Guide to Video Meetings
With the Covid-19 issues that appeared in January 2020, many activities all over the world were canceled and people started using video meeting applications for communication and planning. Several group meetings were canceled and were being replaced by the zoom application. After evaluation of security, ease-of-use, number of participants, which platform was required, and control of the meeting, another popular application called Jitsi became popular. These two applications are shown below with comments.

 

Jitsi has the advantage of simplicity, low cost, and likely better security. You can use a particular browser (FireFox or Google Chrome) on various computer operating systems (Mac, PC & Linux) or (IOS & Android) on a smart phone or tablet. This means that if you are joining from a work environment, you can just use one of the above browsers without installing a new program on the work computer. All you need is the ability to access the microphone and video camera. On your smart phone, you need to install Jitsi Meet.

The simplicity comes in as soon as the first person opens a unique meeting name, and is joined by others that know that name. If you drop out of that meeting you can easily re-join just by going back to the same meeting name. You can set up and verify your equipment with one or two computers. For instance if you are using FireFox v76 or Google Chrome on your computer, click HERE to see and verify the Jitsi interface before joining a group conference, which could be your smart phone or tablet in the other room. If someone on your team didn't get the meeting name and calls or sends a text to you, you can simply send them the name and they can join.
Jitsi Video Meeting documentation: Start
Download FireFox HERE
Download Google Chrome HERE

 

The UT Grotto in Austin is using Zoom for their Grotto meetings has a great guide HERE.

Zoom has the advantage of being in use by many organizations and often may be the only choice you have for some meetings. Some organizations use Ring Central, which is just a front-end for the zoom application. Initially zoom got very poor marks for security when large "public" meetings were interrupted by hackers using foul language and posting similar graphics. Fortunately zoom now has password protection when it is set up by the single meeting manager, with the password being associated with either a very long and complex meeting name, and sometimes a 3rd unique meeting number. If your meeting is less than 40 minutes in length, the meeting is free. If you plan for a longer meeting you can set up a follow-on meeting with a new name and password and then everyone can switch to the 2nd meeting. A family member who is using zoom with a year-long business subscription is not time limited. In this case they set up a 3-4 hour long meeting for multiple piano lessons, and each student signs in at the appropriate time which makes it very easy for the meeting manager. The name of the smart phone app is simply "Zoom", or in some cases "RingCentral"

Zoom security: I would say that now the zoom application is probably very secure. I have found that the complexity of setting up a meeting, getting the correct password associated with the unique name is so secure that sometimes even people that belong in the meeting type in the wrong URL and can't join the meeting. It requires that the meeting host correctly notifies the attendees prior to the meeting, often using two emails to transmit the URL link and the password. On a recent meeting associated with a power outage we actually had both a Jitsi meeting room set up along with the Zoom meeting which only sometimes required the password. (We just used the password to set up the Jitsi meeting room by that name for 15-20 minutes while zoom was coming up to speed.)

I suspect the original reports of the zoom meetings being stored on Chinese servers could have been false or just a rumor, and I know after the flurry of reports that the company worked really hard to fix their security issues. But if you are holding sensitive, private meetings you might want to use passwwords or review the latest information on your application of choice.

 

Other video meeting applications & extra features: There are other apps that can do video meetings. If you are using an Apple IOS phone or tablet you may already have tried out the FaceTime capability. I found this somewhat confusing if you have multiple connected computers. The connection is through your Contacts file which has the ability to connect an iPhone, an iWatch, and recent Mac OS operating systems to the meeting. You might log in with one unit and see the audio and video on another unit. Of course you can do this with either Jitsi or Zoom. If you log in to the same meeting with, say, a PC laptop and a Mac laptop, you are likely to get a loud feedback squeal that disrupts the whole meeting until you can kill the audio on the offending units. This can be confusing on all these apps because sometimes the keys on your device no longer control the volume and you have to look for the microphone icon on the screen and click on it to turn off that particular audio. This would be an issue with any of the meeting apps if two units are in close proximity, just like in a large auditorium with the amplifier gain set too high.

Another meeting app by Google.com is simply called "Meet". I am sure there are others. If you would like to add additional suggestions to this list please send the information via the webmaster link at the bottom of this page. Most of these apps ask to sign you up using a special password, but beware if they ask to access your contact list as this could possibly be a future security hole. Often you can continue without giving out your private information. It is always a good idea to test the various apps prior to joining an important meeting. You at least need to know how to turn on (or off) your audio and video. Most apps will allow someone to join via phone without the video, and in this case they might just ask for your name and that name appears beside a blank icon on the meeting screen.

The apps will often allow more complex operations like making a Power Point presentation to the group, feeding high resolution graphics to the meeting screen, and even showing videos. Obviously in a multi-person meeting it works best if most mikes are muted, easily controlled by clicking on the mike icon on the screen. When more than one person talks at the same time it can become quickly garbled, so the participants need need to know how to "raise their hand" by clicking on the screen icon, or simply showing a raised hand to their unit video camera. For lengthy business meetings with multiple topics and speakers, it is convenient for the meeting chair to prepare a detailed agenda with suggested time limits and speakers for each topic. So if you are the chair of a zoom meeting make sure to test all the connections and settings prior to the actual meeting. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, for large meetings it may be helpful to adjust the video resolution to a lower setting for some people. There are likely such settings available in a lower level menu that can be reached by clicking on various icons at the edge of your screen.

 

Rev. 6-1-2020
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