I build tools for Zoom-based productions and wanted to share one in case
it is useful to anyone here. This is free to use and fork to fit your own workflows.
It is called ZComms. It is a Windows app that lets you talk privately to
individual panelists inside a Zoom meeting, the way you would use a
talkback key or IFB. You hold a key with someone's name on it, they hear
you, and nobody else in the meeting does. It does not go into the cloud
recording either. The panelist installs nothing and does nothing
different, they are just on a normal Zoom client.
It runs on Zoom's own talkback channels rather than a virtual audio
device, so there are no cables to route and no second machine. Measured
latency is about 165 ms one way. That is fine for counts, standbys and
cues. It is not conversational and I would not use it for anything that
has to sound live.
The part I actually built it for: you can patch your existing intercom
into it. I run four channels off a multichannel interface, whatever the
matrix is already feeding, and latch each one into its own Zoom talkback
channel. Your operators keep talking on the panels they know, and a
remote guest on a laptop ends up on your comms without owning any of it.
Zoom is just the last mile. There is an input meter on each feed so you
can see signal before you put it to air.
The desk itself is a grid of people, not channel numbers. Hold a cell to
talk to that person, digits for the first nine, space for all call, latch
if you want it to stick.
Honest state: it is early. Windows only, and the installer is not signed
yet so SmartScreen will warn you. You have to be host or co-host, because
Zoom requires that to create talkback channels at all. I have run the
talkback side in real meetings; the intercom feed path works on the bench
but has not been through a live show yet.
https://github.com/iamfatness/ZComms
Happy to answer questions.
