It’s 2023 – many of us spend a considerable part of our workday in webcalls. Zoom and Teams have established themselves as tools and become part of our daily routine.
By now, we all probably have a good webcam and a good microphone, and we’re used to selecting the right devices for every call.
We’ve also thought about what we want to show of ourselves in webcalls. Some soften the background, others have found their spot in front of a neutral wall. Still others show the background as it is and may have even optimized it with decorative elements, lamps, or a splash of color.
So far, so good.
Appetite Comes with Eating
Once you’ve mastered the basics of a webcall, you might develop additional demands and ideas. Could you perhaps dynamically change the background and spice things up? Could you make sharing documents more intuitive without losing sight of the call participants? Could you maybe record a webcall to reuse parts of it? Could you transcribe a call to have a protocol of the conversation later? Could you perhaps also broadcast a webcall over streaming channels so that more people can participate?
In this post, I’ll show you three tools (focusing on Mac) that help you pimp your webcalls.
The Principle of the Virtual Camera
An important note upfront: the following apps do not replace Zoom, Teams, and the like for video calls! Rather, all apps serve to enrich your video image in webcalls. With all apps, you essentially get a stage on which you can present yourself, the background, and additional objects.
To display this stage in Zoom, Teams, and Co., you don’t select your usual webcam, but a virtual camera. This makes the respective app your video image, and all control of your image now happens on your virtual stage.
Choose your Background: Mmhmm
I’ve mentioned mmhmm several times in the publishing blog. The idea of this software is that you can better and more colorfully present yourself and your video message. You start mmhmm as a separate app and set up your stage. You can beam yourself into so-called “rooms”. Your webcam captures you, mmhmm cuts you out and places you in a room whose wallpaper you can design. Countless great, sometimes even animated backgrounds are available. But you can also use your own images and videos as backgrounds.
Your stage can include other elements besides you and the colorful background. You can display slides behind your shoulder to support your statements. You design these slides in mmhmm itself or import an existing Keynote or PowerPoint presentation. You can also display your desktop or individual app windows behind you. Or play a video. Set up different scenes depending on the purpose, which you can then easily switch between.
This is where we come to the added value that mmhmm offers over Zoom and Teams. While you can also customize the video background there, as soon as you share a document in the call, you’ll be minimized or even completely hidden from your viewers. This doesn’t happen with mmhmm, because all elements are always visible on your virtual stage.
mmhmm also trumps with some other features. For example, you can easily record videos and thus also compile explanatory videos and presentations.
mmhmm is available for Mac or Windows. You can use the most important functions for free, but some features require a Pro or Teams version. For coaches and students, there’s the option to use the Pro version for free for one year.
Big Update: Ecamm Live 4.0
A (mac-only) software that offers similar features is Ecamm Live. The app recently received a major update to version 4. Ecamm’s strength has always been that you could easily start live streams on Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and the like.
However, the manufacturer has now discovered that there are also many users who use Ecamm as a virtual camera in Zoom, Teams, and Co. Accordingly, the latest version of the app has received some important features.
As in mmhmm, you can set up different scenes where you can customize backgrounds, display elements such as slides, the desktop or videos, or use special camera effects. During the call, you can easily switch between the prepared scenes.
Compared to mmhmm, Ecamm has the advantage that you can integrate multiple cameras into the scenes simultaneously. It’s therefore very easy to capture a panel discussion with multiple cameras and gather everyone on a (virtual) stage. Recently, Ecamm also allows direct recording of all camera inputs, making the app suitable not only for live events but also for recording pre-produced videos.
Ecamm live is, as mentioned, only available for Mac and is financed through an annual subscription. There is a free version, but if you really want to use the app, the Pro subscription is worth it.
The New Kid in Town: Detail
Both mmhmm and Ecamm cost a bit. If you’re looking for a more cost-effective solution, you might find it with Detail. I’ve already reported on this app as well. Until now, Detail was free as a beta, but this week the Pro plan was introduced.
In principle, Detail can do the same as mmhmm and especially Ecamm live. You have a virtual stage that you can equip with various backgrounds, objects, and camera settings. Detail also works with scenes that you can switch between.
Detail can be used for web calls, live streaming, and for recording videos.
However, two special features still distinguish Detail from the other two apps. Firstly, Detail has an integrated simple editor where I can easily cut and trim a recording. The second highlight: I can automatically create a transcript for a recording and save it as a protocol or subtitle track.
This makes Detail, like each of the presented tools, a great complement to Zoom and co. to make your own video image a bit more colorful and fuller and to handle screen sharing more easily. In addition, it’s also an affordable and perfect production tool for podcasts, screencasts, and tutorial recordings.
Detail is also only available for Mac. There is still a free version. The transcription and some other features are reserved for the Pro version, which is available for a fair price as an annual subscription.
