric that's going to allow it to to be a nice and not harsh, not glary light on you.
467410	472370	And it comes on a stand. So it's everything you need to go and it's under $50, comes with
472370	478710	remote control, and allows you to go ahead and control the color temperature of the light.
479410	484850	So if you're outside, we have one, you know, we're using the sun. The sun is just one color.
484850	491490	But inside, if you purchase bulbs for your own home, you may have what in America is referred
491490	497850	to as soft white or bright white or daylight. These are all different color temperatures.
497950	503310	Depending on what you're setting up, if you're using different color temperatures, you're going
503310	508150	to... like part of your face may look blue and the other part of your face may look more red.
508150	514410	If you just make sure that all of the bulbs that you're using are warm white,
514850	520750	then you'll, again, be able to have a much more cohesive look to you. And using a product like
520750	526670	this, because it's designed for lighting, allow you to select whichever color temperature you want.
526670	530970	So highly recommend this. You know, if you already have whatever webcam,
531370	537430	getting just this will allow you to decide like, okay, I have my background that looks fine,
537430	543670	but my background is appearing a lot lighter than I am. You put this up, focus it on you,
543670	549890	and then already you're going to get a huge improvement to the quality of your video.
551530	557290	But I want to lay out a couple other changes, because I've tried to bring this down. I've
557290	562610	shared this with a number of folks. This is a $360 kit. I'm going to go through each of the
562610	569070	individual elements. If you want to go all the way and get cinema level results, basically,
569070	574690	when you're presenting online, I think this is the cheapest way I've found to get that done.
574690	579650	And this assumes that you have nothing today. Lighting goes a long way, but if you want to go
579650	583230	to the next level where, you know, somebody's watching the video and they're going to be able
583230	590710	to see, you know, the pores on your face, this will get you there. So I'm going to not touch
590710	594950	on any of these individually. I'm going to just go through as we go through slides and go through
594950	600970	each one, why I chose it, what the advantages of it are, and then hopefully I think you'll see
600970	609090	that if you go with all this, you'll love the results. So first thing is audio. A lot of folks
609090	613910	will focus on video and not necessarily think about audio that much. They'll use a built-in
613910	622290	mic or a cheap USB microphone. Clear video is great, and it makes an impact, and people can,
622290	629530	you know, be able to connect. But clear audio helps you communicate. So I would say one of the
629530	635410	first things I would do is make sure you invest in a microphone. The microphone I recommended on
635410	643410	the previous slide is the Blue Yeti. The Blue Yeti looks like what you see on this slide.
643410	653310	It is the most common microphone that you will see podcasters using, YouTube celebrities using.
653450	660230	Once you know what it looks like, you'll see it everywhere. And there's a good reason for it.
660230	668030	The microphone itself has a lot of options on it without purchasing anything else. If you go with
668030	672990	some higher-end microphones, you oftentimes have to purchase additional audio gear to take advantage
672990	679150	of it. So while the Blue Yeti may not be the highest-end microphone that you can purchase,
679870	685470	the fact that it is a USB microphone, that you don't need anything else really to take advantage
685470	694110	of it, makes it really great for presenters. On it, you have, you see those two dials on the back?
694110	700930	One of them is for adjustable gain. So if you go ahead and you want to make the audio louder
700930	706670	because you're placing the microphone further away from you, you'll be able to do that by
706670	712830	adjusting the gain. You don't need to adjust anything else to do that. If you're too loud,
712830	719690	you can adjust the gain down and bring your audio to an acceptable level. It has adjustable
719690	724410	pickup patterns. I won't go into those. If you're interested, you can do that on the website.
725090	729730	It has a physical mute button, which I think is really useful for folks.
730010	737610	And the last thing that it has that I absolutely love is it has an audio output.
741660	749860	Somebody said that my voice was breaking up a bit. Also, my connection was stuttering a bit.
749860	754920	Is it, let me give you some feedback if I'm coming through okay now.
758970	763470	Yeah, you're good. Awesome. Yeah, it was breaking a lot earlier.
764670	772950	Sorry about that. Maybe my connection. So one thing I really, really love about this microphone
772950	780110	is it has an audio output on it. So you can get a live mix of your system audio
780110	787830	and the audio that the microphone itself is picking up, which is more of a radio host type
787830	793090	of a thing to be able to hear whether you're close, you know, how your audio is going to sound
793090	799070	to others. Obviously, in certain environments, remote presentations can't necessarily account
799070	805350	for things like the internet connection and, you know, intermediary servers. But other than that,
805350	812830	you can know that the audio as it's going out is as you expect. So it's about $100 for the Yeti.
812870	816590	Highly, highly recommend it. And since it's a simple USB microphone,
816590	820850	it's really easy to hook up, really easy to use, and you just get that headphone output.
823590	831870	Next thing is webcams. So a lot of folks have the Logitech webcams and like the C920 and C922
832550	839450	are very popular, although difficult to get these days. But unfortunately, those webcams
839450	845150	and the technologies in them are, you know, like eight, 10 years old sometimes. There
845150	851250	haven't been dramatic improvements to the quality of webcams in a number of years.
851830	859670	So I, you know, when I was setting up my own setup at home, I first tried with an old webcam
859670	864650	that was similar to what I was using, and eventually saw that the real way to up my game
864650	874690	was going to be to use a DSLR or digital SLR camera. Now, how to use DSLR is a different
874690	880230	thing. You know, sometimes you can go with some very basic settings. There's lots of different
880230	886790	ways that you can, you know, up how the quality of your video in the camera itself has a lot of
886790	892370	additional settings that you can configure that you will not be able to do on a webcam.
893090	906770	So I started off with a very expensive SLR, the Canon 6D Mark II, which is fantastic,
906770	915090	but very expensive. What I am using right now is a Canon Rebel T4i, which you can pick up
915090	921970	on the used market for between $100 and $150 very frequently these days.
922130	927110	So it's, the reason you could pick it up for that price is because it's a few years old.
927110	932110	It's like, I think, six, maybe even seven years old at this point.
932110	939750	But it still has the ability to do 1080p video with a large sensor.
939750	944090	Sorry, Spam, but your voice for the last 30 seconds was totally gone.
944090	949430	So can you please repeat from the point where you said about T4i?
949810	956790	Okay. Apparently, I hope everybody heard your, your audio to me as well, but lost some of the
956790	965690	info on the T4i. So with the T4i, I chose it because it is a few years old,
965690	975210	but it still has a lot of great features. The, the image sensor on the T4i is still high quality.
975210	985710	You can get a 1080p image capture at 30 frames a second, and it is available for between $100
985710	994950	and $150 on the used market. It is a, it's, it's a little bit cheaper because it's a little older,
994950	1000770	but the quality that you can get from it is still really, really good. So it's an often overlooked
1000770	1010390	camera. So once we have the camera, we want to go ahead and make sure that we can get that image
1010390	1017610	into our computer because this is designed for taking photos. With the, the way we're going to
1017610	1022470	get it into the computer is going to use the capture card. So if you look up capture cards
1022470	1029050	on the internet, you're going to see everybody talking about the Elgato Cam Link 4K. That's the
1029050	1035490	capture card that everybody wants to get. And the Elgato Cam Link 4K is fantastic,
1035930	1042470	but it's under $50. I think it is sold out everywhere right now. And it may be great,
1042470	1048050	but that's going to be out of reach for a lot of folks. There are a number of really cheap
1048050	1054450	video capture cards that have flooded the market recently that have totally decent quality and come
1054450	1061830	in at a ridiculously low cost. If you go on Amazon or on eBay or on a number of other selling
1061830	1067050	platforms and you search for a video capture card and you see one that looks like this with
1067620	1075810	no brand name, and it has these rounded corners and just the HDMI logo, USB on one side and HDMI
1075810	1082610	on the other, this thing you can purchase for as low as $15. And I frequently see it for between
1082610	1090410	$15 and $25. And it is a totally, totally decent video capture card that will appear as a normal
1090410	1096770	webcam input on your computer. So I highly recommend this. Even if you don't like the
1096770	1104270	Canon Rebel P4i, whatever camera you find, whatever video camera you find that has an HDMI output,
1104270	1111590	you can hook up to this. And for $15, you can use it. So really, really highly recommend it.
1111590	1117710	When this first came on the market, you saw some folks doing reviews and they were kind of stunned
1117710	1126830	because this thing is just like it's a cheap $15 card. But the quality is decent and the input
1126830	1131830	lag on it is also really, really low and competitive with the Cam Link 4K. So it's
1132350	1135690	a really fantastic setup that you can get with that.
1136130	1143790	If you want to take your image quality up even further and do some of the fancier things you
1143790	1150470	may see on YouTube frequently, I recommend switching out the normal lens on your SLR,
1150470	1157830	if you're going that route, with a different lens. In this case, the one I have selected
1157830	1170530	is for the Canon. P4i has an EF-S mount. And you can find, there's a company called Yongnu,
1170530	1177130	which is selling a 50mm lens available on Amazon and a bunch of other places.
1177670	1185310	And it will fit the Canon lens mount. You can literally go on Amazon, search for lenses that
1185310	1193710	will fit the P4i, because they have a lens search tool, and sort it by price. And this
1193710	1201930	will show up as the lowest price. And this is a $50 lens that is a 50mm and an f-stop of 1.8.
1201930	1209170	So this is not necessarily words that will make sense to everybody. But if you watch a YouTube
1209170	1216930	video, and you see you have the person clear, and their background is something we're defining as
1216930	1222910	blurry, they're using what's known as depth of field. So they are in focus, but what is behind
1222910	1230930	them is either slightly or totally out of focus. This lens will enable you to do that much better
1230930	1237010	than what came in the box. So we've gone ahead, and we've added by adding all of these elements
1237010	1240970	together, we end up with a full solution.
1252690	1257390	Sounds like my voice is breaking up again. I apologize for that.
1259090	1265830	So if you see here, I've broken it down again by price. You can mix and match as you go.
1266690	1272390	But I think what you what we have here is something that can give you a full professional
1272390	1280410	setup. And at a price point that is going to be just a little bit above some of the
1280410	1286150	webcams that are sold, you know, to be a little bit higher end webcams, those can cost,
1286150	1293750	you know, 200 to $250 on their own. This gives you a very flexible, very professional setup
1294790	1303310	for just a tiny bit more than that. So I highly recommend it. If you want to go ahead
1303310	1309130	and have better presentations, I think it is a very worthwhile investment. And if you get
1309130	1315550	none of the audio or video stuff, I totally recommend that you go ahead and at least get
1315550	1320890	the softbox. I know I spoke with a number of teachers who as they are getting prepared for
1320890	1324930	this coming year, and they know that they're going to be presenting remotely, they've gone
1324930	1332070	ahead and bought the softbox that I have here. And it's already, you know, leaps and bounds beyond
1332070	1337770	what they were doing previously. Even if they just went with the built in webcam on their laptop,
1337770	1344770	it's improved things. So one last thing, because I know this has come up in some presentations
1344770	1353090	that I've done and seen others do, when you are going ahead and doing a presentation,
1353090	1359250	you may want to go ahead and show off a, you know, a physical piece of hardware or something else.
1359250	1366010	Maybe you're doing lock picking. There is, you can invest, you can use OBS,
1366010	1370910	and there's plenty of tutorials on how to use OBS to composite, you know, a second camera in.
1370910	1375290	But if you just want to go ahead and use the software that you're already using to do it,
1375290	1382210	if you're using Zoom, as a lot of folks are, if you just go in and select inside of Zoom,
1382210	1387370	share camera, and go to advanced, they have a little share content for a second screen.
1387370	1392350	So you can highlight your video of, let's say, a second webcam that you have pointed
1392350	1399970	at a piece of hardware or at a lock or anything else, and still have your video of your face
1399970	1410270	be able to be seen by folks. So that's it. Thank you so much for coming. I apologize that
1410270	1417650	it looks like my connection may have been not the best and may have affected it somewhat,
1417650	1428270	but thank you so much, everybody, for coming. And I will, if I have the ability,
1428270	1432790	I will open this up for questions.