If you’re looking for a more professional version of Zoom for broadcasting or live streaming purposes, vMix Call may be the answer.
What is vMix Call?
vMix Call is a feature designed to work directly and specifically with vMix that allows for easy integration of remote guests into your vMix production with automatic mix-minus audio routing. vMix Call can be used for live conferencing or interviews in a live production scenario, allowing you to add in remote guests in high quality. At the time of writing, vMix Call currently enables up to 8 guests to be added to your vMix production (requires a vMix Pro license).
When would you use vMix Call?
vMix Call is a great solution for adding in guests to your production, for example in a conference scenario, interviews or call ins where there are multiple speakers.
Can I use Zoom instead of vMix Call?
If you’re a vMix customer looking to add remote guests, yes you can use Zoom instead of upgrading your license (vMix Call requires a vMix HD, vMix 4K or vMix Pro license). VMix has actually written some great guides on how to do this.
There are also a lot of reasons why you may want to, firstly Zoom is obviously a lot more popular and users are familiar with the platform and may already have the app or software downloaded on their devices. Zoom will also route the connection through their servers which can be advantageous with multiple callers or participants (only one stream vs multiple for individual vMix Callers), however, you have no control over the quality of the feed or the speaker selection (generally automated based on audio). Using Zoom also requires additional mix-minus setup, guides on this can be found here.
Users have also questioned the quality of vMix Call compared to Zoom, although it has come on leaps and bounds since early 2020.
What are the main differences between using vMix Call vs Zoom?
vMix call has been designed with live video production in mind, rather than being a video conferencing platform like Zoom, it’s aimed at reliably bringing guest speakers into your live feed. The main advantages of using vMix Call over Zoom is the ability to choose video output quality and speaker selection, it’s also more reliable as it’s been built to work hand in glove with vMix software, rather than relying on a 3rd party platform such as Zoom.
Zoom is a great choice if working with a basic vMix license and you are looking to add multiple guest speakers, it’s also more familiar to end users and uses less bandwidth as the connection is looped through Zoom servers. If you’re looking for a quick and cheap way to get multiple participates onto your feed and quality or speaker selection isn’t so important, then using Zoom would be the better option, but if you require a more professional option then vMix call is worth the extra money.
What are the requirements for using vMix Call?
vMix Call requires a copy of vMix HD (1 Guest), vMix 4K (4 Guests) or vMix Pro (8 guests), vMix Call is currently unavailable on the basic vMix packages, so if you’re looking to add in 8 remote guests to your production, this could cost up to $1200 for the license fee.
As well as purchasing a valid license, vMix recommends a 2Mbps Up/2Mbps Down networks bandwidth per guest and a Quad Core processor 2Ghz (up to 2 guests) or 4Ghz+ (up to 8 guests).
Recommended guest / caller requirements for vMix Call:
vMix recommends the following for each guest/caller:
- Intel Laptop/PC from 2009 or higher
- Windows 10
- Google Chrome 56 or higher
- HD USB Webcam such as the Logitech C920
- Headset/Mic combo or Earphones + USB Microphone such as the Yeti from Blue Microphones
- Guest Network Connection: 2 Mbps Down / 600 Kbps Up network bandwidth for the guest side connection.
