Video Instant Messaging
on 08.15.06, 07:03am in software • comments (3)
While the interoperability between text instant messaging services is starting to get better (MSN can talk to Yahoo, iChat can talk to AOL, etc), video support between still seems to be far behind.
What’s even more frustrating (and puzzling) is that MSN Messenger on the PC and the Mac can’t do video between the two, even though they’re talking on the same service. It’s a real bummer for multiplatform users such as myself. Hopefully this will get better over time - the out-of-state grandparents really enjoyed ‘video chats’ with their grandkids.
Right now, it looks like Skype might be a good interim solution since they just released a Mac beta with video support. While I’m going to give it a try tonight, it’s still somewhat annoying that I need to have multiple IM clients just to talk to various people.
Like email addresses, I don’t want 10 different IM accounts just to communicate with my friends and family.
BobT (August 15, 2006 @ 12:05 pm)
For the same reasons, we are in the middle of the same exersize.
I haven’t tried Skype yet. The video beta warnings for the Mac made me nervous.
I did install SightSpeed the other day. With only one camera available, I wasn’t able to test the video(other than their demo link), but it installed without problems and setting up a cross platform voice chat worked well. It was a bit of a CPU hog on the older machines (~1Ghz) I was using.
http://www.sightspeed.com/.
Ken Partirdge (August 15, 2006 @ 3:24 pm)
Have been using the BETA Skype on the Mac to talk to the Windows side for a while it has been working great. To get the best Video remember to forward the port for skype on your router to your machine’s ip address. Although this turns you into a “Skype server” for a while it is worth it to get the extra video quality since there is not NAT translation, if you always dont have Skype on.
Steve (August 15, 2006 @ 9:39 pm)
Just noticed that a new BootCamp 1.1 is now out at http://www.apple.com/bootcamp
This now has support for iSight under XP. While not the best solution (im using Parallels instead of BootCamp), it does over a mobile option at least..