Video-Conferencing

Your webcam is good. Your lighting is fine. And your coworkers can still see your unmade bed, the pile of laundry, and the cat knocking things off the shelf behind you. Virtual backgrounds are the standard fix, but they’re also why you sometimes look like a floating head with a flickering outline. A real green screen changes that: clean keying, no more edge shimmer, and your background stays put even when you lean forward. ...

Bad audio is the first thing people notice on a call. Grainy microphone, hollow echo, background noise bleeding through — it makes you sound less professional regardless of what you are saying. A decent microphone costs less than a dinner out and changes how people hear you on every call. We tested 7 USB microphones and podcasting headsets over two weeks. We evaluated audio clarity, background noise rejection, ease of setup, build quality, and how natural each sounded on recordings. The range goes from a $30 lavalier clip-on to a $150 studio microphone. ...