Teams is directionally challenged
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An hour ago:
15:29 Hi,
15:29 Hi,
15:31 Do you have time for quick call?
15:31 Sure
…
15:41 Hi
15:42 ï‚•
    Hi. Did the calling not work?
    I guess you responded, but didn't get any response.
I would note that is a (Guest) in my domain. It would make a universe more sense for me to be guest in their domain, because I am the subcontractor here, but their IT is .
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A few weeks ago I was in an audio-conference with (among others) a guy in the same room as I. So I tried the "mute" button next to his icon, to avoid hearing him in "double".
... And accidentally discovered that it mutes him for everyone, not just me. In Teams, you can arbitrarily mute or unmute someone else. Whose bright idea was this?
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@Medinoc - Can you control who has access to muting other participants
To avoid chaos, you, as an organizer, can assign roles to each participant in a Teams meeting. Besides the organizer, the attendees can be assigned to either of the two roles – presenter and attendee. Presenters can just about anything that needs doing in a meeting with the same kind of privileges as the organizer. Attendees will be restricted to a few eating options, one of which includes muting other participants.
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@TheCPUWizard said in Teams is directionally challenged:
Attendees will be restricted to a few eating options
Sandwiches or pizza, but absolutely no bananas.
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@Medinoc said in Teams is directionally challenged:
In Teams, you can arbitrarily mute or unmute someone else. Whose bright idea was this?
It is a useful thing if someone's microphone fails and starts producing noise or something. It is also useful if someone is speaking too long. The resulting argument is a people problem and should be solved on people level, not in technology.
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@Bulb it’s a technology problem in so far that I’d never click these options because it’s not clear what they do.
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@topspin I consider it fairly obvious it mutes the person for everybody. A meeting where different people hear different things would be utter mess.
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@dkf said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@TheCPUWizard said in Teams is directionally challenged:
Attendees will be restricted to a few eating options
Sandwiches or pizza, but absolutely no bananas.
Links please... because:
During the meeting
The organizer and presenters can disable the mic or camera of all the attendees, or of individuals, at any time during the meeting.
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@TheCPUWizard - Did a bit more checking, found the page and the language is a bit mangled (aside from the "Eating"..... Attendees will be restricted to a few meeting options - ONE OF THE RESTRICTIONS is the muting of other participants.
[Bold/altered text by me].... that is moce more explicit than "of of which" (which can be read to be one of the things they can still do - rather than an example of one of the restrictions)
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@Bulb said in Teams is directionally challenged:
A meeting where different people hear different things would be utter mess.
E_DEFAULT_STATE
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@Bulb said in Teams is directionally challenged:
A meeting where different people hear different things would be utter mess.
E_DEFAULT_STATE
Hmmmm... Is "Nothing" different than "Everything"???....
On the other hand,there is the view that the very existing of meetings (not referring to the Microsoft Product) is an utter mess by default.....
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@Bulb said in Teams is directionally challenged:
A meeting where different people hear different things would be utter mess.
Not if nobody is actually listening to any of it.
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@topspin said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@Bulb it’s a technology problem in so far that I’d never click these options because it’s not clear what they do.
Are you feeling OK?
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@Bulb said in Teams is directionally challenged:
A meeting where different people hear different things would be utter mess.
Some people (who invariably adore holding meetings) only really listen to their own voice, not anyone else's.
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@boomzilla said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@topspin said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@Bulb it’s a technology problem in so far that I’d never click these options because it’s not clear what they do.
Are you feeling OK?
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@Medinoc said in Teams is directionally challenged:
In Teams, you can arbitrarily mute or unmute someone else
I use it all the time (for good, not evil). Teams has a feature where every member of a call after the fourth joins muted. It says it very clearly on the entry screen, but some people aren't so quick to pick up on it. There's a handful of people that always get into the "you're talking on mute" thing... so I simply unmute them when they're called on to save their embarrassment and everyone's sanity.
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@Jaime Ours mutes everyone on joining, so people are used to it and it still catches people out occasionally.
I'd never actually forcibly unmute someone though incase they're still muted deliberately.
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@loopback0 This is usually in really obvious situations: like "Bob, did you finish task X yet?". The previous ninety-six times, "Bob" talked on mute for a while and then said "I think Teams is broken, sometimes it mutes me and sometimes it doesn't".
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@Jaime Zoom fixes this with a 'you're on mute' splash on the screen if you're on mute and it detects significant mic volume. Of course, that requires actually looking at the screen.
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@PleegWat said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@Jaime Zoom fixes this with a 'you're on mute' splash on the screen if you're on mute and it detects significant mic volume. Of course, that requires actually looking at the screen.
Teams does that too. It constantly pops up shit from the slightest sounds, like me typing or moving some stuff around.
To which my thought always is 1) Get the stupid thing out of the way, I'm trying to see what's behind it, and 2) I told you to turn off the mic, but you're still listening!
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@topspin It doesn't do this on the iOS app, because it actually stops listening when you mute it.
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@topspin said in Teams is directionally challenged:
I told you to turn off the mic, but you're still listening!
My headset has a physical switch. I almost never switch it off intentionally, but occasionally it gets pressed accidentally, which always throws me for a loop briefly, because I don't expect it. Even more annoying for me, Teams insists on sending received audio down HDMI to my monitor, which has no speakers, instead of to my headset; I have to go into Teams and manually switch the output audio device.
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@PleegWat said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@Jaime Zoom fixes this with a 'you're on mute' splash on the screen if you're on mute and it detects significant mic volume. Of course, that requires actually looking at the screen.
We've just started using Teams for some calls. One thing I hate is it doesn't show the mute icon on screen (like Zoom). You can only see it in the list of participants. Before I found that list, I kept twitching the mouse to make the controls show up (which also shows mute state)
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@HardwareGeek said in Teams is directionally challenged:
manually switch the output audio device.
HTH HAND GLHF
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@HardwareGeek said in Teams is directionally challenged:
My headset has a physical switch. I almost never switch it off intentionally,[...]
I have a desk microphone with a physical switch that I use very consistently. The whole mic (HyperX Quadcast) glows red when it's unmuted. While I was initially meh about that, I've come to the point where I think it's the single best feature of that thing.
Teams insists on sending received audio down HDMI to my monitor, which has no speakers, instead of to my headset; I have to go into Teams and manually switch the output audio device.
Uh, yeah. I pretty much end up fixing input or output devices in the first 15 seconds of a Teams call. On my home machine, it's the multiple inputs that trip it up. On the work machine, it gets confused where the sound should go instead.
Video is a bit more understandable, as I mostly pipe it through OBS's virtual camera output, but sometimes that doesn't exist when I've gotten into teams first. (Then again, on my home machine, it defaults to using the VR headset's camera, which is at least consistently wrong.)
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@Tsaukpaetra That looks like the Win7 settings dialog. I don't have that on the version of Win10 my work laptop is running. I did find the equivalent after poking around in 3 sound setting locations. One of them has Teams app preferences twice, one set to use the system default device (which would be correct, if it were using that instance), and one which was set to use a specific output device, with no option for "Default". Anyway, I found the location to disable the device in the third place I looked, and that changed the specific device in the teams setting to the one that's not disabled, so that should take care of that (until Windows Update undoes all the settings next Tuesday).
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@HardwareGeek that's the Win 10 version which still exists in at least 20H2.
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@loopback0 AFAICT, it seems to be gone in 21H1. It's my work laptop, which never gets within a million miles of TDWTF, so no screenshots of the current dialog, but it looks like yet another thing that's been moved from the old Control Panel to the new settings app.
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@HardwareGeek said in Teams is directionally challenged:
I don't have that on the version of Win10 my work laptop is running.
Or if you're feeling fancy...
Edit:
@HardwareGeek said in Teams is directionally challenged:
Anyway, I found the location to disable the device in the third place I looked,
Ah. Well congratulations.
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@Jaime you can unmute? that's bound to cause awkward situations
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@HardwareGeek said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@loopback0 AFAICT, it seems to be gone in 21H1. It's my work laptop, which never gets within a million miles of TDWTF, so no screenshots of the current dialog, but it looks like yet another thing that's been moved from the old Control Panel to the new settings app.
The Sound Control Panel is still there for me in 21H1:
Settings/System/Sound (or right-click the speaker icon in the tray and pick "Open Sound settings") and it's on the right if the window is wide enough.
There's a program named EarTrumpet in the Store that gives you a much more useful volume control/mixer in the tray and has links to all of these things in its context menu. Highly recommended.
Also recommended:
nailingpinning a link to the Control Panel on the Start Menu.
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@Parody Do you have four nvidia cards plugged in?
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@dkf said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@TheCPUWizard said in Teams is directionally challenged:
Attendees will be restricted to a few eating options
Sandwiches or pizza, but absolutely no bananas.
Well, then, what about the drinking options?
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@dkf said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@Parody Do you have four nvidia cards plugged in?
Four DisplayPort/HDMI ports. Every one of them counts as a separate output, I figure.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Teams is directionally challenged:
Four DisplayPort/HDMI ports. Every one of them counts as a separate output, I figure.
My graphics cards have only had one digital output regardless of number of ports.
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@Atazhaia said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@Applied-Mediocrity said in Teams is directionally challenged:
Four DisplayPort/HDMI ports. Every one of them counts as a separate output, I figure.
My graphics cards have only had one digital output regardless of number of ports.
Why wouldn't 4 ports be treated as 4 outputs?
You can send audio independently to each of them.
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@loopback0 Followup for your use case: How would you know which port corresponds to which output?
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@Atazhaia when there's a device plugged in, it shows the device name.
edit: and if you have two devices with the same name, you can manually change the name in the control panel.
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@Applied-Mediocrity said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@dkf said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@Parody Do you have four nvidia cards plugged in?
Four DisplayPort/HDMI ports. Every one of them counts as a separate output, I figure.
This. It's a GTX 1060 6GB card, FWIW.
I also have another entry for that Bluetooth headset I rarely use, one for the analog speakers that are in use, and one for the digital outs that have never been touched.
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TIL DisplayPort can carry audio.
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@GÄ…ska said in Teams is directionally challenged:
TIL DisplayPort can carry audio.
Why have just one standard when you can have two nearly-identical ones?
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@sockpuppet7 said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@Jaime you can unmute? that's bound to cause awkward situations
At the end of the day, computer audio is a mess of software and hardware solutions that can get complicated. The real source of the awkwardness is when someone that should know how this stuff works can't figure it out.
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@Jaime said in Teams is directionally challenged:
The real source of the awkwardness is when someone that should know how this stuff works can't figure it out.
Yeah. For example, up until recently (I think it's better now?) it was impossible for Unreal Engine games to intentionally select a particular audio device for output for no apparent reason. You could tell it which index of the enumerated options to use in an obscure .ini file, but unless you're recompiling the engine itself there was no way (other than setting Windows' default) to specify it.
Like, come on, let developers hide it in a dropdown or whatever, but refusing to expose functionality that has been available for decades?
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@Parody said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@GÄ…ska said in Teams is directionally challenged:
TIL DisplayPort can carry audio.
Why have just one standard when you can have two nearly-identical ones?
HDMI can carry HDCP (DRM) stuff, which is why televisions and BluRay players have it.
DisplayPort can carry a wide variety of other stuff, but not HDCP, which is why BluRay players don't have it.
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@Tsaukpaetra Some games expose it, some don't. Worse: some games allow you to say which screen to use (my main gaming PC only has two screens), some don't.
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in Teams is directionally challenged:
DisplayPort can carry a wide variety of other stuff, but not HDCP
DisplayPort totally has HDCP.
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@Applied-Mediocrity Huh. OK, in that case I have no idea.
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@Tsaukpaetra Some games expose it, some don't. Worse: some games allow you to say which screen to use (my main gaming PC only has two screens), some don't.
Yes, because in the basic build it's basically literally impossible to get to the necessary functions for that functionality, and the only way you can get it is with a source-based build (i.e. you're actually un Engine code exposing the functions it already has so you yourself can actually use it in your game).
I guess that's one way to detect if you're using a canned version versus built-from-source...
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@Applied-Mediocrity Huh. OK, in that case I have no idea.
It was a rhetorical question, but if I had to guess it's because the TV manufacturers that made HDMI charge for using it and they still want those royalties.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@Steve_The_Cynic said in Teams is directionally challenged:
@Tsaukpaetra Some games expose it, some don't. Worse: some games allow you to say which screen to use (my main gaming PC only has two screens), some don't.
Yes, because in the basic build it's basically literally impossible to get to the necessary functions for that functionality, and the only way you can get it is with a source-based build (i.e. you're actually un Engine code exposing the functions it already has so you yourself can actually use it in your game).
I guess that's one way to detect if you're using a canned version versus built-from-source...
I was thinking more widely than just games that use that engine. It's a really mixed bag about who supports what.