There are a number of factors that can affect the sound quality in a videoconference. Review the lists below to understand some of the more common factors.
You hear background noise.
- Ask the person to move to a quieter location.
- Ask the person to move closer to their microphone when they speak, and to mute when they are not speaking.
- Use a headset or a speakerphone with echo-cancellation. Built-in equipment is more likely to pick up background noise.
You hear the sound at a very low volume.
- Use your computer’s Audio Controls to increase your computer’s speaker volume.
- If it is a specific participant you can’t hear well, ask them to use their computer’s Sound > Recording controls to increase the volume of their microphone.
You are sharing a video but other people cannot hear the video's sound.
When you are sharing a video (e.g., YouTube) using a Chrome or Edge browser, to allow other people to hear the sound you need to turn on the “also share audio” option.
Note: For the best performance, use a Chrome or Edge browser.
If you need to share sound for a streaming video (e.g., a YouTube video), use the “Tab” or “Entire screen” option. Sharing a “Window” does not include sound for streaming videos.
- If you are sharing a browser tab (e.g. YouTube video), click the "Also share tab audio" option.
- If you are sharing an entire screen (e.g., PowerPoint), click the "Also share system audio" option.
There are dropped or cut-off words.
- Your CPU may be intermittently working on other tasks.
- To free-up your CPU, close all applications except those necessary for your videoconference. (For example, shut down Outlook which can use a lot of bandwidth and CPU if it is downloading large attachments.)
- Your internet connection may be poor or highly variable.
- If you share a connection with others, another application or another computer streaming video or file downloading might be consuming bandwidth.
- If you are connected via a wireless connection, you can improve the quality in most cases by using a wired connection.
- Check your internet connection’s bandwidth. If the videoconference is trying to use more bandwidth than your connection allows, there might be sound issues.
You get an error message that no microphone is selected.
If Safari is your default browser, you need to ensure the video visit app can access your microphone.