- Have 20 minutes? We are going to talk. Can you turn on the camera?
Are you either already a little tired of these
What is it?
Video conferencing browser servicesupporting in free mode up to 10 participants in the "room". And the Zadarma project itself specializes in virtual telephony services, there is a free cloud-based PBX, virtual numbers and even its own CRM system. A call center without a physical office, in general.
What is interesting?
By the fact that he really allows you to talk"Zadarma", without installing software and without registration. But it is possible with software, there are mobile applications. And integration into the ecosystem of other Zadarma.com products, of course.
How to configure and run?
The video call organizer must first createthe room. To do this, he still needs to register in the service, but other participants in the meeting can do without logins and passwords. We select the name, email, password and captcha, enter the code from the letter that came to the mail and you're done.
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Registration in the Zadarma service
After entering, go to the menu "Services" -"Video conferencing." Here you can create a room for communication, in the free mode only one and no more than 10 participants. But for our spontaneous videoconference, this is enough. To enter the room is a unique link, you need to send it to each of the participants. If one of them is temporarily without the Internet, then it will still succeed in connecting, only in telephone mode. To do this, the participant needs to dial a specific number and enter a unique PIN code for the room. A big plus is that the number is Ukrainian, and a call to it will be charged accordingly. The same Google Meet offers me by default a call to a British number with all the ensuing consequences. Of course, Zadarma provides the ability to connect to the conference using local phone numbers from many countries. Access to the room can be further password protected.
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Creating a video conferencing room
What's in the room?
Here's a gentleman's set of furniture tools forconferences. Pictures of participants, buttons on and off the camera and microphone. There is a text chat, the ability to share a screen image or video from youtube, as well as the “raise your hand” function, which is useful in decent circles. In order not to shout over the speaker, but politely hint about his desire to speak out. You always do that, right?
An example of using a YouTube video in a video meeting
You can select the video quality:low, medium or the default high. Of course, you can turn off the picture, leaving only the sound and improving the quality of communication in case of an unstable Internet connection. There are advanced settings, among which there was a completely geeky one: specifying an email to pull up the correct image in the gravatar service. Hot keys add convenience to control.
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Meeting room settings
Every dynamically developing service has somethingmust be in beta status. Here it’s a background blur function (so that business partners don’t look at the spot on the wallpaper behind you). It’s cool, but it’s still a little damp, the picture in this mode is very late. Skype also has background blur and works faster. However, the video conferencing system was not created from scratch; the developers took the popular open source engine Jitsi as a basis and added specific functions to it. Such as the ability to call into a conference directly from GSM or SIP numbers. Logical and correct for a virtual PBX service. But there is no option to store video meeting recordings yet, but, according to the developers, it may appear in one of the future updates.
How does it work?
Works well.Strictly speaking, all modern video conferencing services operate more or less at the same level. When the Internet channel is poor or the wireless network signal is weak, problems begin for everyone, regardless of the system used. With a normal connection, there are no complaints about the picture and sound.
The browser version of the room only works inbrowser from a computer. When trying to open an invitation link on a smartphone, it is suggested to download the application (there are versions for iOS and Android). I don’t know if it’s plus or minus. Rather, a plus, because it might be not so convenient to use the service on a smartphone in a browser. Participants are not required to register in any case. Maximum - indicate your nickname when chatting. By the way, the system keeps statistics and following the results of the meeting you can see who played for how long. It is worth noting that so far only basic functionality is working in the mobile application, settings and other goodies are only in the browser.
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Zadarma Video Conferencing Mobile Application Interface
More rooms (up to 10) or participantsin one room (up to 100) is available when connecting to paid virtual PBX service packages. Yes, here is such an interesting approach: IT services as such are provided for free, and the user pays for the actual use of telephony, outgoing calls and virtual numbers, while receiving more buns from the services themselves.
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Tariff plans of a virtual PBX Zadarma
In the dry residue
From the Zadarma service.com turned out to be a suitable product that complements the main range. All the main features from the world of video conferencing are implemented here, and you can work with this stuff as an invited participant in a meeting without installation, configuration or registration. A normal option for quickly organizing a video meeting, even in a semi-anonymous format. You can carry it out without regard to the software your interlocutor uses. And don’t ask him for unnecessary contact information (like your Skype login). An interview with an applicant, marketing research, a product presentation, a focus group, or whatever else your imagination suggests.