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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.'"
Adding features does not necessarily increase functionality -- it just makes the manuals thicker.
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
of course MSN product is better... they are already on version 6! iChatAV doesn't even HAVE a version number! silly mac freaks.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
You can download them free at messenger.msn.com or apple.com/ichat, respectively, as part of a public beta test - a software company's way of saying, "Sure they're buggy, but what do you want for free?"
I believe I hear the sounds of a pissed off Gnu.
Messenger 6.0 has a puking emoticon.
'nuff said.
What's Linux got to do with anything? I thought the article was about iChat. Could you please keep you anti-Linux elitism out of this?
sic transit gloria mundi
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?.
This point, like the one the editor made, is what defines it to me. Do you want to play? Get MSN. Do you want to communicate? Get iChat. There are times and places for both of these activities.As those of you who saw Jobs' keynote Monday will already have guessed, this was a prime requirement for the iSight camera that Apple released -- designed to attach to the various displays Apple has released. Looking at the pictures on the NYT site (yeah, registration, ooh, scary), there's a massive difference in the way that the people using the two apps look -- one that you wouldn't necessarily click to from just reading the text.This is true, as it stands, but misleading. As they point out elsewhere in the text, iChat works as well on any FireWire camera, such as pretty much all modern camcorders, etc. This has more to do with using an established graphics communication protocol over a generic bus like USB than who manufactures the hardware.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
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
These people do video chat software, codecs and networking are all great, but not everybody has to be doing that. Besides, there is plenty of broadband to go around, just because everyone doesn't have it doesn't mean those that shouldn't be able to take advantage of it. (seriously, how many things are there that everyone has?)
sic transit gloria mundi
Manuals? Have you actually purchased a Microsoft product in the last ten years? You don't get any manuals. You get a "quick start" booklet and a cyanide capsule and that's it.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Personally, all I care is when someone will make a voice-chat system that stands a rats-chance in hell of making it passed a basic router, much less a firewall. I'm sorry, but when I can play UT against people in and out of the University but I can't voice chat with them, there's something wrong there. At the very least keep it on one or two ports so its possible to plan around it and forward it, instead of running up and down half of the upper ports like some do.
But which one comes with the best auto-airbrushing feature? Many slashdot readers will no doubt need this.
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
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.
I recently had the opportunity to try both GnomeMeeting and iChat AV. These remarks are only for audio, though.
GnomeMeeting has an impressive feature list and it's adherence to open standards is naturally very appealing.
However, when comparing it to beta iChat the differences were planet-sized. Apple has created a wonderful UI; I could concentrate on communication, not on the software itself.
It is true that GnomeMeeting allows you to use different codecs and is slightly more hacker-friendly. However, when I want to talk to someone, I usually don't feel like configuring loads of stuff. In some cases ease of use simply blows features away, and human communication is one of them.
(Not to mention the sound quality of the iChat audio chat. Wow.)
[ Antti Rasinen ]
The audio uses the compression technology out of CDMA. Pretty neat.
Another thing that should be noted is iChatAV requires at least a 600mhz machine in order to send video. While GnomeMeeting and others run on much less powerful hardware.
Right:
:
:
./configure --prefix=/usr
./configure --prefix=/usr
./configure script, it supports several parameters:
/usr
/opt, default is /usr/include/ptlib)
./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc
/how/--to compile programs and configure things from the command-line.
/all/ like ./make and ./configure, dude. Sometimes, people just want shit to work.
"Installation of Gnomemeeting is easy once you have the right version for your specific distribution of Linux! Here at PowerPage, we followed the simple directions:
4. Software installation
4.1. Which libraries do I need to run it?
You will need
* the standard Gnome libraries (they are now optional in recent GnomeMeeting versions, but we recommend using them to have the full-featured GnomeMeeting).
* the OpenH323 and the PWlib libraries (See download section of this website).
* the OpenLDAP library (Included in your distribution)
* the SDL library (Included in your distribution). Having SDL is optional, but if you compile GnomeMeeting without SDL, the fullscreen feature will be unavailable.
* the Quicknet telephony development files (Provided with your kernel). Having those files is optional, but if you compile GnomeMeeting without Quicknet support, it will be impossible to use Quicknet hardware during calls.
4.2. How can I compile GnomeMeeting?
Simply use the binaries from your distribution, the ones in the downloads section, or compile that way:
As root, follow the steps
4.2.1. Compile PWlib
You have to compile PWlib that way:
$
$ make optshared
$ make install
If you want to compile Firewire support into PWlib, you have to pass either the --enable-firewiredc or --enable-firewireavc to the configure script. Notice that executing the configure script will generate a ptbuildopts.h file that will be placed in the include/ subdirectory of the pwlib sources. If you want to benefit from the callto URLs, P_LDAP must be defined and set to 1 in that file. Similarly, P_HAS_IPV6 must be defined and set to 1 if you want to be able to use IPv6 with GnomeMeeting.
4.2.2. Compile OpenH323
You have to compile OpenH323 that way:
$
$ make optshared
$ make install
If you have any problem, please have a look at openh323 FAQ. You can also mail the GnomeMeeting mailing list.
4.2.3. Compile Gnomemeeting
Download it in the download section of the GnomeMeeting websit.
run the
--prefix=/usr to install it in
--with-ptlib-includes= specifies the location of PTlib headers (for example,/opt/pwlib/include/ptlib if you extracted PWlib in
--with-openh323-includes= specifies the location of OpenH323 headers
If OpenH323 and PWlib are correctly installed (both the libraries and the headers), we suggest you to compile GnomeMeeting that way:
$
$ make
$ make install
We at the PowerPage were disappointed to see the installation instructions for iChat and MSN Messenger 6:
1. Download iChat if you're using OS X; download MSN Messenger 6 if you're using Windows.
2. Double-click the file you downloaded and click the 'install' button to begin the installation.
3. Double-click the program's icon to run it and sign on."
Give me a break. If they would have compared Gnomemeeting, it would have been trounced. Why? Because this wasn't an article geared toward people who like--or even know
There goes another Slashdotter who just doesn't understand which software is geared toward which people. We don't
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
I was amazed..I expected to wait months.
The camera is absolutely amazing. About the size of a long C cell, the quality blows away any USB cam I've ever seen, and looks better than my camcorder as well. The whole iChat/iSight experience is, as Apple promised, beyond simple. Download iChat AV (had it already) plug in the camera, and off you go...well at least to the other two people I know who have iChat AV installed.
Well there had to be a caveat, eh? Forget about it if you have a slow Mac. I first hooked it to a dual 500mhz G4, and with bandwidth limits off, the thing bogged down my machine like nothing I had ever seen. I had to do a pushbutton restart twice.
Then I tried it on my daughter's 1ghz 17" iMac. Perfect. Flawless. I was having chats with people at 600kbps and it was like television on the other side, or so I was told.
Back to the dual 500, but with bandwidth limited to 200kbps. Now it works fine, but the moral here is that Apple is not telling all about processor requirements. To be honest, anything less than an 800mhz G4 is going to choke without the bandwidth limiter.
Yeah other cams are cheaper and there aren't many people to communicate with yet. But the difference between this type of chat and generic AIM is, forgive the cliche, paradigm changing.
I ordered two more iSight's today.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
Number of years I've owned a camera I could use for videoconferencing: three years
Number of times I've actually used it for videoconferencing: 0. Nada. Zilch.
Could someone please explain to me why I would want to videoconference when I could just use GAIM and not rape my internet connection?
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
How else would you express to your long-distance correspondant that you're using a Windows-based system?
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
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...
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?
"Messenger 6, in its ultimate form, will be free; iChat AV will cost $30 (but will be free with Apple's next operating-system release, Mac OS X 10.3, code-named Panther, due by year's end).".
Vote for Pedro
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.
A friend and I have iChat AV. We are in separate states, each behind our own OpenBSD based firewalls. Only a few specific ports like 22 (ssh) and 80 (web) are tunneled through.
I fired up iChat AV, and so did he. I saw the little phone button next to his name, so I pressed it. It connected and we started talking. Working great. No port forwarding.
IIRC, the audio stream is sent right inside the instant messager packets so as long as you can instant message, you can use voice.
I'll break out tcpdump and check it out sometime. No hurry though, cause it works great...
Justin Dubs
iChat communicates through port 5298.
How do I know this? Well it told me, and took me to my firewall pref pane so I could click Add and let it through. That's simplicity.