[OS X TeX] Best iPad PDF viewer for math?

Sat Aug 22 22:29:11 CEST 2020

In my case, the recording was set automatically in my Zoom profile; I would typically pause it while I set things up — including logging in on the tablet — chatted with teaching assistant, etc., then start, pause again during break, and so on. I don’t think it matters whether by default the meeting is recorded or not, though; I think I may even have changed preferences temporarily and started manually once or twice for some reason.

As for the quality, in the video the pdf slides look as good as the native file as far I can tell on my shiny new MBP. Occasionally I would share a pdf or excel file from the desktop (from which I host the meeting); I didn’t try to find such a segment, but I expect that quality to be the same (i.e., high). Having said all this, I don’t know where to check the resolution; the video files are hosted by Panopto. Playing around on the site, it seems that I can choose to export the file as 1080p (60fps) as best quality. Hopefully that refers to all the material in the recording. 

(Also, since I wanted to know, I ran the iPad test*, starting a meeting on the Mac and sharing the iPad screen where I presented with GoodNotes. I recorded it in the cloud, then downloaded the file. Quality seems a little poorer — but I didn’t use a presentation file with typed text — though passable. QuickTime gives me the following information: resolution 1760x810, data rate 250kb/s. I also looked to see whether one can choose recording resolution in Zoom setting, but no; there is only one bit about “optimizing the recording for 3rd party video editor.”
* This is not the same as recording a meeting into which I log twice, which is what we were discussing earlier.)

Nicolae 

On Aug 22, 2020, at 12:35 PM, Gray, Gary L <euler at psu.edu> wrote:

See my responses below. There are so many possibilities and so much to unwrap with this stuff.

> On Aug 22, 2020, at 11:34 AM, Nicolae Garleanu <garleanu at berkeley.edu <mailto:garleanu at berkeley.edu>> wrote:
> 
> Could I ask in which app you open the document on the iPad that you share via HDMI cable? And do you sometimes write on this document (pdf, I assume) during the presentation?

I am teaching two engineering courses this fall. One is a senior-level applied math class and one is a numerical analysis class. In both courses, not only will I be sharing my iPad screen on which I will write notes, I will also need to switch to sharing Mathematica notebook, Matlab code, and YouTube videos.

In the spring, I would start a meeting on my Mac, join the meeting from my iPad as a co-host, and then share the screen on my iPad so that the students could see what see me writing notes (using Notability -- I have since switch to GoodNotes, which I like a lot more). I set the cloud recording from my Mac. The videos on Zoom were almost all 480p. They were readable, but they weren't great.

Earlier this summer, I realized that you can connect your iPad to your Mac with a cable (USB C or lightning, depending on the iPad model) and then choose to share the iPad screen from within Zoom. As I think has been mentioned, this was nice because *everything* was done on the Mac. The iPad was really just being using as a pen tablet. I played around with that the videos were all 1080p and looked a lot better. This is probably what I will do this semester, which starts in two days.

As I mentioned in my response to Ross, I realized yesterday that you can connect your iPad to your Mac, with a cable or with AirPlay, open QuickTime, choose File > New Movie Recording, and then in the window that opens, click on the dropdown menu next to the record button and select the iPad, and then the iPad screen will be recorded. You can then share the iPad screen on your Mac to your students and the recording will then happen locally. This also worked well.

> Here is what I know. Using Goodnotes, if I connect via Airplay — that is, share screen in Zoom by choosing "iPad via Airplay” — then Goodnotes enters presentation mode and I can choose the option that I like among the three (I like “mirror full page,” which hides the interface and has nice page transitions). However, if I connect via cable (USB-C, not HDMI), then I am just sharing the full screen of the iPad, which is nowhere near as nice. I would like the safety of a wired iPad-macbook connection, but Goodnotes with Airplay is quite a bit better than simply sharing the screen.

This was news to me! I guess I am not yet familiar enough with what GoodNotes can do. I just tried it and you are right, it is nice to be able to hide the GoodNotes interface.

> On the recording note: In the spring I taught by logging in (using the same ID) from desktop computer (for video/audio and to monitor chats etc) and MS Surface (for slides; this screen almost always shared). What I saw of the recordings seemed fine. Furthermore, no student raised any issue. We also have a dedicated staff member that was logged on to make sure that technology worked (e.g., that I had restarted recording once I paused it for the break); he mentioned at some point that the recordings were fine (he checks them before posting for the students).  Ross’s issue may be specific to institutional set-up, etc. I haven’t tried this with an iPad yet, hadn’t realized it could be problematic. At least it is easy to check, by running a brief meeting by myself whenever and viewing the recording a couple of minutes later.

If you download the video from Zoom, what is the resolution?

Gary
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