Low Bandwidth Best Practice

[aaronp]

Hi All,

I'm hoping someone can share some guidance and best practices that I can share with meeting attendees who are experiencing low bandwidth/poor video & audio quality.

When hosting virtual events on Zoom, I will occasionally receive inquiries from attendees that the video/audio is cutting out. These appear to be isolated cases on the attendees' side, not a more widespread issue (e.g., low bandwidth on the side of the host). We suspect this is the case because these are meetings with large numbers of attendees with only 1 or 2 people occasionally raising concerns about low audio quality (e.g., sound cutting out).

Generally, the guidance that we give in these situations is to recommend that meeting attendees leave and then rejoin the meeting; or ensure that they have the most up-to-date version of Zoom downloaded.

Are there other best practices that you would advise users on how to improve audio/video quality on their end? 

Other than recommending that attendees leave and rejoin the meeting, what other guidance can we offer to help ensure a high-quality experience for users?

Thank you!

[Aunt_Ruth · Accepted solution]

1. One popular tip for participants is  to minimize video downloading by using only Active Speaker View, and keeping their  Zoom window scaled down to a small size.

2. See https://community.zoom.com/t5/Meetings/Bandwidth-A-different-question-Really/m-p/15208

3. If you do a lot of screen sharing AND your content is in high res, possibly that's contributing to their overload. eg, Consider using Reader View for PowerPoint instead of full screen. Several similar ideas here: https://www.thinkoutsidetheslide.com/ways-to-reduce-bandwidth-when-presenting-in-a-virtual-meeting-t...

4. Suggest that users try closing all other windows/tabs (or running apps on mobile phone.

5. If any of the users have the option to connect to their router with an ethernet cable rather than wifi (especially shared wifi), that seems like a common rec.

6. For AUDIO - Tips from Reddit via Gigabrain here:
https://thegigabrain.com/search/on%20zoom%2C%20how%20can%20participants%20improve%20their%20audio%20...

[CarlaA]

Hi there, @aapins! 

I have reviewed your inquiry and @Aunt_Ruth has provided some helpful tips for you ‌🙂‌ 

I've marked their response as an accepted solution. Please let us know if you have any additional questions!