By Elva Team
Why Your Zoom Recording Sounds Like That
You finished recording an episode. Great conversation. Good energy. Then you listen back and everyone sounds like they're calling from a submarine.
Here's what's actually happening.
The compression problem
Zoom was built for meetings, not content. When you're on a call, their priority is keeping the connection stable. Quality comes second.
This means your video gets compressed. Aggressively. That 1080p camera on your desk? Zoom squishes it down to save bandwidth. The result: 720p at best, often worse. Faces get blocky. Details get lost.
Audio is the same story. Zoom mixes everyone into a single track and compresses it for real-time transmission. Fine for a standup meeting. Bad for a podcast.
The connection gamble
Here's the real problem: everything depends on the internet.
When your connection dips—and it will—Zoom has two choices: drop quality or drop frames. Usually it does both. You end up with footage that stutters, freezes, or just looks terrible.
And if someone drops the call entirely? That part of the recording might just be gone.
What you're actually losing
When you record through Zoom, you're giving up:
- Resolution: Native 4K becomes compressed 720p
- Control: One mixed track, no way to fix individual audio
- Reliability: Your recording depends entirely on connection stability
- Flexibility: What you see is what you get—no separate tracks to edit
The fix
Record locally.
When each person records on their own device, you're not sending video through the internet. You're capturing it directly. Full resolution. Full quality. No compression.
If the internet drops? The recording keeps going. Each track is saved locally.
This is what professional studios have always done. Now you can do it without flying your guest to your city.
How Elva works
Your guest clicks a link. We handle the recording on their device. When the session ends, the files upload.
You get:
- 4K video from each participant
- Separate audio tracks
- Recordings that survive bad wifi
No asking your guest to figure out QuickTime. No crossing your fingers about connection quality.
Your content deserves better than Zoom compression. Try Elva free—no credit card required.