We’re running an event where we need to send computer video to Zoom via screen-capture on a Pearl-2 (signal flow computer -> Pearl -> Zoom running on a second computer). The computer video looks good in the Pearl but is getting unacceptably fuzzy in Zoom. I know Zoom does very heavy compression, but I’m wondering if there’s anything we could be doing to optimize the Pearl’s output to minimize the degradation. Any ideas?
Your channel encoding settings in Pearl play a large part in the output quality. I’d recommend setting a static frame size, as well as selecting a larger bitrate if the file sizes for recordings is not an issue.
As an example, if your channel frame size is set to 1920 X 1080, try setting a static video bitrate bitrate of 10000 kbps. This will result in less compression for the video encoded channel.
Zoom does have a 1280 X 720 frame size limit so there will be some downscaling once it’s captured into Zoom, however the quality from Pearl should be higher with a larger bitrate.
Thanks. Since Zoom sends 720, would there be any benefit to downscaling the video in the pearl to minimize the compression and scaling Zoom is doing?
You could definitely aim for a 1:1 to avoid downscaling which may improve the quality by not having to downscale, but the issue is typically more prevalent when the attempt is to upscale