Best way to hold my Virtual race night for 10 mates? Zoom? Teams? Other?

Brian_Pamo

Hi all

I am one of 10 good mates who for obvious reasons are all unable to meet. So, the other day I bought a race night board game which consists of 6 CD’s each containing a load of races. Naturally, the game was designed to be played at home but I’d love to include my mates in it. Therefore, I want to host the race night from my home so all my mates can log in and play online somehow. I am pretty tech savvy and have teens at home so should be able to implement any required setup or software etc. However, some of my pals are not very tech savvy so whatever You guys suggest I need it to be simple for all. 

I will obviously want to somehow broadcast the races (share the screen with the racing on). So, bearing in mind that the race night game runs on a PC the other day I hooked up my PC to our lounge TV and it looks great. So, I can control the PC from the Mouse and keyboard and watch it on my Giant home TV. Taking into account that I don’t have a webcam I do a have a separate tablet. So, basically Im
after your ideas how best and easy I could achieve this? I considered Zoom but believe I’m limited to 45 mins? I considered teams but surely there are restrictions there too? I even looked at a YouTube video that named Google meet but the reviewer suggested that Google meet was no good. So, what’s your suggestions guys taking into account what I want to do?
Free software?
The easiest for newbies?
Whats your suggestions guys? 

Thanks in advance. No stress. This is for fun. 

villagefox

I'm currently teaching through live stream on Teams. As I teach Film Studies I show many clips/DVDs. These lag and the sound is terrible on Teams so I would stay well clear of Teams - your race night sound like lots of fun best of luck

Neil_Jones

Zoom is limited (on the free package) to 40 minutes per call.  You can always hang up and start another one.

Alternatives:  Google Meet, Facebook Messenger, FaceTime (Apple only).

Easiest solution is sign up for them all and try them, see what you like and don't like and decide accordingly.  Nobody knows what you're going to like, and one person's "piece of cake" operation may be a nightmare for somebody else.

J_B

Personally, I prefer Zoom as it's more reliable in my experience.

Neil_Jones

Given the choice between Teams and Zoom, I know what I would choose.  Given half a chance I would just dump Teams altogether but work's decided they want it (and Yammer as well, which I can't see the point of, I don't use the personal social media accounts I have now, why would I want to spend company time on Yammer, which is basically a corporate Facebook wannabe?)  Must be me.

pramsay13

I use Google meet for a group.

We can be on for as long as we want.

Ballard

Neil_Jones said:

Zoom is limited (on the free package) to 40 minutes per call.  You can always hang up and start another one.

The last time I used (free) Zoom for a chat with mates (about a month ago) we just changed the lead person (can’t remember the actual term) and we carried on past the 40 minutes. 

parcival

A group of us do a quiz using House Party. I remember when it first came out I saw some scare stories about security. Must say though it has been reliable and no time limit.

Jenni_D

If you all have the latest Windows 10, what about Meet Now? (I've never used it before but notice it in my system tray. Clicking on Learn More goes to this website: support.skype.com/en/faq/FA34926/what-is-meet-now-and-how-do-i-use-it-in-skype ... so it seems to be to do with Skype).

Neil_Jones

That's just a fancy shortcut to Skype.  You still need a Skype account for it (although if you signed in with a Microsoft account in Windows 10 as it bugs you to when you set it up, you can use that), otherwise you need to sign into one for it.

Brian_Pamo

Hi all

It went really well with Zoom.  One of my mates is not tech savvy even bordering on being a ludite but even he enjoyed it.  On this occasion 45 minutes was perfect because we started at 7pm and some of the lads wanted to watch the Man Utd v Watford match on TV at 8pm.  I think in future though I would like it to be for longer than 45 minutes so I may need to explore upgrading my Zoom.  To answer some other points mentioned here...Skype wasn't really an option because the lads were all watching on mobiles and I think Skype may have been a tad too difficult for some of them.  Also, I personally have a long standing dislike of Skype after many years of tinkering and helping my family trying to speed up their PC's only to find Skype had jumped the Queue and was the first program to load in windows and was happily sat there running in the background despite many family members claiming they had never heard of Skype, let alone installed it.  So, it's fair to say I could 'impose' Skype on them or myself.  Windows 10 'Meet now' again was not an option because as I said the majority of he lads were on phones.  For anybody else reading this and considering something similar I can tell you Zoom is very easy and I am happy to help you all bytelling you how I did it.  So here's my Dummies guide just in case anybody needs help...

1. I texted all my mates at 10am in the morning saying 'Hi mate.  Please go to the App store on your mobile and install an App called Zoom'.  In that text I sent a photo of the exact Zoom App (because there are some similarly named Apps).  When you have installed Zoom on your phone then input your personal details, sign up and create a Zoom account.  When you have created your Zoom account you need to go to your Emails and there will be an Email from Zoom asking you to verify your account.  Click the box to verify.  That's it! Done!  You have now created your Zoom account.
2. At 6pm I sent them all another text 'Hi lads.  At 7pm you will receive an Email from me/Zoom asking you to join our meeting.  Open that Email and click the link to join the meeting.  That's it! Done.
3. At 7pm I invited all the lads and BINGO.  Every one of them were in the meeting.  From there we did what lads do!!

So, what issues/problems did I/we encounter? Nobody had issues signing up for Zoom.  Nobody had issues signing in to the meeting.  One or Two blokes somehow had muted their own sound, but I don't know how because I was working from a PC so I couldn't see what they had done.  However, some prompting from the other guys sorted that.  

What would make the experience better? Some of the lads said they could only see the host cam.  Others said they could see 4 cams.  Others all.  I guess somehow this was down to their own phone setup?

So, there you have it guys.  Thanks to all who started us off on this thread and I hope in turn my Dummies guide above has helped somebody else.  Please comment if it has/has not.
Special thanks to Neil_Jones who is always eager to assist with my threads.

Cheers all. 

EDITTED COMMENT...One final thing about the 40 minute limit...I know some commented and said I could sign out and let somebody else take over as host but that wouldn't have been possible because I was hosting the racing videos from my PC.