Support Home Prepare for and conduct a Video Call Changing your background in Video Call

Changing your background in Video Call

What Video Call platform role do I need: Team Member, Team Administrator

Virtual backgrounds can be useful to present a more professional look or added privacy during your Video Call. This can be especially useful if you’re joining a call from a public space or working from home and want other participants to focus on you, not your background.

If you would like to have a virtual background when using Video Call you are able to use a third party application. Please note that as Video Call is browser based and browsers do not provide direct access to the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) of your device for this functionality, it is not available as an Add-On in the Video Call platform itself.

There are various applications you can download and install to enable you to change your background during a Video Call. Our team has tested one of these applications, ChromaCam, and it works well. To use this, or a similar application, on your work computer you will need permission from your organisation to download and install it. The free version of ChromaCam works well but you will have the ChromaCam logo as part of your image, which may not be ideal. If your organisation decides to purchase a subscription from ChromaCam, this unlocks more functionality and the logo will no longer appear.

It is important for health organisations to ensure appropriate guidelines around using third party applications with Video Call.

Here is some information regarding using ChromaCam with the Video Call platform:

Download and install ChromaCam on your PC https://www.chromacam.me/download/ This application performs all video processing directly on your PC and does not transfer the video stream beyond the boundary of your PC so should not present security issues.
Once installed, open the ChromaCam application and select the camera you will be using to conduct your Video Calls.
Choose a background in the ChromaCam application - please ensure you use a background that is plain and professional as some of them are loud, colourful and possibly not appropriate for a clinical consultation (depending on your clinic and your client base). Please note: With the free version some backgrounds are locked and you will also have the ChromaCam logo appear during your Video Call.
When you join a Video Call with a patient/client go to Settings in the call screen and select ChromaCam as your camera. Remember that you have already set the desired camera to work with the ChromaCam application and your preferred background before participating in your Video Call. Please Note: you can go back to the ChromaCam App at any time and select a different camera (if available) and background, even while your Video Call is in progress.
The ChromaCam background will not have an impact on the receiving end (other participant/s), even with poor internet connectivity, as it will consume a similar amount of data as it would without ChromeCam. Using a plain background instead of an image can help as this results in less coded bits for your shared video image.