It seems like everyone is doing Zoom calls these days!
If you aren’t sure what Zoom is, the quick answer is that it is a free, online, video conferencing platform.
You simply go to Zoom.us (zoom.com works, too) and sign up for a free account. Once you have done that you can download the desktop client for your Mac or pc and are good to go to set up your own Zoom calls.
The desktop client isn’t needed for you to join someone else’s Zoom calls, but having it makes a number of things a lot easier!
One of the things that you can do is to set up virtual backgrounds. If you’re working from home and want to hide the space behind you, then that is possible with a virtual background.
Here’s how to change your videoconferencing background in Zoom to make it more professional, or more exciting.
First, open the Zoom app that you downloaded and you will see the following screen:
Click on the gear icon and the following will open up:
As you can see, there are a number of things that you can do there, but for now, just click on “Virtual Background”.
That will open up the following screen:
If you look closely the images above you will see that I have 8 different backgrounds. The top 4 images are what comes with the account, but you can upload pictures or videos from your computer. In the second row, there are three videos and a plain image. See if you can tell which are videos!
To upload your own images or videos, simply click on the plus sign! When you do, you are given the choice too add either an image (picture) or a video from your computer.
A couple of factors will determine how well the background performs so you will need to observe Zoom’s advice on the format of the images/videos that you upload.
There are no size restrictions for your own virtual backgrounds, but Zoom recommends cropping the image to match the aspect ratio of your camera.
So if your camera is set to a 16:9 aspect ratio, an image of 1,280 x 720 or 1,920 x 1,080 pixels works well. (This is the default)
For video, you need an MP4 or MOV video file with a minimum resolution of 480 x 360 pixels (360p) and a maximum resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels (1080p).
That’s enough to get you started, but if you’d like it straight from Zoom, or if you are having issues with the background, go here: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/210707503-Virtual-Background
Happy Zooming!
