How To Add Video Backgrounds In Zoom

In this video, I want to talk about how to add video backgrounds in Zoom. A couple of years ago, I created a video that showed you how to add static photographs as backgrounds. However, Zoom now allows users to add video content. I do have the paid version of Zoom, but I do believe that this feature is available in the free version.

One of the reasons I’m creating this video is that when I’m having a Zoom meeting, people often ask me how I put my various backgrounds into Zoom. The good thing is that Zoom also gives you some default backgrounds that you can use in case you don’t have your own backgrounds. It’s good to play around and just experiment and see what works the best.

I tried a video of the Aegean Sea in Greece, which makes for a nice, peaceful background. The great thing is that other people or clients in your meeting can also change the background. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a video, it can be a photograph or perhaps a logo or something that represents a business.

You Can See My Video Below On Zoom Backgrounds

YouTube Transcript

My camera’s turned off in Camtasia, which is the software that I use. I can’t have two cameras that are the same in applications. Down here, you can either type in Zoom, but I’ve just used Zoom. Click on there, and you see this page here. Up here, there’s a settings tab. If you go there, it’s in general, but if we go down to backgrounds and effects, which is halfway down, you can see I’ve got a video background. This was at a show that I was at. You can add virtual backgrounds, video filters, and avatars. I already have a few.

For example, this was when I was in Greece not very long ago. I just took a picture of the sea, so you can have a Greek sea background, which is quite nice and a restful background. The good thing is you can change them, and if you don’t like them, just delete them, etc. Let’s go here. If we click on this plus sign, which says “Add Image or Video,” I’m going to add a video and have a look. Let’s try this one. Actually, I don’t drag it, so let me just drag this across so you can see what I’m doing. I’ve got three monitors here, so I’m going to click on this and then click on open.

This was actually me taking off recently from the airport. I think this video is about 5 minutes long. Obviously, I’m not going to sit here and show it to you, but you can have different backgrounds with all sorts of things. Once the 5 minutes or however long it is is up, it will just repeat itself. I’m not sure if that’s probably the best background for Zoom, but I’m just showing you what you can do.

Let’s have a look at another one. Let’s add another video. This looks like Greece, to be fair—probably last year. Yes, it is, up the top of a mountain. Once again, that’s probably not the ideal background, but you can try and see what you want. This background is okay, but when you’ve got vehicles and things in it, it’s not quite so clever. I could edit that outside of the Zoom software to just get rid of those bits and have the actual mountain.

It’s the same thing if you just want to add an image. You can put whatever you want in and take it from there. If you have any questions on this, please feel free to comment. I’m here to help, and thank you very much for watching.