How to FaceTime Video Chat Like a Pro is a post by Craig Lloyd from Gotta Be Mobile.
Video chatting used to be a novelty activity on the computer, but now it’s more ubiquitous than ever. Distant friends and families use video chatting to intimately communicate, and businesses even take advantage of it for teleconferencing, perhaps to connect multiple branches that are located around the world.
Skype has been the dominating service for years, but multiple apps have sprung up over the last couple of years that are making the video chatting market more popular (and perhaps, more saturated) than ever, including Apple’s FaceTime, Google’s Hangouts, Facebook and even Snapchat.
However, as video chatting becomes more popular, users need to be aware that there is a right way to video chat and a wrong way as well. Sure, some of your friends that you FaceTime with might not care that your microphone sounds horrible or that they can barely see you from that window glare, but more often then not, they find it annoying.
It’s not about looking or sounding professional when video chatting just to impress, but simply making the experience better for the user you’re chatting with. Here are some tips to follow to ensure that your next FaceTime video chat goes smoothly for both of you.
Have Good Lighting
This a very basic principle in all forms of photography and videography, and it goes double-time for video chatting: Make sure you have good lighting.
What does this mean, exactly? All you really have to do is make sure that you have a light source pointing at your face and try not to have any light sources behind you. This will create a silhouette and the people you’re chatting with won’t be able to see you — they’ll simply be blinded by the bright window you’re sitting in front of.
Headsets with boom mics can be far less sensitive since you’re talking straight into it. This means that headsets can block out any annoying sounds that occur in the vicinity of the video chatter, whereas the default built-in mic on a laptop would easily pick up such noise. The specialized mic on most headsets will drown out any background noise, and the quality will be much better overall.
The Wirecutter recommends Microsoft’s LifeChat LX-6000 USB headset and after using it for several weeks, we agree with them. It’s comfortable to wear and has an inline control that lets you adjust the volume, answer/hang up calls, and even mute your mic with just the push of a button, which brings us to our next tip…
Mute Your Mic When You’re Not Talking
While a headset with a boom mic will block out most background noise, it obviously won’t block out all noise, and sounds of dogs barking can still make their way through. Plus, people don’t want to hear you breathing, coughing, or clearing your throat. This is why you should mute your mic when you’re not talking.
If you get a USB headset, it will most likely come with a mute button built in, that way you don’t have to keep clicking on the mute button on the software end when you’re video chatting, as that can be a bit cumbersome. However, having a physical mute button that you hold in your hand makes it a lot easier and quicker to mute and unmute your mic.
As for using FaceTime on your iPhone or iPad, you obviously can’t use a USB headset, but even just the stock earbuds that come with your iPhone are good enough to take the place of one, and you can easily mute and unmute your microphone from the touchscreen.