Zoom Setup for WyzeCast™ Guests
There are lots of choices for recording your podcast audio and video. In this article we are going to focus on the use of Zoom. Zoom is great for it's video touch-up features, its ability to separate speaker audio files from video files, and it's ability to record without the use of the internet.
If you're reading this article as a how-to article to be a guest on WyzeCast™, then these features will come in handy since we do not need the use of internet during recording and separating your audio and video files will help us with the editing process.
Video on YouTube
Text Instructions with Added Screenshots
Introduction
Hello WyzeCast™ers,
Welcome back to another video. In this video, I'm going to teach you everything you need to know about Zoom to be a guest on WyzeCast™, and I'm just gonna do this organically. I already started a video that didn't quite go so well. So we're just going to try it and see. It's kind of hard to record a video on how to set up Zoom while you're on Zoom. Normally, you would do this with multiple cameras and things, but unfortunately I am; well fortunately for me, but unfortunately for this, I am on the road. So, I don't have multiple cameras. We're just kind of making do with what we've got. And that's the name of the game. That's what I'm all about - preparing, making do with what you have, and optimizing your time, money, and energy; saving where you can.
Welcome back to another video. In this video, I'm going to teach you everything you need to know about Zoom to be a guest on WyzeCast™, and I'm just gonna do this organically. I already started a video that didn't quite go so well. So we're just going to try it and see. It's kind of hard to record a video on how to set up Zoom while you're on Zoom. Normally, you would do this with multiple cameras and things, but unfortunately I am; well fortunately for me, but unfortunately for this, I am on the road. So, I don't have multiple cameras. We're just kind of making do with what we've got. And that's the name of the game. That's what I'm all about - preparing, making do with what you have, and optimizing your time, money, and energy; saving where you can.
Setting up a free account
Alright, so first things first, I'm a realist. Everything's a song lyric. Anyhow, let's share screen, shall we, folks? Alright, so in my first version of this video, I created a free account on Zoom, I'm not going to create a new free account on Zoom now because I already have three Zoom accounts from previous trainings. Go to zoom.us, or Zoom dot your country code if you're in a non US country. I don't even know if that works. Hopefully it does. If it doesn't shoot me a reply to this email and let me know and I will figure something out for you. So Zoom dot your country extension and sign up for a free account. If we go to zoom.us you will see over here on the right hand side, it says sign up for a free account, it will take you through a super easy setup wizard. What it will do is it will send you a confirmation code to the email address you sign up with. So make sure you have access to that email address. Make sure you don't use a bogus email address to sign up. You can sign up for a free account for our purposes, you do not need anything other than a free account. That's it just a free account. Alright, so I'm going to go ahead and sign in with one of the free accounts I created. And we will take it from there. As you can see, it dumps us on to the homepage. And because I haven't clicked this download button, it's still here. So you can still see the super simple, easy setup wizard for this free account. So you're just going to download the Zoom desktop app, I'm going to show you how to check your audio and visual and then we don't need to invite anybody else to join for the purpose of being a guest on WyzeCast™. But if you want to use Zoom for your business, just know that if you have another person on your zoom, you get 45 minutes for your meetings, if you want to go over 45 minutes, then you have to upgrade to a paid okay, but for WyzeCast™ all you need is a free account, you do not need a paid account.
Setting up the video settings
There are a bunch of places where you can configure settings within Zoom. I'm only going to show you what you need for WyzeCast™. But I want you to see that there's a settings tab here in the browser. There are all sorts of additional settings under admin. Here again in the browser. There's also a knowledge base and a learning center for your pleasure to to learn all about zoom and all its features if you are so inclined to dive in there, but I am going to teach you everything you need to know for WyzeCast™. So you don't need to go in here in order to learn how to record for your podcast episode. Alright, so as you can see there is a settings here and then there are all sorts of settings under admin, we're not going to use any of them right now, I want to stop sharing for a moment.
And then I am going to do something fancy. Ok, so hopefully you can see a portion of my desktop at the moment. So you can see that I'm running Zoom. In addition to having just sign up for a brand new client, now I signed up for a brand new client in an incognito browser so that it wouldn't be confused with the Zoom that I'm running. I'll go ahead and click Zoom.us and you should see preferences in the drop-down menu. And you can see there's a preferences here. This is another way of saying settings. So this is on the desktop version. So once you've downloaded and installed, zoom on your computer, you're going to open it up, and you will see zoom.us in the upper left hand corner of your computer. And then you're going to click Preferences.
Alright, so we'll move this window down over here. So you can see the Preferences window and all the settings within preferences.
We don't need any of those. So let's click on video.
You can see here can see my two videos, you can see the video I'm showing you and you can see the video that I'm seeing as a test.
Click on the icon in the upper right of your photo to change the orientation of your video. Click mirror my video if you'd like your video to be mirrored, or uncheck if you do not. Click touch-up my appearance to apply a filter to your video. Click adjust for low light if needed. You can ignore the rest of the settings for our purposes. If you're using an external camera, you would just choose which one you're you're going to use in the camera dropdown, just under your image.
Optimizing your audio
Okay, now we're gonna go to Audio. This is where you can setup and test your speakers as well as your mic. Click the test speaker button to test your speakers and the test mic button to test your microphone. You can also choose your speakers and mic from their respective dropdown next to the test buttons. You can select your settings just as I have done below, ignoring all ringtone settings. You only need to worry about the original sound and performance audio settings if you're planning to play an instrument or include multiple sources for sound.
So you can play with these settings to make sure that you have good audio. Now, if you're like me, and you have a MacBook Pro, that is before the most recent version, you might have a loud fan on your computer. Or you might be recording your video in your kitchen and your refrigerator is making this loud humming noise. Or you might be like my parents in Florida and there's landscapers outside every minute of every day. If you have noises around you wear headphones with a microphone to reduce as much of the external noise as humanly possible. Headphones work great for this, especially if the sound is coming from your computer.
Now, let's take care of our recording preferences. As you can see from the screenshot below, your recordings are saved to a specific location on your computer, which you'll need to remember. If you want to edit that you can do that. Just click inside the URL and choose your new location. Click open to see where your Zoom files will go on your computer. I'm going to click open as well and then I will show you that screen later when we talk about renaming your files. Select the boxes as is shown in the screenshot below. Please note, if you are recording with multiple accounts in order to get multiple mics in, you'll want to click this button that says separate the audio for each participant. For most people, you do not need to check this. But for people who are either multiple people joining on to one interview, or if you have multiple accounts that you're running your different instruments on.
Also note, if you have multiple computers, or multiple people in different locations coming on your Zoom, it's going to use the internet to coordinate those recordings to be saved into one file. But if you click the separate audio box, then each computer will record locally so it does not use the internet, but you'll have to coordinate to get those files. If you are a single participant, just recording your own visual audio then you can record your interview without the use of Zoom. You'll record locally and save the recordings to your computer. You can actually turn off Wi Fi and close your browsers. You do not need to do this, but if you feel your computer is running sluggish or you're being bombarded with interruptions, this could help.
Please do not add a timestamp to your video. You really do not have time to do a presentation, so you likely will not need share screen settings, but do check if you do. Please also ensure you are storing your recordings to your computer for our purposes. You can set the default to record to the cloud and then record to your computer when you're actually doing the recording, if you'd like.
How to add your headshot
When we come down here to profile, you'll see that I have my headshot in my profile. So you can click this little pencil to add your headshot. When you stop video, it's going to show your headshot as the participant photo, therefore you want your standard, branded headshot as your profile picture.
How to get the most out of your profile
You also want your name to be accurate, because this is for business right? So you can see underneath my my name is written as my name. So when you start your video, if something comes up here, that's not your name. And you don't want to go back into profile and change your settings. What you can do is click these three dots (called a Twinkie). And now you can see, I can mute my audio, I can stop my video, I can blur my background, I can choose a virtual backgrounds. I can choose a video filter, I can choose an avatar, or I can edit my profile or edit my name. And if I wanted to edit my name, I do so here right so I changed my name. Maybe I want to say tech goddess, so I'll rename and vóila, new name with title. If I wanted to change my profile picture, I could do that here.
How to add backgrounds, filters, and studio effects
The other thing I want to show you is if we go into video filters and studio effects. Click on Background & Effects. As you can see, I am not using a virtual background. If you want to use a virtual background, you'll click green screen, which will give you the ability to click on the color of your background; this helps with image replacement. If you can avoid using one, please do, as sometimes even with a green screen your video will get distorted and you'll end up with a halo effect. We do not need anything under Video Filters, but feel free to click in there to see what your options are for your own use later. Click the apply to future meetings checkbox if you want to use the settings you setup in this session for all future sessions. Now, click Studio Effects. As you can see, you can play around with lipstick and other features as needed and desired.
How to use QR codes for call to action
Now you have the ability to give a call to action, whether that's an opt in, or selling a product or service. So there's really no reason for you to have backgrounds back here with QR codes and all the things. Instead, use your call to actions section strategically, so that people are listening to you when you're speaking. And then they have the materials for the call to action when necessary. Now if you have a QR code, and that's what you want to use as your call to action, print it out. And then when you get to the Call to Action section, hold it up. And then people will be able to use their phone to to use the QR code. Don't have it back here the whole time because then people will be playing though. They'll be looking at your call to action and they will not be listening to you. We want them to listen to you first. And then do your call to action when you call them to act because there is a right time and place for everything. If people are looking at your call to action before they've really gotten to know who you are, the chances that they will actually take that action are significantly lower. But if they're driven there, after they've learned who you are, what you do and how they can get in touch with you, they'll be more apt to take that call to action. And, and you'll have a higher conversion rate.
Lighting
For all of the major components that go into creating a great video, we will review your quality and ask you to re-record it if something has too low quality. For instance, if your sound is has too much interference or we can not hear you well, we'll ask you to re-record and give you suggestions for improvements. Similarly, if your video or lighting isn't a high enough quality, we'll ask you to re-record and give you suggested improvements. In this video, I am not using any special lighting. I am also not using a special camera or microphone. I have regular earbuds with a microphone that you can buy on Amazon, or at your local store and I'm using my MacBook's built-in camera. This is super low budget, the only lighting I have is the chandelier over my head and other room lighting, there's no virtual background here. Okay, so lighting, if you, we already showed you a setting to brighten up your lighting. But if you're in a dark space, and you need some more lighting, you just want the lighting to be on the backside of your computer screen. So you want it to be behind your camera. For extra lighting, you can position yourself in front of a window that has good lighting, just make sure that the window is behind your camera. So it's it's coming on to you. If you're using ring lights, you want to make sure you're up to and they are they're coming at you diagonally. And if you wear glasses, make sure that your glasses are pushed all the way up. And then come on to zoom and do this like see my video and look at yourself with the ring lights on and your glasses to make sure that the ring lights aren't reflecting back from the glasses. Like I make sure that I that this video isn't showing you the ring lights in your glasses. Because I won't be able to, like the viewer won't be able to see your eyes. And you know, this is a trust building exercise between you and potential clients, right? People, they like to look into your eyes, they like to see you they like to hear you they like to know that you're trustworthy. And so if we can't see your eyes because they're blinded by these rings, then that's going to be a barrier if someone can say that, you know, people won't work with you. I'm just saying that's a barrier so you can offset your life more. Just keep playing with it until you can see yourself in the video without these rings around your your eyes. Right? And that's if you're wearing glasses shouldn't have a problem if you're not wearing glasses and then also make sure they're pushed all the way up so that the the rim of your glasses is not cutting your eyes in half, right, we want to be able to see your eyes. Again, this is a trust building exercise with your future potential clients. So we want to make sure we can see your eyes, your mouth as you're speaking to us so we can see your, your full appearance in your body language is, you know what builds trust with with people that don't know you yet. And so we don't want any barriers to that. And so you want to make sure you keep playing with the lights, until we can continue to see your eyes, even though you're using ring lights. If you have to use just one, just play with it to make sure that you're not seeing shadows in the video, what I do is I I turn on a meeting, and I put my lights up and I come sit down and I'm like, oh, and then I go adjust and I come sit down. I'm like, you know until you get it the way you want it. And then just leave it until you're done recording. And then you'll you'll be all good. Alright, so we've talked about lighting. Again, if you if you need to have light from the external source, make sure it's not so bright that you have to squint, right you want you probably want it to be somewhat filtered. Or you just want to sit in a way that it's not affecting your vision. We want to see you as the audience, we want to be able to see you we are going to post the video to YouTube and on our website. So we want to be able to see you. And then all the podcasting platforms will submit the audio. So just make sure that we can see your beautiful handsome face all the features of it. And you'll be good to go. And again, we will send you back a redo request if for whatever reason, the sound, the video, the audio and the audio or visual, or the quality overall, is just not it's not to your advantage, right. We want to put you in the best light, pun intended. And so we will send you back your audios and videos if we need you to re-record something.
Finding your Zoom files
Now, I'm going to show you the folder system to talk about how to find how to find your files. First, in the left navigation menu, click Recording. Then as you can see within the blue box below, you'll see the address of where your files are stored after a recording session is complete. Click open to open a Finder or Explorer window to this location.
As you can see below, I've recorded a number of sessions. You can sort by date and then you'll get the most recent. When you're done recording this podcast, it should be if you're sorted by date, that top one. Let's go ahead and jump into one of the folders.
Inside the folder, you'll see both an mp4 and an m4a files. What this is? The mp4 files are your video files and the m4a are your audio files. If you have multiple participants and you've checked the box to separate the audio files by participant, then in the Audio folder, you'll see those files broken out. Yes, the video file includes all of the audio files, however, having the audio separated allows us to fix any audio/video alignment issues.
Recording your podcast episode
Please read all of the below instructions so you know the entire sequence of steps before hitting record. Then, when you're ready, hit record, which is the big circular button at the bottom, center of your Zoom screen; see it highlighted below...
It will ask you, do you want to record this to the cloud? Or do you want to record it to your computer? You're going to choose computer. Please do not chose cloud as that will involve extra steps that I am not going to cover here.
Review what you sent us for your first question, then pretending we just asked you that question, answer it, as if you're speaking to me. My name, your interviewer, is Melanie, in case you want to refer to me by name. Once you've finished answering question one, click stop. If you need to pause in the middle of answering question one, go ahead and hit pause, and then resume. If you are done answering question one, click stop. Pause allows you to continue the recording, whereas stop will stop this video and start a new one the next time you click record. If you make a mistake, instead of ending your Zoom session, just hit stop and record a new take.
Repeat these steps for questions two, three, and your call to action. When you are complete with all of your recordings, click the end button in the bottom right of your Zoom screen. Then click end meeting for all.
Once you end the meeting, the following screen will appear. It is important you let this converting process finish. Recovering recordings that have not been properly converted is not always possible, so please be sure to allow this process to complete.
Renaming Zoom files for WyzeCast™ upload
Once you've completed recording, find your audio and video files on your local computer, within your Zoom folder, as we showed you earlier. You should see multiple mp4 and m4a files. Identify the files you'd like to keep; you may have an excess of files if you decided to do multiple takes. Either delete the files you do not want, or move the files you do want to keep into a new folder so you can easily differentiate them.
I would like you to rename your files in a specific way to help us keep your files grouped together. I would like you to start with your name (first and last) followed by Q1, Q2, Q3, or CTA. For example, I would name my Q1 files: Melanie_McSally_Q1.mp4 and Melanie_McSally_Q1.m4a. If you have multiple people or instruments, please name your files accordingly with an '&' in between. For instance, if I had an accompanying guitar, I might have Melanie_McSally_&Guitar_Q1.m4a or if Sandy Smith joined me, I might have Melanie_McSally_&Sandy_Smith_Q1.m4a. The multiple audio files will not apply to most of you, however if it does apply to you and you run into issues, send us an email at wyzecast@wyzetribe.com.
I'm on a Mac, on Mac's you can just click inside and rename. But if you are on a Windows machine, you can just right click and click rename.
I think that's it. I think we have successfully covered everything. Hopefully this has been helpful to you if you have questions, concerns, feedback, comments, whatever. Feel free to email us or click the chat on the bottom right of this screen if you have any issues. Either way, your question will go to our support team and someone will get back with you shortly.
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