Is it just me, or do you not
know where to look when you're on a Zoom meeting? Do you look
into the camera lens? But then you can't see the person that
you're talking to. Or do you look at the person you're
talking to, but then you're not making eye contact with the
camera, which is the person! I wish there was a better
solution. Ah, but there is. And that's what I'm going to talk
about in today's video blog. Hey there internet fans, welcome
to my virtual meeting. And here's what I was talking about
in the intro. If I'm looking at you in the camera, then I can't
see what you're doing on screen. But if I look at the screen, so
I can actually see your facial expressions which if you're
doing meetings, that's really important, then I'm not making
eye contact with you. And without drilling a hole in the
middle of monitor, there's got to be a better solution. And
that's what I want to talk about. So, I've created this fake Zoom
meeting here with my buddy Bob. And Bob is going to help me with
this outcome by just hanging out there doing his thing. And what
I've done for this, I want to actually show you, I've got
another camera back here, let me switch to that shot real quick.
And what you can see on this shot, is my normal camera setup.
And in fact, we can kind of zoom in on that. So, my normal camera
setup when I'm doing a virtual meeting, wherever it may be
maybe on Zoom or Microsoft or on Google, is you have your webcam
up top. And then I have my monitor, and then a microphone
in order to speak into. Very common, pretty much everyone
does that. The solution, let's just jump
right into the solution. And for that, I got to push a button
here. The solution is going to be this set up here. Let's go
ahead and zoom into that a little bit. What this is, this
is a teleprompter. So, I have a teleprompter, which is this
device here, all the way down here. It's a Glide Gear that I
got off of Amazon, I believe for $200. And I have a tablet, this
could be Android or iPad that fits right inside. And then what
happens is, if you're not familiar with teleprompters, is
the tablet actually shoots up into the screen, and then it
reflects so that we can look out. Now directly behind here
you can see my Canon camera, the lens is actually right in the
middle of all of this glass right here. So, if we go back to
Zoom as an example, here I am on Zoom, and I'm going to switch
cameras. On zoom, I'm running my other one into my ATEM Mini. So,
I just got to find Blackmagic. Let's make the switch. So, now
I'm rotated. So, if we go back to the second view here, you can
kind of see. So, I'm not using this camera over the monitor
anymore. I'm using the camera over here in my teleprompter. Now the problem is my
teleprompter is simply a teleprompter at this point with
a tablet. I had to download some software called space... oh I
forgot Spacedesk. Spacedesk is a free app for Android devices.
And essentially what it does is it is a monitor. Download this
free app, install the software on the PC and then it sends the
signal wirelessly to your tablet. So, what I need to do now is I'm
just going to switch this from here. And I'm going to throw it
over to my tablet. All right, so now we're looking at the tablet.
And this is the tablet screen. And again, I have my Canon
camera right behind me. What's great about it is I'm actually
looking right at my buddy Bob. And you'll notice that I'm still
making eye contact. So, if I was actually talking to Bob, not
only am I going to be able to get all the facial expressions,
I can calibrate what's going on. Think business meetings, if
you're talking to a friend and you want to know "Hey, what's
going on?" There's so much information that we get from
calibrating to facial expressions that I'm not; now
able to do and maintain eye contact at the same time. So
this is it. It's a pretty nice setup. It's early simple. And
what I'm going to do next if you're interested is kind of go
through the basic setup. So, let's switch back over to my
other camera here, my wide angle and what we have going on here.
There are essentially three different things that you're
going to need in order for this to work. You're going to need a
tripod, you're going to need a teleprompter, you're going to,
well let's see, four things. The teleprompter, then you're going
to need a tablet. Maybe again may be an iPad, or in this case,
I'm using a Samsung device, and then you're going to need a
camera. Now the one thing I do recommend
is that you use a DSLR camera because this bellow is pretty
big. This is designed to block all the lights so that you don't
get shine through on the teleprompter. And it just makes
the screen a lot easier to see. If you had like a little webcam,
that isn't going to work very well, because this is so large,
it's really going to be set up better for a DSLR or a
mirrorless type of camera. And then you're just going to have
to run your, your camera. T ere's two different options f
r your DSLR. One is run it i to something like an ATEM Mini
hich then USBs into your omputer. Or you can actually
un these directly into a ca ture card, a USB capture ca
d. Or even software if you're ru ning Canon. Canon has their fr
e EOS Webcam Software now, wh re you can actually plug a lo
of Canon DSLR cameras di ectly into your computer. I'
l link to a video on that ca on software above because it is
free. And it's nice. But this is your basic setup.
And then all you have to do is figure out where do you want to
set up your camera? Now a couple of downsides that I have noticed
with this setup. Number one is, since this is looking into a
mirror and then coming back out at you. Is that the, everything
is mirrored it's backwards. So when you're mousing, if you
mouse to the left on this device, it's actually going to
mouse to the right, because it's a mirror. The other thing since
it is a reflection is that it's going to be a little darker. So,
you really have to make sure you have brightness on your iPad, or
your tablet. And then the last thing is because this is a much
smaller screen is the fact that if you're doing a lot of people
on Zoom, this may not be the ideal situation. Check it out
just because the screen so small. Imagine having 49 little
faces crammed into a tablet. It's going to be hard to see
anybody I think this works best with one on one type of
situation. So that's it. I'm curious to know, what do you
think about this concept of using a teleprompter with a
tablet for your next virtual event? Let me know in the
comments below. Also, if you have any questions or comments,
you know where to leave them. Let me know if you liked this
video by hitting the like button. Until next time, I hope
you have a great day. Take care.
