What I Recommend for Virtual Meetings, Recording, and Editing

When the Covid pandemic hit and work from home became the new normal, I had to find software to help with all the virtual meetings, webinars, and pre-recorded presentations I needed to do. This is some of the software that I have tried, and what I like best right now.

For virtual meetings, the best choices are Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Powerpoint. For recording presentations, I use Microsoft Powerpoint for simple slideshows, OBS Studio for screen and webcam recording, Audacity for audio recording and editing, and Davinci Resolve for video editing and rendering.

Zoom or MS Teams	Zoom is the best. If you’re concerned about security, Teams is allegedly better. I’m not, but I’ll use whatever my team prefers.
OBS Studio	The only software I use for screen and webcam recording. Powerful, well-supported, cross-platform, and FREE!
Davinci Resolve	The only software I use for video editing. Powerful, well-supported, cross-platform, and the free version works for me!
Audacity	Not the only software I use for audio recording and editing. Powerful, well-supported, cross-platform, and FREE! Though, if I were recording professionally, I’d choose Reaper.
GIMP	Not the only software I use for image editing, but the only one I use that can do everything. Powerful, well-supported, cross-platform, and FREE! Again, though, if I were using photo editing software frequently and professionally, I’d choose Photoshop.
Powerpoint Keynote Google Slides	Powerpoint is my only choice for work and makes it easy to record a slideshow with voiceover. Keynote is better if you want easy and beautiful, but it’s macOS only. Google Slides is better if you want your files super easy to access anywhere.

Virtual Meetings

Zoom Meetings (Free, $149.90/year for Pro)

The poster child of virtual work for 2020. Zoom was the runaway leader in easy-to-use and high-quality virtual meeting spaces. It works great on iPhone, Android, Windows, and Mac. They did an amazing job in scaling from 10 million daily active users in December 2019 to 200 million daily active users in March 2020. Wow. Easy to use, compatible with external webcams, microphones, and headsets, and a quality experience. What can I say? They set the standard.

My only main complaint with Zoom is the experience of trying to share video playback. It’s…. finicky. I literally spent 90 minutes one day working with a friend to try every combination we could think of to improve the playback experience. We had a good quality HD video, and excellent internet connection speed (both up and down). Playback for viewers was choppy at best, though. More often than not, it was 2-3 fuzzy frames per second from our Windows 10 IBM Thinkpads. Eventually, we found the solution was to play the video only with the latest Windows media player. Then it worked well. Every other thing we tried was terrible.

Microsoft Teams (Free, $60/year for Business Basic)

I didn’t really switch over to using MS Teams much until early 2021, mostly driven by other users at work. Is it a good experience? Sure. It works well and mostly has the same features. Maybe it’s because I used Zoom first, but the learning curve for MS Teams felt unreasonably steep for some reason. Nothing was where I expected it to be. Nothing worked quite the way my brain wanted it to. I don’t think I’m alone with this either. I’ve experienced more than one meeting where participants couldn’t figure out how to get their microphones or speakers to play nice with Teams. Twice, I’ve had 8-10 people give up and switch to another platform (once WebEx and once Zoom) because someone in the room couldn’t make Teams work for their setup. Both times, the other platform worked perfectly. Eventually, I’ve figured it out, though, and it’s good. Maybe the audio isn’t quite as good as Zoom. Maybe it’s annoying that it sometimes starts your meeting with you muted, and sometimes not. It works, though. Video is clear, audio is good, screen sharing is mostly painless. To me, the nicest thing about using Teams is the integration with MS Exchange. I can open Teams, click on the calendar, and join my meetings directly, without having to go open the meeting request and find the right link. That’s usually worth everything else.

Skype

Does anyone use this anymore?

GoToMeeting

Still a solid choice

WebEx

Still a solid choice

Google Meet (FREE)

I have only tried to use this once to talk to my Mom when Facetime was acting up. She couldn’t get it to work on her iPad, and I haven’t tried it since.

Recording and editing

OBS Studio (FREE)

My go-to screen and voice recording option with webcam overlay. It does everything. So flexible and powerful. As open-source, free software, it’s no wonder OBS is the de facto standard for live streamers.  If I could run it on my work computer, I might use it for running webinars and recording presentations.

Davinci Resolve by Blackmagic Design (FREE)

This is an amazing video editor. Truly powerful. Cross-platform. It can do far more than I am skilled enough or knowledgeable enough to use. At the same time, though, it’s not so insanely complicated that I can’t use it effectively as a relative beginner. Don’t be misled, it’s not simple or intuitive if you haven’t used a powerful video editing program before. When I had an hour-long interview with 10 people recorded over Zoom to edit down to a 15-minute story video, Davinci Resolve is what I used. A skilled editor could probably have done what I did in ⅓ of the time. It took me 16+ hours. It wasn’t speedy, but Resolve enabled me, a beginner video editor, to get the job done and create something I was proud of. I can’t ask much more of a tool than that.

Apple Final Cut Pro X (Currently $299.99)

Adobe Premiere Pro CC (Currently $239.88/yr)

Audacity (FREE)

My choice for most simple audio engineering tasks. Need to edit, set levels, compress, EQ, de-ess, de-click, or noise reduce some voice-over? This is it. Quite powerful and easier to use than similar alternative digital audio workstations (DAWs). Also, it’s free, and there’s a huge community available to help.

Ableton Live ($99 for the intro version)

I am a total beginner at music production, so I’m really not qualified to comment on Ableton. I tried to use it for some voice-over and audio editing but ultimately went back to Audacity because I couldn’t face the learning curve at the time. But, wow… Some people create amazing things with Ableton. Go to YouTube and search “Ableton.” Check out Rachel K. Collier, Taetro, Andrew Huang, Badsnacks, and loads of other producers and artists. You’ll find something you like, I promise. It inspired me to buy a mini Midi keyboard (Novation Launchkey Mini Mk3), what fun!. At some point I’ll learn to use it, I promise.

GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) (FREE)

It’s for images. It’s like Photoshop, but free… and a few versions behind, to be honest. Another piece of software that outstrips my skills in photo editing, but it’s indispensable, too. If you want to change a photo from what it is to what’s in your head, GIMP can do it. The only question is whether you can figure out how.

Slideshows

Google Slides (FREE)

What can I say about Google slides? Like the other G-office tools, it’s basic. It works ok and has some options. The thing that makes it awesome is its integration with Google Drive so that your files are everywhere, and no matter which device you log into, they’re there, you can open them and edit them. If only the Google Drive organization options weren’t so cumbersome. :sigh:

Powerpoint ($69.99/yr as part of Office 365 Personal)

Everyone uses it… and abuses it. Death by Powerpoint is a saying for a reason. If you need to present a bunch of information to a team, though, there aren’t many better options. I wish it was easier to write an outline in Word and drop it into Powerpoint to create slides automatically. It can be done, but it’s clunky. My favorite thing about Powerpoint is the ability to record a slideshow, complete with timings and voice-over on a per-slide basis, and export it as an .MP4 video. Too cool.

Keynote (FREE)

I really like Keynote. It’s so much easier to create beautiful things with Keynote than Powerpoint. I used it to create the logo for this site. I’ve used it to create a splash animation for YouTube. It’s really good. In fact, I think it’s my favorite piece of Apple-produced software, period. So far superior to the abomination that is iTunes, that I can hardly believe they’re made by the same company. However… Why can’t you record voiceover and timing for a slideshow to make a video directly in Keynote as you can in Powerpoint? I don’t understand. I actually spent 30 minutes trying in confusion before I figured out that it doesn’t do that. :sadface: