How to Choose the Right Webinar Background Tool

Why use a webinar background?

Viral videos of meetings gone wrong have taken over the internet. Kids barging into live streams, dogs barking through webinars, and bosses not quite understanding video conferencing technology are all byproducts of an increasingly remote workforce.

Adding a webinar background to your video stream engages your audience and makes you look more professional. Savvy marketers even use them as a branding tool. This quick guide will show you four tools you can use to deliver your message without a hitch.

Keep your audience engaged

When you live stream to an audience, you want the attention to be on what you are saying- not on your surroundings. If your participants are busy trying to read the titles of the books on your bookshelf, you have a problem.

Webinar backgrounds can put the focus back on you, literally. Blur tools make it possible for speakers to project a clear image of themselves while causing their surroundings to be out of focus.

When looking to engage your audience it may be tempting to choose a creative webinar background that projects you in a virtual reality. This option is better for less professional settings. These “fun” backgrounds can have the opposite effect of what you want, instead of engaging your audience you could end up distracting them.

Look more professional

Fewer things can go wrong when broadcasting from a controlled environment such as an office. But when streaming from home, the setting becomes much more variable. The people (and animals) we live with have a mind of their own and can wander into the backgrounds of video calls, distracting audiences.

We’ve written about the importance of a good setup before. It looks professional to have clean surroundings. For those who don’t have the option of a home office, webinar backgrounds give you more control of your personal setting. They take the stress out of organizing your space before every broadcast.

Reinforce your brand

When you host a presentation or a video meeting you’ll likely have most aspects of your outreach branded. Landing pages, registration forms, and even reminder emails will include your brand’s logos and colors. Using a webinar background is just an extension of this concept. You can use your brand’s colors, add a logo, or even a slogan to your background.

For less serious presentations, you can choose a webinar background that corresponds with your topic. For instance, if you are teaching a virtual class selecting a classroom as a background can signal to your students that it’s time to learn.

The best tools for webinar backgrounds

1 - Livestorm

Livestorm is a video engagement platform that provides all the functionalities to organize meetings, webinars and virtual events from end-to-end.

Livestorm offers many features, among which virtual and blurred backgrounds.

Livestorm's notable features

Livestorm's top features are:

• Integrated virtual backgrounds
• Blurred backgrounds
• Integrated registration pages
• Live engagement (polls, Q&As, emojis)
• Analytics dashboard

Livestorm provides teams with all the tools they need to run their meetings, webinars and virtual events on a single platform.

Team members can collaborate to organize their events, thanks to integrated registration pages or emails, live engagement features and an analytics dashboard that track all contacts and engagements in one place.

2 - Mmhmm

Mmhmm has been getting heaps of attention, backed by big investors, its presentation capabilities bring a new edge to the virtual background game.

Mmhmm’s Notable features

Mmhmm's top features are:

• Dynamic screen sharing
• Trackpad controls
• Face tracking
• Multiplayer collaboration

Mmhmm’s biggest selling point is a dynamic screen that presents alongside your own image. With this screen, you can screen-share, play videos, present images or share slides all without leaving the stage yourself. It is easy to manipulate your own image using the trackpad of your laptop, so you can shrink or adjust your own image without taking your eyes off of the camera.

Mmhmm also comes with a multiplayer feature, allowing presenters of the same team to present the same screen even if you are all on separate feeds and in different locations. Everyone on the presentation team has equal control over the pace of the presentation and slides.

Face tracking capabilities follow your movements, making sure your webinar background stays put even if you change positions. It’s also a huge pro that you can manipulate the screens with just the trackpad. This makes it easier to adjust your presentation without looking away from the camera. However, when we tried it without a green screen the effect was quite poor, the camera had trouble filling in space around us. Mmhmm is still in beta, so this might improve over time.

ManyCam

Starting at 39 euros for a basic yearly subscription, ManyCam is a webinar background tool that’s been on the scene since 2006.

ManyCam’s notable features

ManyCam comes with a heap of cool features to help you change your webinar background and live feed such as:

• Blur, remove or replace the background
• Options for green screen and no green screen
• Virtual whiteboard
• Can add fun effects and gifs

ManyCam broadcasts high-quality background images with a green screen. If you don’t have a green screen don’t fret, you can use their Chroma Key tool to apply a green screen effect to any background. Your selected background is then layered into your video streams. You can use ManyCam to blur, remove, or replace your webinar background.

For creative presentations, they offer a draw and text feature that lets you write on your main screen while you broadcast. Use it to annotate slides, screen shares, or pre-recorded videos to get your point across. They also include 3D masks and special effects that can be added to your feed and customized.

Overall, ManyCam has a super intuitive interface and is easy to understand. The webinar background replacement works whether using a green screen or not, but the results are most consistent with the green screen. Our favorite feature is the customizable dashboard where you can favorite your most used features and access them when we need them. But, you can only favorite three of the features at a time.

ChromaCam

The simplest of the three tools we tried, ChromaCam offers a free watermarked version of its software and a lifetime subscription for 29.99.

ChromaCam’s notable features

ChromaCam keeps it simple with the following features:

• Background removal
• Background blur
• Background replacement

Like the othet tools on this list, you can use ChromaCam with or without a physical green screen. You can upload your own slides to use as your background, and you can layer logos and text over your own image with the tool.

Without the bells and whistles of the other tools, ChromaCam is a great entry level tool for anyone just needing a simple webinar background blur. It works best with a green screen especially if streaming in low light.

We hope this short guide will help you choose the best webinar background tool for your live stream. Whether you need a feature-heavy tool like Mmhmm, or you want to keep it simple, one of these three tools is sure to have what you are looking for.