Astrill works so-so, which is better than most.

[yamim222]

For meetings with 10 people, it sucks to have to huddle around a laptop. We used a widescreen TV from TCL before . I can’t recall the details, but it was about 400 USD. That TV broke because a broken air conditioner leaked all over it, then we bought a Coocaa brand TV, which was also relatively low cost. We decided not to go high-end on this for two reasons: First, most of the TV bell-and-whistles wouldn’t be used, because we’re only using it as a screen basically. We aren’t using it to actually watch HD 3D movies or run apps. Second, the quality of video available via the Internet connection is the bottleneck, not the TV video quality.

I think we’ve tried all the major VPNs, and none work perfectly indian phone number or even reliably. They cut out, they get slow, they even stop working completely sometimes. VPNs are especially unreliable during major political events in China, such as China’s 70th anniversary.

Polling our staff, their favourite now is Astrill. In fact, many of our Chinese staff members think it’s just great. However, our foreign staff – the ones addicted to Netflix, YouTube and Facebook – still really prefer the VPN-free connections of their home countries.

Even with all this cool gear, we found it’s important to set guidelines for conferencing behaviour and just practice.



Here are some guidelines for newbs:

Lighting should be in front of you, not behind you, so that your face is clear. Soft lighting is best. Personally, I aim two swivel lights off the wall.
Keep your hands away from your face, so that your face is visible.
Position the webcam so that your face is close to the center of the screen and your whole head is visible.
Test your equipment ahead of time so that you know how to use it.
Try to choose an environment without much background noise.


BONUS: HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR VIDEO CALLS AT HOME
I recorded this 3-minute video for our staff, to help them improve their video meeting quality with very little effort and no new equipment. The tips are obvious, yet people forget to do them.


There you have it. That’s how we improved our video conferencing. Have any questions? Have any tips of your own?