Video angle

[Snyberwiz]

Has anyone, or any company, come up with a way in which I can convincingly look my interlocutors in the eye when we are meeting on Zoom (or any other such platform come to that).

My camera sits on the top of a large (70cm) desktop screen. So in every meeting all most people see is the top of my head while I often see up their nose when they are using a notebook or similar, which has the camera at the bottom.

Surely it's not beyond the capability of current technology to produce either a screen that has a camera embedded in it at eye level, or some conference software that can do the same job with a plug-in camera? 

[JeanHF]

You can purchase a center-cam through Indiegogo. Just google Indiegogo center-cam. 

[Rupert]

Hi,

The robust way to achieve this is to use an "interrotron" - which is basically a teleprompter, but used as a monitor rather than for text. This places your camera behind mirrored glass, so guarantees you look straight in the lens when looking at someone . Check out "Prompter People" or other options on Amazon. These are professional solutions, so are priced accordingly. 

Another option is the "Plexicam". It's a semi-transparent webcam holder that will hold your webcam in front of your monitor. This can achieve somewhat of a similar effect to a teleprompter, but you do have to deal with the slight obstruction. Smaller webcams work well here, like the Logitech StreamCam.

Another option is to use a second monitor specifically for Zoom speaker-view (or Gallery) and place it further away from you - with the webcam still on top. If your camera is of sufficient quality, you should be able to zoom into yourself to achieve a similar framing as before - but your off-eyeline will become less noticeable.

Final option - if you do already have two monitors - make sure you have Zoom in Dual Screen mode. That will allow you to have Active Speaker in a separate window - but you do not have to have this window actually on the second monitor - you can drag it back to your main monitor, scale it down and place it as close as possible to the top of your screen - or wherever your camera is.

If you are using just Gallery View on one monitor, you will also find that you can usually re-arrange your grid layout by dragging and dropping participants to suit your own preference, This means you can place the person you are speaking to closest to the position of your camera.

Whatever - always try to have your camera at your eye height (or slightly above). Place your monitor(s) to suit that. 

Dell do make a monitor with a webcam embedded in the bezel, but I have not seen it in use.

Results of all the other solutions above can be seen in various videos here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS2NeR7i1YWiaxZDX7ihFyA

There is also Office Hours daily at 7am CST - if you want to test any solution you may setup:  https://us02web.zoom.us/w/844989302 - 

Hope this helps.

Rupert

HDEventLive | DigitalFirstPlace

[jalisie3]

I have found the same option in my amazon account. If you don't know how to integrate it, you can learn about it here.