Comment by tester756 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tester756 | Hacker News Reader

<rant>

Maybe if those "modern" video-conference apps had one, decades old option that was (and still is) avaliable in

almost all gaming-oriented voice software (ventrilo, mumble, teamspeak, discord) called

PUSH 2 TALK

then this problem would be solved, same with the problem of kids/other people in the background (especially this)

but yea, we need AI/Blockchain based solutions that require thousands of hours of engineering effort that probably will be provided by some Startup and cost 15$.

It's insane how enterprise software is behind gaming in that particular matter, do those people even use their software?

</rant>

edit.

What's PUSH 2 TALK?

PUSH 2 TALK is not TURN ON / TURN OFF switch where you actually mute yourself. It's that you talk while having some button being pushed down e.g MOUSE SCROLL (MOUSE3) (for me it's probably one of the most practical choices)

so in this case you're always muted unless you want to talk

Why it's so great? because you can e.g play game, write code, do stuff on your PC and when you want to mute yourself, then you don't have to try to find some shortcuts or even worse - put video-co app on focus and click mute button, but instead you just stop pressing your PUSH2TALK hotkey! :P

Zoom at least has such a feature, I use it all the time.

There's some strange psychological thing getting some people to mute their side. I guess it's because some people are used to a ton of noise around them they assume others are ok with it too, but I'm probably reading way too much into things.

>There's some strange psychological thing getting some people to mute their side.

I'm not sure whether we're at the same page here

PUSH 2 TALK is not TURN ON / TURN OFF switch where you actually mute yourself, it is that you talk while having some button being pushed down e.g MOUSE SCROLL (MOUSE3) (for me it's probably one of the most practical choices)

so in this case you're always muted unless you want to talk

Spacebar does that on Zoom :)

Mute yourself and then hit spacebar. You'll be unmuted until you release

Not sure if this is on by default, by the option for this behavior is in Preferences > Audio > Press and hold 'Space Key' to temporarily unmute

Though tbf, Zoom has to be in focus in order for that to work

But you have to have zoom "on focus"?

e.g can you write code in your fancy IDE and hit space to unmute temporarily yourself?

edit:

Ok, I now see

>Though tbf, Zoom has to be in focus in order for that to work

I guess you use tabs :)

I have a yeti nano, which has a physical mute button. It’s super useful. I only wish it could:

automatically switch the mute indicator on zoom, so others can see I’m on mute

push to talk mode would be neat instead of click to unmute and another to mute again

anybody knows if the button is hackable in some way? (osx)

If you’re on windows you can use AutoHotKey to map a key or key combination of your choice to route to the spacebar in zoom, regardless of focus. I’ve done something similar for media control for apps that don’t have global hotkeys.

Their version of push-to-talk is useless since, like you mentioned, you have to keep Zoom in focus. I don't know about you, but I never had Zoom in focus when I used it. I was always multi-tasking.

> Though tbf, Zoom has to be in focus in order for that to work.

Is it possible this is an OS limitation? It wouldn't surprise me if macOS, for instance, had privacy restrictions on apps capturing the keyboard when they're out of focus. No idea if that's the case, just wondering.

Works on Mac. I use it all the time.

Yep, that's exactly what I do in Zoom.

It's the space bar, and not global (of course), but I stay muted 100% of the time, and press and hold the space bar while I'm talking, then let got when I'm done.

> not global (of course)

That's not an "of course" thing (of course). All of the above mentioned apps (Discord etc.) support the PTT hotkeys being global. Windows and OSX support global hotkeys in apps.

I was just saying it didn't take over the spacebar globally.

The zoom app has lots of room for better features, for sure.

Note that Zoom only has this for Windows. It doesn't for their Linux client, which is unfortunate.

It does have this feature on the mac.

The Mac client has it.

I did find out the hard way that the combination of Mac's VNC server and my client on Windows send a stream of press-and-release messages when I press and hold the space bar on the remote side.

It took me a surprisingly long time to figure out what people where describing when I tried to speak.

My (businessish) headset has a hardware mute button.

Given that a lot of business voice chat is essentially phone calls (rather than group meetings), it makes some sense that toggle predominates UI designs.

And it’s super inconvenient. I prefer to not press my keyboard every single time i need to speak, because otherwise i would be pressing my keyboard all the time.

Edit: everyone suggesting me to use my mouse: i use a laptop without a mouse and sit on my sofa while in meetings. I prefer to unmute myself while there’s a discussion where I’m part of and mute myself when I’m not talking anymore. Push to talk every 10 seconds for 10 minutes is much more inconvenient than just having the mic on all the time.

Note that I do not work as a programmer.

>I prefer to not press my keyboard

Use your mouse then - e.g scroll button (on push, on scroll, whatever you want) or side buttons on modern / gaming mouses

I set up a footpad for push-to-talk while gaming. Surprised more people don't do it, especially in a high performance context.

How do you set it up though, on the OS or in each app and with what software?

There's probably a better way, but I bought a pedal that was for transcriptionists, which came with software that allowed you to bind it to a keypress. Then I made sure that key was mapped to push-to-talk on a per app basis.

Super convenient to map it to esc. As a vim user.

Meeting while using vim? Need a second pedal!

Right. So what are you doing on a computer if not pressing keys on a keyboard all the time?

I actually use many meetings to get a break from the keyboard, so I understand where parent is coming from.

Bind it to a mouse button...

Not sure if you were being flippant; “break for my hands from being in the same position on the desk for the keyboard, mouse, and trackpad” was my intention.

That's totally fair. Both tools should be available.

The new tech shouldn't be written off as a waste of money. The old school push-to-talk shouldn't be written off as archaic.

Google meet afaik does support space as push-to-talk so it does give the option to the people. Having the mic to pick up only speak would be even better.

What's even more inconvenient is you broadcasting all your background noise to everyone on the call, or worse, echoing the call itself due to not using a headset

Or, you know, one can increase the voice activation level so that that's not the case?

Or end up in a situation where your voice is heard choppy on the other end, as voice activation triggers too late. Often also missing short replies. Push To Talk is more reliable.

It works reasonably well for me for most normal, constant background noise. It's not perfect obviously.

Ah the "unicorn voice activation level" argument :D I've never seen anyone get that working perfectly in my decades of using VOIP for gaming and work.

It's not perfect, but it's the simplest option for me for normal background noise that works reasonably well as long as you don't change much. Definitely an option if you want to play games or work at the same time as talk.

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