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JE Technology Desk: Microsoft Teams, a popular video-meeting platform, is getting animated backgrounds in Public Preview, the company shared in a blog post. The new enhancements will allow users to swap a static picture in the background with a dynamic animation for an immersive virtual experience during meetings.

Users can choose from a range of animated options available in the Microsoft Teams app and apply them as a moving background. Currently, users cannot select a custom choice and only opt for pre-defined backgrounds that the company offers.

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Microsoft Teams Video Backgrounds: How To Use?

Step 1: Head to the pre-join screen for a meeting

Step 2: Select 'Effects and Avatars'

Step 3: Then click on 'Video effects'

Step 4: Choose one background from the list of available video backgrounds 

Tip: For easy differentiation, animated backgrounds are tagged with a video clipart at the bottom left.

For users who have joined the meeting, you can head to the 'More' option, select 'Effects and Avatars,' and pick the appropriate background.

The company listed a few limitations for the features. They are: 

- Animated backgrounds are not available on low-end machines (it requires a four-core CPU and a minimum of 8GB RAM to work)

- Only in-app backgrounds can be applied at the moment

- Using video filters can slow down the animation if the machine is stressed

Microsoft Teams Video Backgrounds: Availability

Users must be a member of Teams Public Preview and must "use the Windows or macOS Teams client" to use the feature. It works regardless of other participants' versions of Microsoft Teams.

Animated backgrounds is the tech giant's attempt to amp up the experience on the collaboration app. We anticipated the roll out of these enhancements beforehand as Teams recently received new static backgrounds, and The Verge reported that animated counterparts would debut soon.