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Video Chat Software Reviewed
Ryan writes "The PowerPage by way of The New York Times has a comparison of Apple's new iChatAV and Microsoft's MSN Messenger 6. My favorite quote, 'Microsoft, true to tradition, has focused on expanding its list of features, while Apple has worked toward elegance and simplicity.'"
Like iChat AV doesn't have all kinds of new functions. Like.. AV chat. Elegance, simplicity AND advanced features, thank you.
too bad they did not compared it to gnomemeeting
:)
an open source h323 soft compatible with netmeeting for all *nix, but dunno if it is still with msn6, would be nice to check this
Well, one of the great things about apple's product is that it doesn't have the build in crashandburn(); function that the msn software got. At least that's my experience with my usb webcam I got for free hehe.
Plus, exactly how many features can u need on a peice of software that is made for point to point communication?.
Has anyone actually used these types of programs for other than just flashing your "little general" (hint: not Ross Perot) at strangers?
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
maybe something that will work with apples iChat AV?
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
The audio uses the compression technology out of CDMA. Pretty neat.
It's good to see Apple and Microsoft are now providing it with some timely competetion.
In some cases ease of use simply blows features away, and human communication is one of them.
Both Gnome Meeting and Yahoo Instant Messanger allow you to talk with more than one person at once. iChat AV doesn't.
I'd say that's a very key part of "human communication". My wife uses Yahoo IM video conferencing to talk with her mom (in one state) and her father (stationed in another country) at the same time.. she couldn't do this with iChat AV.
"Apple, on the other hand, would sooner die than release anything that could be described as "stuttering" or "microscopic." In iChat AV, video is as crisp, clear, bright and smooth as television (640 by 480 pixels), in a window as small as a Triscuit or as big as your screen. Unless you begin to type, the typed-chat window isn't even visible during a video or audio call. Beware, however: Apple offers this top-tier experience only if you have top-tier gear. Video calls require high-speed Internet connections at both ends; dial-up fans need not apply. Apple says that audio calls work over dial-up connections, but mine didn't work without a broadband hookup on at least one end. And iChat AV turns up its nose at those U.S.B. golf-ball Webcams. It requires a video camera with FireWire (a very fast connector also found on every Macintosh). For this purpose, you can use an ordinary digital camcorder - a clever money-saving twist - as long as your Mac has at least a G4 chip inside. You can use a golf-ball Webcam that connects via FireWire instead of U.S.B. Or you can use iSight, the new $150 camera-microphone appliance that Apple unveiled Monday as an optional partner for iChat AV."
I like my 2 cheap ass novelty webcams, dammit!
Not everyone has the money to buy some bad ass digital camcorder!
Such quality is really only needed in a corporate setting. For which lots of applications already exist and people wouldn't be using MSN or iChat.
here is a picture of an ichat av session, this was before i got the isight (today) it worked fine with my cannon dv cam:
http://www.flashenabled.com/nimages/ichatbg.jpg
it works great, full screen and super-simple. msn 6 and ichat both do im, but msn is on version 6 with lots of features that many people need, or want while apple is starting out for the most part and many people don't need app sharing, white board, etc...it's pretty exciting. i use a mac and a pc so i've got the best of both.
cheers,
pt
Do either of them have an option for SSL, or any encryption at all (other than that that trys to make the protocole obscure as posiable)
My girlfriend went on and on about how she wanted an iSight. Last night I broke down and went with her to pick one up. It's a pretty sweet device. On our LAN here, we have no problems doing 2mbps video. Chatting with a couple friends, we've been able to do up to 160kbps. Still, not bad.
;-)
Earlier, I took my older Pismo PowerBook into the back yard and had an audio chat with her, while getting video from the iSight attached to her PowerMac. 700-800kbps there. Not bad at all. My audio stream going to here was 30kbps.
All in all, it's a sweet device. I need to make more Mac friends. It's only a matter of time before there's an iChat AV videochat directory*.
*All original ideas are the property of me. Boo yeah, grandma. I thought of it first, and so on...
okay here we go...
wait for it...
coming now...
ELEGANCE is a FEATURE!
From the article it appears they both work equally well so the deciding factor will have to be...features.
No, the deciding factor will have to be...video quality.
Here's what Pogue's article says about the Microsoft product:
If both conversation partners have high-speed Internet connections or are on the same office network, Messenger's video looks very good. You have only three size choices for the video - small, smaller or microscopic - but it's bona fide video. [Also, Pogue goes onto say that the MS product gets bogged down if you're connecting through a router]
And here's what Pogue's article says about Apple's product:
Apple, on the other hand, would sooner die than release anything that could be described as "stuttering" or "microscopic." In iChat AV, video is as crisp, clear, bright and smooth as television (640 by 480 pixels), in a window as small as a Triscuit or as big as your screen.
As you can see, video quality for the Apple product is incomparably better. The whole point of this video chat stuff is great quality video, and it appears that Apple is the only one offering high quality video at the moment. Unless you're content to look at triscuitsI'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
I used to fool around with iChat during the release of Jaguar. Didn't use it that much because most of my friends didn't have AIM-accounts. But it's changing now... AOL/ICQ have recently merged their networks, so now i can use iChat to chat with my ICQ friends (only of they use the latest ICQ-lite though).
:(
And I think Steve Jobs described Video-conferencing pretty accurately. It's one of those features that you go "I will never use this. It's cool. But I will never use this." and then after some use you will go "Why did I say that? THIS IS GREAT!".
You know what? Steve Jobs was completely right! iChat is now my favorite chatting application because of it's sleek interface, ease of use and audio/video capabilities. I just plugged in my webcamera and iChat AV booted up automatically and configured itself! How is that for plug and play, Microsoft? No drivers, no nothing. It simply worked. Set up in less than ten seconds. I am stumped!
"Way to go Apple!" is what I say! This will completely change how I communicate with my father that reside in the US. We've emailed and called back and forth for six years now, but now it looks like we're taking a step further to the future!
But what really need to happen is interconnect-ability between all apps though
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
I worked on a word processor for Lotus in the late '80s. It started out an elegant outline-based editor. After 2 years, we called it the "Feature Creature". It was one huge-ass monolithic application that required a custom-built dynamic linking loader and overlay manager to fit in 640K. It shipped on more than 30 diskettes - compressed. It had features up the wazzoo. So did all the other monstrosities in the Lotus Office suite. 99% of the users didn't use more than 20% of all the crap in the applications and just had to wade through enourmous manuals and deep menus to get at anything.
Toward the end of that project, I read some essay on the philosophy of Unix programming. It stressed the concept of very many small special purpose programs, that when chained together, produce useful work. I saw the light. A crap-load of features is not neccessarily the right thing.
I've found that I much prefer an application that does one or two things very well over and application that does 100 things poorly.
I prefer the idea of iChat AV over MSN Messenger 6, but I like Apple's simplicity in UI design in general, which is why I have a Mac. But the MS chat will no doubt be good enough for most of the people out there (most of whom have no idea that MacOSX even exists, much less that there is something like iCHat AV etc) and will obviously work with more , and cheaper, hardware. I think the majority of PC users will be happy enough with the quality provided by MS Chat, and it will server to bind PC users even more into the MSN/Microsoft fold.
I personally think that Apple made a mistake by limiting iChat users to AIM/ICQ/.Mac but I presume that Yahoo had some legal barriers that made it unwise to enter. I think that OSX hackers will probably hack this thing eventually that it will accept other hardware Cams, such as USB types, as they seem to be quite a resourceful bunch, but the lack of AIM/MS IM/Yahoo compatibility is something that will continue to hinder decent Audio/Video Chatting over the internet.
Can IChat speak to MSN or vice versa ?
Apart from that i find instant messages much more practical and bandwidth savvy, especially when talking with multiple people from an hotel room that has only dialup.