Video for Skype Users

Kozmik writes "Looks like the first of likely many video plugins for Skype has arrived. Dialcom claims the plugin which works with Skype, will provided end to end encrypted video that will work behind NATs, proxies and firewalls. Currently only supports Windows."

Comments

Nothing I actually need

[Ham_belony]

at this moment the flood of addons is really mind numbing, Do we really need more crap?

Re:Nothing I actually need

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point of "add ons" is that you don't need the extra stuff, but you can add it on if you want to.

Re:Nothing I actually need

[buro9]

Good point, well made.

Webcams and video conferencing have been around for a while and are pretty damn easy.

What I needed was an out of the box simple to use VOIP that I could give my mother and she could understand.

Skype filled that perfectly.

That it then went and replaced my home phone, gave me numbers in Manhattan, London and Stockholm are all benefits.

What I didn't need was video conferencing though... didn't then, still don't.

Sound is vastly more important than vision on these things.

What do you think you'll benefit from when one or the other fails? Sound or vision?

What I really need, and what I shall be arsed to code very soon, is an Outlook plugin so that my girlfriend can easily call people from within Outlook without it playing up on her.

Plugins should offer small fine tuning and niche functionality... not fundamental changes and bloat.

PS: Slashdot does not like TOR

Re:Nothing I actually need

[dslonaker]

This is actually very exciting for us mac users. If the skype dev's decide to support the isight this will become the first "it just works" method to videoconference between a mac and a pc (or a mac to a mac for that matter). Right now ichat, aim, and yahoo are great if you can manage to open the correct ports for video conferencing. Unfortunately my girlfriend (currently living 6 hours away) has no access to her schools firewall/router and if/once OS X support is added this will be great for the cold lonely nights *wink*

Re:Nothing I actually need

[Ham_belony]

just pulled open a bottle of Jupiler.....to celebrate my very first 'first post' to an article.....yeahhhhhhhhh *ducks*

Re:Nothing I actually need

[bhima]

Skype on my Mac (dual G5 PowerMac, iSight with Tiger) outright sucks (I loose sound out). In Fact I have some old laptop with windows which is the only thing I use it for

Re:Nothing I actually need

[ozbon]

was *wink* a typographical error, in that context?

Re:Nothing I actually need

[dsginter]

Do we really need more crap?

What we need is an ITU-T recommendation for voice and video over NAT. Right now, we've got only H.32x and that simply does not cut it. Enter Skype and now this video add-on to make media communication seamless and easy, regardless of NAT.

The ITU needs to get their act in order and bake up an open standard. One freakin' port please. Yes, I am aware of H.350 but even that is too heavy compared to Skype.

Re:Nothing I actually need

[110010001000]

Yeah, see thats why they call these things, ya know, "plug-ins". You know, so you can, like, "plug them in", if you need their capabilities, and, you know, NOT "plug them in" if you don't, like, need their capabilities.

Thats great that YOU don't need video, but its possible that somewhere on the earth someone might want or need video. This gives them the flexibility to add it to their setup.

Amazing isn't it?

Re:Nothing I actually need

[mr100percent]

Videoconferencing between a Mac to Mac that "just works" has been possible with iChat for some time now. iChat even works with AIM videoconferencing, so Mac users can chat to Windows AOL users.

Re:Nothing I actually need

[Anonymous Coward]

What we need is an ITU-T recommendation for voice and video over NAT. Right now, we've got only H.32x and that simply does not cut it. Enter Skype and now this video add-on to make media communication seamless and easy, regardless of NAT.

I'm the guy who posted above about working at a video conferencing start up. The whole H.323, SIP thing really got up my nose. I have no problem supporting standards if they can at least reasonably approximate working. H.323 and SIP are simply sad, sad excuses for standards developed long before any prototype software was ready, and with the parties only interested in being able to retain centralized control. What kind of standard allows 2 different solutions from the _same_ _vendor_ to have interoperablity issues?

So, the _LAST_ thing we need is another VOIP or VOIP+Video standard. (at least from my perspective, with several years in the industry) They have made multiple attempts, and still have not been able to get anything that works, even in the most liberal sense of the word.

Specifically, they _won't_ design a distributed Peer To Peer network to support the exchange of multimedia data in realtime (ie video conferencing). This can be done. I've seen it done. I've seen sys admins panic as they tried to figure out how their "perfectly secure" system with one or two ports open to outgoing connections was allowing VC traffic through (at 30 fps). (Of course, no incoming connections allowed.)

Nor will they take a lesson from genetic algorithim research and let the system adjust itself to the network, rather than the other way around. Nooo...that would be silly. Better to make the customer upgrade their bandwidth and spend a few hours on hold on the support line to get 1 frame per second with scratchy audio.

Instead, there will be yet another bad solution with massive servers providing login and multi-conference services. The system will be tied to some antiquated concept of PSTN switching, rather than taking advantage of TCP/IP's capabilities. It will still rely on sysadmins to open ports and make other firewall adjustments to allow the traffic to go through. And even better if you have to call their helpdesk and get sold consulting by their "solutions" team.

What we need is a group of open source developers to push for _real_ video conferencing. Screw the standards, and write an open program, give the code away and watch it grow.

They need to think about this problem differently. Tunnel through firewalls, form distributed peer to peer networks rather than centrally control login/multi-conferencing. Use projects like mTunnel to tunnel a multicast signal through firewalls to allow massive video conferencing sessions. (Think webex, but with LOTS of people.)

The tools are there for the usage, mTunnel, theora and speex over at xiph.org would form a perfect basis. Heck, probably could even do signalling over jabber to initiate the session.

If I could do this myself, I would. However, NDA and IP agreements prevent me from doing so for another few years. All I can do is offer this advice: video conferencing is not some unsolvable problem. Look at what you need to do, and break the problem down into small steps...just like you would any other problem. Once you do that, the solutions largely present themselves. It took a team of 5 analysts less than 6 months to produce a full on replacement for H.323/SIP that actually worked. It took less then 20 developers about 1 year to get the core functionality working.

I'm sure that with an open process, a much better solution then the one we came up with could be reached... and I'd bet that we'd see it working sooner.

Re:Nothing I actually need

[Mr. Bendy]

Actually i'm really looking forward to using this. As a UK expat is Australia I regularaly use VC for staying in touch with my family around the world. It makes a huge difference being able to see your relatives growing up over time, and get the body language that goes with a normal coversation.

Currently I use MSN messenger for video, and skype for voice at the same time, MSN's voice capabilities seeming to 'suck the big one'.

If I can use skype for both, then no question, I will use it over msn.

IP over Skype?

[TopSpin]

I thought of this sometime last week. I was astonished to discover no results when I queried Google. I suppose someone out there is knocking together an IP over Skype stack and has yet to unleash it on the world... but at least I wasn't unsuspecting. I wonder if IP over Skype might win the 5000 EUR award for the Skype API Competition

Re:IP over Skype?

[Slashcrap]

Only on Slashdot would this be modded "Interesting".

That is all.

Re:IP over Skype?

[matt me]

IPoVoIP That's not redundant!

Re:IP over Skype?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only when you use it to run another instance of Skype: VoIPoVoIP.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

DQCXASQ

Re:IP over Skype?

[Intron]

Too easy. Dig up two 300-baud modems. Jack them into the headset connections. Put them in local mode. Dial up your skype connection. Send and receive at glorious teletype speed.

This is much faster than the old technologies of SCSI over pager, or morse code on drive select light.

Re:IP over Skype?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bow to thee...oh wise one with a THREE DIGIT slashdot id!

Re:IP over Skype?

[shutdown -p now]

You're joking here, but I seriously considered using Skype for international FTN (FidoNET) calls. If anyone knows how to set this up, preferrably without any hardware trickery (that is, a "software modem" implementation that would use Skype to dial other modems), please tell!

Re:IP over Skype?

[Anonymous Coward]

With all that is going on with skype, there's tons of hardware and software sites out there. Luckily there are some sites like http://www.summitcircle.com/ and http://www.skypejournal.com/ that sort the crap from the gems.

Nothing New

[killercoder]

Ineen is skype like, has been around awhile. Works thru firewalls, similiar voice quality to Skype - whats the big deal?

http://www.ineen.com/

*ducks*

Re:Nothing New

[Elecore]

Ineen doesn't seem to support Linux where Skype does.

Re:Nothing New

[Anonymous Coward]

This plugin just only works under Windows.

Re:Nothing New

[js9kv]

Skype isn't in beta either.

Hardware

[graphicartist82]

Maybe I'm missing something, but how does this fall under the "Hardware" /. section?

Re:Hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm thinking that you need some hardware to send streaming video of yourself to others.

what is skype?

[binarstu]

Can anyone give a quick explanation of what exactly skype is?

Re:what is skype?

[TopSpin]

P2P VOIP app. It's main claim to fame is its ability to "just work" despite firewalls. This is done using several techniques that the clients automatically discover. Most frequently clients "hole punch" via UDP packets emerging from both ends so connections work when both sides are behind stateful packet filters. Other stuff fueling Skype popularity includes; multiple platforms supported (Linux, OS-X, etc.,) friendly API terms (thus these sort of plugins appearing) and, best of all, it's free (as in beer.)

Re:what is skype?

[DJ_Goldfingerz]

It's a simple to use program that allows someone to place phone calls from their computers to either another skype user (for free), or to a physical phone (for a small fee).

What makes it attractive is its familiar chat like interface and ease of installation.

Re:what is skype?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone give a quick explanation of what exactly skype is?

It's sorta like AIM, but for voice. You run a client program that has your buddy list, and if you see someone online that you'd like to talk to, you can "call" them. That functionality is free, and the sound quality is very good for most users.

If you pay extra for "skype-out" (at very low per minute rates) you can use Skype to call to a regular phone. The person you're calling doesn't need Skype, or even to know that you are on Skype.

Another add-on feature is the ability to receive Skype calls from a regular phone. The caller would call a special "skpe-in" number assigned to your account and on your end it would ring through on your computer.

Hope that helps. Check out skype.com for more detail, but that should get you started.

Re:what is skype?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google it.

Re:what is skype?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone give a quick explanation of what exactly skype is?

First link on Google:

http://www.skype.com/

In summary: Talk for free to all other Skype users on the net all over the world using a headset, with great sound quality. Better than normal phones in my experience. Call to ordinary phones all over the world from the net for a small fee (how they make money).

Client available for many Linux distros, Windows etc. Swede Niklas Zennström also man behind Kazaa (though I think he is an entepreneur rather than a programmer). This time he promises clients are adware/spyware free. Don't know if it is, but seems to work fine for me and I haven't seen anything strange from the firewall. I'm no security expert and in theory I guess it could wait and send sneaky information together with the sound data while you are making the calls...

Re:what is skype?

[DJ_Goldfingerz]

And let's now add the wikipedia entry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype

Re:what is skype?

[xtracto]

I wont post anonymous although I will be moded down.

But, Why TF did the mods moded parent redundant?? Not everyone knows what Skype is, and if no one asks then everyone will just write stupid comments.

So, the bastard mod that moded parent down surely was the one that laughed when some of their school pals asked questions to the teacher no? and surely he is so fucking ignorant because he didnt asked anything.

So if you want mods mod me fucking down but parent is a REAL QUESTION!! it really pisses off. He is just asking for a QUICK EXPLANIATION just a simple comment to know what it is!!! ..

darn...

Re:what is skype?

[El_Servas]

And the obligatory:

"You must be new here..."

Re:what is skype?

[stud9920]

You forgot the most important feature : it's connected to the POTS, at fees lower than the POTS. You can call anyone in the world for a very low, low price.

Re:what is skype?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was marked redundant not because the moderator disliked the question but rather because the question had already been asked two or three times. Read above.

Re:what is skype?

[linoleo]

Why TF did the mods moded parent redundant?

Because /. unfortunately still doesn't have a "stupid" mod. It took this guy longer to post his trivial question to /. than it would have taken to google/wiki for the answer. What would you call this?

Re:what is skype?

[xtracto]

So you do not have any questions, and surely you never asked your professors any stupid question noooo, you absolutely know everything.

You must be really intelligent, for someone that knows everything and only makes "intelligent" questions ooo wow let me worship you Mr. Intelligent .

Well, let me disappoint you, you have made a lot of "stupid" questions in your life... more than you know and if you have not then you are a stupid person because you do not know the answer to all those stupid questions...

So what? even a link to the wikipedia article would be okey for him, instead of bashing him, and you would even get mod points, but nooooo... he is a stupid because he does not know something, and he do not want to search for it, there is nothing wrong in asking you know? If you think it is stupid then do not answer it, there are others (as you can see in the replies) that are willing to HELP other people and it does not cost anything...

what a moron

Re:what is skype?

[Anonymous Coward]

How dare anyone waste a slashdotter's precious time by asking questions!?! Trying to learn about something detracts from the ability to write copious amounts of misinformed garbage.

Re:Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't use Skype on Linux because there is no good GUI for it. They should port Skype to Mac OS X instead, it's a better system based on BSD.

Re:Firewalls?

[TheSimon]

That is the big selling point though. There's really no config required to use it behind a NAT box. This makes things a lot simpler for a lot of people. Even if users on both ends are behind NAT boxes, the traffic if forwarded through a 3rd party PC so that at least one end of the data is coming from a public IP.

This is a big bonus for home users and those who don't know how or don't want to play with the settings on their router.

Tried it yesterday

[jeanluc.bonnafoux]

And it works fine.

I was using Yahoo! messenger for video and skype for the voice but video4skype seems quite better than Yahoo!
I wonder what kind of algorithm they use.

Re:Tried it yesterday

[Threni]

> And it works fine.

All I need now is a reason to look at the person I'm talking to instead of just listening to what they're saying. It's said that only 7% of communication is verbal - the rest is visual. This must be why, when I travel abroad, I can understand nearly all of whatever it is that they're saying, even though I don't speak Thai, Danish, Greek etc. So the ability to send video and audio is probably going to prove to be what finally brings about world peace.

Yes, I still listen to radio, and no, I don't want a video phone.

Re:Tried it yesterday

[Another_Vidiot]

I also tried it. I thought it was nice UI and all, but I wasn't that impressed with the video (slow and fuzzy -- but better than Yahoo). There's another Skype plug-in one called vSkype (www.vskype.com). Looks pretty cool as it does groups and sharing too. Not out yet though, a sign up form on the website, waiting...

Re:Tried it yesterday

[hot-tsunami]

I heard vSkype is launching very soon. From looking at their site you can also sign up as tester and get to try the service before they actually launch. For me, video and picture sharing will make my communications much better. Also, they claim they can do groups which is also missing from the video4skype. It's sure getting interesting in this market. Hans

Re:"Compatible with any skype version"

[Anonymous Coward]

The installation guide says you need win XP or 2K

Yay

[mjrauhal]

More incentive to use a completely closed and proprietary VOIP solution. This increases its appeal level to less than desirable!

Re:Yay

[lightspawn]

More incentive to use a completely closed and proprietary VOIP solution

Fine. Please recommend an open source, multiplatform VOIP solution that just works, letting people find each other and communicate securely without understanding their firewall configuration etc or having to type in the address of (or install?) a central server. If possible, something that supports video and/or text and/or whiteboard functionality.

Skype is out. Gnomemeeting is in.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone here at our university is using gnomemeeting now. Some of the codes offer ways better voice quality than Skype did and the video chat quality you get with gnomemeeting is awesome. I couldn't live without it.

http://www.gnomemeeting.org/index.php?rub=4

What the hell is up with those pictures?

[Anonymous Coward]

HandStand
Super Mario
??????

Just an observation, but they seriously need to get a new set of stock photos.

Re:What the hell is up with those pictures?

[doyen2000]

Don't you recognise happy people when you see them? The whole thing worked right out of the box.. no need to tinker or understand that what is under the hood.. Yay!!! now I only have to come up with what to say to my friends or colleagues :) .

Actually I like Skype a lot.. I used it a lot. The only thing is that it does not have echo cancelling algorithm. It does suffer from that hence the need for headphones with microphones.

Cheers, A.

/. adding to the Skype hype?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if Cmdr Taco has some vested interest with Skype? To anyone who remotely knows about VoIP, its nothing but old hat hyped up. Video as been done for years, even with H323.

The revolutionary NAT traversal in Skype isn't that revolutionary as it turns out and IAX performs equally as well in a NAT'd enviroment and that's open.

SIP is a standard and works well & and there are (many) ways around the NAT problems and the protocol is open.

It seems the problem with SIP phones is there is just too much choice & not enough marketing.

What pisses me off with Skype is that a lot of technical minded /.'ers buy in to the hype of a closed product when there are better, open standards availible.

Re:/. adding to the Skype hype?

[TheSimon]

It seems like a lot of people say "Skype is just another VoIP product" when in truth it is, however, it does perform noticeably better than most alternatives.

I have yet to see another H323 based app with such a large user base that is as centralized as Skype. It really is easy to find people I'm looking for that I assumed would have Skype.

Audio quality and compression are also better than many H323 alternatives. Using gnomemeeting and several different codecs, bandwidth usage was much higher than Skype for much lower quality audio.

Integration with the public phone network is a great option also. I make regular calls to our mobile employees and offices in Hong Kong and Shenzhen and so far Skype is our cheapest and most convenient alternative.

Skype has some cool stuff...

Re:/. adding to the Skype hype?

[eBayDoug]

Compared to Vonage, Skype is flawless. We use it all the time to communicate from the Philippines to the US, there has never been a problem.

wooooow...

[Virtual Karma]

yippeeyahooooooo!! Finally.. some high quality live porn opportunity!

Re:Is this going to be any more successful

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked at a videoconferencing startup for about 2 years. We had (and the company still has) top of the line video that can tunnel through any NAT, Firewall or Proxy. We could just install and go, as long as there was a connection to the internet. (No opening ports, no tweaking for performance, we took care of everything.)

We were easily extensible (include a macro and inherit from our base class..that's it). Our UI could be tweaked,rebranded and basically made to look however you wanted.

Our video could get 30 fps over a standard DSL connection. ISDN could get about 10. The biggest problem we had was convincing people that the video feed really was live. About 9 out of 10 thought we were streaming over the net. 1 in 10 throught we were playing a local video...until they started conversing with the person.

(our audio was on par with skype's although, I will give them a bit of an edge...)

So to sum up: top of the line video, audio equivalent to skype, extenisble, all of the good stuff. We had caught the eye of several groups that evaluate videoconferencing and got their highest honors.

All of that is leading up to this: We were absolutely TERRIFIED of skype. Not only was skype providing for free what we wanted to charge for, BUT they have an absolutely FANTASTIC marketing team. Think about it, they went from 0 to market leader before they were out of beta!

Yes, there are alot of VC companies out there. But NONE have gotten any traction in the consumer market...that despite massive interest in that market.(Something like 90% of people say they would upgrade hardware and bandwidth for decent VC.) Largely it has to do with setup, it is seen as being difficult by the average consumer. And the other half has to do with the crappy VC software that already exists. ("Oh, I tried VC one time and it was AWFULL" -- we called this the "netmeeting factor".)

If skype video can pull off the same level of marketing, and even get half of the quality we were able to achieve at my old company... well, then they will own the VC market, plain and simple.

Hardware: Video for Skype Users

[frovingslosh]

It's a software download. Why does the front page of Slashdot read: Hardware: Video for Skype Users

And, yes, of course you need hardware like a web cam to actually send real time images, but if that's the definition of when something gets flagged hardware then wouldn't almost every story require some hardware?

Re:Is this going to be any more successful

[under_score]

Have your read "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell? You should - it explains a lot about how Skype was able to market themselves so well. If they market this plugin in the same way, you may be right about it taking over the market. However, I still think that not too many people actually want video conferencing (except maybe just to say they have done it) and that the extra hardware required (including the fiddling you need to do with cameras) are two barriers to making VC really ubiquitous.

Whats wrong with AIM or Jabber for video?

[Laurance]

I use ichat to Video Chat with with my friend useing the AIM service, on both PC and Macintosh. So my Question is; Whats wrong with useing AIM or the open standard , Jabber for this kind of work?

Re:Whats wrong with AIM or Jabber for video?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me, what is the Jabber standard for video? Oh, that's right... there isn't one. And tell me about iChat to AIM audio conferencing, oh that doesn't work either since Apple uses a proprietary CODEC from Qualcomm to do audio only chats in iChat.

Open Source Solution Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be lured into using this just because it runs on linux too. It is not free. Install Linux on something other than an Intel machine, and you suddenly discover that a lot of this "free" stuff is not as free as you would like. No source code, no install for your Linux PPC. We Asterisk or a similar project to solve this. Maybe Gaim with Voice and Video?

Re:Open Source Solution Needed

[DJCF]

No, no, not GAIM. I want this as an asterisk plugin, compatible with iChat, MSN, Y!Messenger, and the new VVoIP (Video/Voice over IP) hardware phones that are comming out.

I really want this -- when people start doing it I'll ditch my landline for sure.

Hopefully, this'll persuade the OSS community to come up with an equivilent. Thunderbirds-style video conferancing here we come!

Re:Open Source Solution Needed

[Roger W Moore]

Don't be lured into using this just because it runs on linux too.

Try reading the article or even the Slashdot story - it doesn't run on Linux, only Windows!

Did anyone else see the site photos?

[DingerX]

I think I'm going to be ill. I had no idea webcams were so good at capturing motion. That girl doing the splits on the help page made me give up in dispair. And I'm pretty sure the "in action" screenshot on the front page is faked -- or a cutscene. Webcam apps have cutscenes, don't they?

...but apparently will not support correct grammar

[wickersty]

"will provided end to end" nice copy editing

Palm version?

[jbarr]

Great to see that Skype is moving forward.

Now, when will a Palm client surface? This has been a very long-time requested client, but it has fallen on deaf ears, Very unfortunate...

SIP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnomemeeting!

Standards are dropping

[el_womble]

I don't suppose we're in danger of anyone adhering to or creating standards for this anytime soon. I really like Apple's iChat 'solution' but it simply doesn't play well with others which makes it worthless (unless everyone you know owns a mac... which they inevitably don't). It was cool that iChat has adopted jabber and AIM, but it would be cooler if they'd open iChat completely especially as all they appear to do is decoded 3 streams and distribute 1 H.264 streams (I say all I have no idea how complex that should be).

A four way, hetrogeous video chat shouldn't be a pipedream with todays technology

Re:Standards are dropping

[fuck nwbvt]

Look, if everyone you know doesn't own a Mac, your problem isn't in the software -- it's your choice of friends. I suggest moving to the Castro.

(I say this as a Chelsea boy with half a dozen Macs in and out of the closet.)

Re:Standards are dropping

[nixman99]

A four way, hetrogeous video chat shouldn't be a pipedream with todays technology

That's what I was hoping for, but from the FAQ:
[05-05-2005 replicant] Can I use it for multi-video conferencing?

Not at the moment. In the future it will be possible to offer this functionality.

Re:Standards are dropping

[Clith]

I really like Apple's iChat 'solution' but it simply doesn't play well with others which makes it worthless (unless everyone you know owns a mac... which they inevitably don't)

Not so. Windows AIM users can video chat with OSX iChat users.

Re:Standards are dropping

[el_womble]

Yes you can... but as someone who's tried it, it just isn't the same, in fact its rubbish.

don't knock it for the masses

[way2trivial]

it can work..

Ever heard of AOL?

Yes, losing out on it's subscriber base,
but really, their closed and proprietary IP connection is quite heavily utilized.

Shudder-- I actually push it on people who won't get broadband, for their SE edition stuff.
I just make them yank all their then existing anti-virus stuff first.

Re:don't knock it for the masses

[Anonymous Coward]

Your .sig leads me to believe you need to brush up on understanding the meaning of irony. Limitation of characters entered forces specificity. There is no irony present.

Oh.

[bcmm]

*Reads article*

Wow! I've been waiting for this. And it will work with my firewall! And... Oh wait, boring.

Re:Oh.

[Anonymous Coward]

"llama
grep -i llama
grep -i llama"

Dude!?!. How did you know (like, in advance and shit?)!?

Re:Oh.

[bcmm]

It's more interesting when you get strings that you didn't cause yourself by viewing the page and typing the command. Like "llamaboy2000". I think it came from my MLdonkey p2p program, maybe a username...

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a valid point. Mods, you're on crack.

Reading up on Skype

[Woogiemonger]

I did a little reading up about Skype, mainly to find out what the hell it was. Allows you to do the headphones/microphone chat with someone else that has Skype, which is nice, yet not very practical. So then I was dismayed to see some sort of "Account Balance" in the Skype GUI screenshot, in Euros. A cost for something supposedly free? Apparently Skype has a "SkypeOut" feature which lets you buy phone credit in advance, then call someone who has a normal phone line. It's dirt cheap if they're in the US or Western Europe, but otherwise, you have to pay a rate determined by specific location. The rates are still pretty cheap, and they're listed on the Skype page. But do I really want headphones and a microphone when I call my friend in Romania? Nope. I see mention of these "USB phones" which Skype seems to be friendly with, but Amazon doesn't like the term "USB phone" and without nifty customer reviews, I'm a bit lost. Can someone recommend a good, affordable USB phone?

Re:Reading up on Skype

[js9kv]

I use the Logitech USB headphone myself with Skype. The voice quality is great - better than any phone I've ever used. The SkypeIn feature is worth a looksee as well - it's in beta now, but you can receive phone calls and record voicemail with it, even if you're on the road with your laptop. It's even possible to get out of state phone numbers to ring your Skype account too. USB headsets work like a secondary sound system for your PC - and you can tell Skype to ring the main speakers, but use the headset for calls.

Re:Reading up on Skype

[Sefert]

It is totally free, as long as both ends have Skype. Much like any other chat program. The advantage of the "calling card" feature (or whatever you want to call it)is that you can use Skype to call someone that doesn't even have a computer, by which it uses Skype to communicate to the country in question over the net which then routes to a local exchange and dials out from there, which is why it's so cheap. I researched the USB phones a while back. Personally, I'd want a portable, but they're european only at this point (they'll work fine here, but they use a wavelength that is prohibited in north america. Nothing stopping one from trying to get it shipped in, I guess). They do look super cool though. Lots of good display features, etc.

Re:Reading up on Skype

[mydigitalself]

all you really need is a speaker and a microphone. my thinkpad has both of them built in, so i just talk straight at it. you can also just use the regular headphone and microphone inputs and outputs on your soundcard.

skype have also teamed up with a number of 3rd parties to bring, as you mention, usb-based handsets & headsets out that support Skype. you can find them here. the headsets may look a bit ridorkulous, but a colleague (developer) at the office here uses one and swears by it. he can code and talk at the same time without getting shoulder cramp from holding a headset to his ear. just checking now, they have a "Starter Kit" for like £4.50 which includes a hands-free thing as well as some free SkypeOut credit. i may even get one!

in terms of what Skype does, it's a really well designed and easy to use PC-based VOIP solution. you install it and it just works. skype-to-skype calls are 100% free, but obviously the SkypeOut calls to traditional phone systems are paid-for. i've been using SkypeOut myself for a few months and i find it's cheaper than most of the other low-cost phone thingies. friends of mine have got SkypeIn and Skype Voice Mail going on (also paid-for) and rave about them.

anyway, an interesting company to watch.

Re:Reading up on Skype

[dlichterman]

I use Skype on my thinkpad just fine with the built in mic and sometimes I use headphones if I need to turn the other person up. I also just bought a skypein number so landlines can call me, and its awesome!

Re:Reading up on Skype

[Simon]

Instead of a USB phone, what you can do is get a "USB to RJ11" adaptor. It is actually just a USB based sound card that you can connect a normal telephone handset to. I got one off ebay for about 30 euro (cost+shipping), sent out from Taiwan. These devices haven't reached the computer stores yet. I'm using one with my cordless phone and it works well. (It's connected to a windows box BTW). I've disconnected my landline and use SkypeOut for long distance calls (and my mobile phone).

Sure Skype is a closed source product, but so was my landline. Lesser (and cheaper) of two evils.

--
Simon

Re:Reading up on Skype

[Anonymous Cow herd]

In addition to this, you can also buy numbers in foreign countries for a fairly reasonable price. If you have friends/family in another country, you can buy a local number in that country, then they can call that number, which is forwarded over the IP network to ring to your PC... so basically for a small monthly fee, your overseas folks can make a local call which can ring to your PC anywhere it can be connected to a network, or go to skype voicemail which again is accessible via PC. Pretty nifty idea IMO.

Re:Reading up on Skype

[Woogiemonger]

so basically for a small monthly fee, your overses folks can make a local call

I can't buy a local number in a country that Skype doesn't support, right? I can, however, buy a number in a country that's much closer to someone else's country. Or am I misunderstanding something? If I have it right, is there an easy way to find the most economical number to purchase from Skype for such a non-Skyped country?

Re:Reading up on Skype

[Anonymous Cow herd]

I can't buy a local number in a country that Skype doesn't support, right?

From what I have read, that's correct. As for which is cheapest... general rule of thumb is intra-city I'm guessing that Skype will expand this service as much as is possible (or at least profitable) so their coverage *should* improve with time.

Re:Reading up on Skype

[nstrupp]

Bluetooth.

I hadn't thought of this until a friend showed me. I use my bluetooth mobile phone headset as an audio gateway on my computer (laptop). It works great for phone calls using Skype, Vonage, and probably anything else. The bluetooth headset replaces your regular speakers and microphone while it is connected. I regularly walk around the room or even into the next room during conversations. This is especially great if you travel frequently as a bluetooth headset is probably much smaller than any other headset or USB phone.

The only downside for me is that if I forget to disconnect the bluetooth headset and start to play music or a movie, the sound still goes through the headset.

I also use SkypeOut frequently and it works well. For me it seems to be nearly the same as the Vonage soft-phone. Most annoying is that both seem to drop calls if your network connection is spotty or slow. This seems to be only in the network though, not a problem with either product.

Re:Reading up on Skype

[anti-NAT]

Sure Skype is a closed source product, but so was my landline. Lesser (and cheaper) of two evils.

The main issue with Skype isn't whether it is closed source or not, it is that it uses proprietory protocols. You can't get a "skype phone" from anybody else other than skype. While a "skype phone" is free (as in beer), there must be a reason why they continue to use proprietory standards. You'll be paying somewhere else. Generally, it is likely to be Vendor lock-in, it is just not obvious yet how they're going to leverage their vendor lock-in once they have enough users locked-in. One day it will be obvious.

If you read the wikipedia article above, you might be wondering what the "switching costs" are when using skype. They are the cost in having the people you talk to change to a different (and hopefully open) VoIP system. If you and you're 5 friends are all using Skype, and you want to change to something else (you personally don't like the Skype interface for example, or want to run Linux on a PPC), yet still want to communicate with them, whether you can change or not depends on getting unanimous agreement from all you're 5 friends. Contrast that with existing telephone systems. If I want a new mobile phone, I just buy one - I don't have to "market" the idea successfully to the friends I talk to using the phone before I do it.

Re:Firewalls?

[xtracto]

This is a big bonus for home users and those who don't know how or don't want to play with the settings on their router.

Not only that, I have found very useful the Skype service because I am living inside my University accommodation halls, and although we hav broadband connection it is a LAN hence we have a NAT and are also firewalled (it is even not possible to see our LAN neighbors!, quite paranoic no?).

So as I live far away from my home, when I want to call my parents or some other friends I can not use MSN Messenger voice/video features. I have used skypeout and it is really great! (I have to make long distance calls to my home country).

I have not tried this video plugin, but you can be sure, today I WILL do it!

Cheers to Skype!.

Windows only

[kkumer]

Nice, but how about Linux version? Skype itself works perfectly under Linux.

Re:Windows only

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but Windows has a mature, easy to use, 100% install-base video subsystem that works with every piece of PC video hardware in the universe..

Linux has several incompatible, randomly installed, barely functional video subsystems with poor hardware driver support.

It's the same old story, it takes one engineer two weeks to fully develop something like this for windows and 6 months for Linux as you end up having to write several parts of what SHOULD BE default OS features yourself! Then your solution only works for a small set of hardware which you need to constantly update as time goes by with hardware constantly expiring and being replaced by incompatible "upgraded" versions.

No this is not a troll, this is a problem I run into constantly when writing cross platform code. The latest scanners and printers are NEVER supported on Linux and we have to reverse engineer their protocols constantly, besides writing our own reliable printing subsystem because nothing actually works completely or is installed completely on any random Linux machine :(

Bandwith requirements?

[ckkoba]

For the life of me, I can't seem to find any information on how much bandwith is needed for video conferencing? Anyone have a guess to how much bandwith is needed for video? So I'm guessing this isn't based on H.32x protocol? The reason I ask is because other countries definitely work on limited bandwith, with 56k being the norm. My friend wants to video conference yet is unsure about how much bandwith would be used over an hour of voice and audio.

Re:Bandwith requirements?

[Sefert]

It totally depends on the plugin. The plugin will determine size of the image, quality of the image, compression of the image and whether it does stuff like only send changes to the image (by that I mean if a color is the same in a given pixel, it ignores it, and only sends the changed pixel information). That saves tons of bandwidth right there. So in short, there's no good answer short of either doing a pissload of research on a given plugin, or just running it and measuring what's going through the nic. There's some pretty damn efficient ones these days though. I suspect an hour would cost him about 5-20 mb of throughput, assuming he's on high speed. That's a total guesstimate though.

Re:Bandwith requirements?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't speak about the video, but we've tested audio. It will work OK with even a 26K modem, but it will grab up to 300K if it's available. How the dynamic bandwidth allocation ties it with video is an open question.

Linux thread here

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a serious lack of video conferencing ability on Linux at this point. As others have pointed out, this plug-in installs on any system... so long as that system runs MS Windows. Is there any hope for a Linux plug-in? Or are there any alternatives for doing video conferencing on Linux? I am aware of Gnomemeeting, but have yet to get it working. Anything else out there? This seems like an area that's not overwhelmingly difficult, and yet is seriously lacking.

I have noticed there is quite a bit of work in Wine to get USB cams working, so video chat clients for AIM will run on Linux. That would be cool.

Spyware?

[bsiggers]

Here is a working link. This application seems pretty suspect - it wants to install ActiveX components in IE browsers, and in Firefox it's asking for permission to install something that looks very suspicious. Beware!

Re:Spyware?

[dingosatemybaby]

I had used Skype for gaming, and it seemed to work great, then I read somewhere that the same shmoes who built KaZaa created Skype, and that it had adware/spyware embedded in it (website says it does not...) Also it does try to use your network/bandwidth as a supernode, much like Kazaa did. I cant confirm any of this personally, does anyone know if this really is from the KaZaa goobers or not?

Re:Spyware?

[b0bby]

Yeah, I don't like the wording of their agreement either:
"You also understand and agree that the Service may include advertisements and that these advertisements are necessary for Dialcom to provide the Service. You also understand and agree that the Service may include certain communications from Dialcom, such as service announcements, administrative messages and the Dialcom Newsletter, and that these communications are considered part of Dialcom membership."
Sounds like agreeing to adware & spam to me...

Re:Spyware?

[b0bby]

Skype actually is from some of the designers of KaZaa IIRC, but they weren't the ones who added the spyware and Skype is spyware free. This video add-on, however, isn't actually from Skype, it's a third party and it looks to me like adware. I won't be installing it until I'm clear on what it might do, but I've tried Skype and been very impressed with it on calls from the US to Korea.

Re:Spyware?

[JustOK]

See my post below. What's Yahoo! got to do with it?

Installer mirror??

[xtracto]

Can anyone please post a mirror for the download? or seed a torrent? please?

At last

[b0bby]

I've been waiting for an inexpensive way to allow non-tech types at the office talk to other non-techies with video for a while. Any way to be able to do this easily through NATs is a boon, even if it's not standards based. Bring it on!

Video over IP

[ImaLamer]

Been done:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/5169 86/103-2601913-2874261

Can we move forward at all?

uh, who are they again?

[JustOK]

Modifications to service Dialcom Networks reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the Service (or any part thereof) with or without notice. You agree that Yahoo! shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any modification, suspension or discontinuance of the Service.

emphasis mine. Got that from the eula on http://217.15.33.218/index.php?id=81

Re:Is this going to be any more successful

[Anonymous Coward]

Have your read "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell? You should - it explains a lot about how Skype was able to market themselves so well.

I haven't read it. Does it say that the product should actually work and be operable by normal people?

-Anonymous Phil

PS. I didn't download the plugin because the "Mozilla" button on the download page didn't work, and I'm not going to start up my Windows XP box just to download a plugin I don't really need. Besides, I run Skype on the Linux box because it's on all the time.

SIP and IETF STUN/ICE/TURN are what you need

[Anonymous Coward]

A) Use SIP, not H.323

B) See the IETF STUN (RFC 3489), ICE (draft-ietf-mmusic-ice-04.txt, soon to be an RFC), UPnP, and TURN (draft-rosenberg-midcom-turn-07.txt, soon to be an RFC). (Also midcom, but I'm not as certain of that getting deployed anytime soon.)

C) also see other IETF/MMUSIC drafts such as nat-behave, etc.

Realize a large part of the problem is that NATs haven't generally been designed with VoIP (or two-way audio or video in general) in mind. Even when they work, they often have idiosyncrasies, like it will act as a full cone NAT until there's a port conflict, when it switches to a symmetric NAT, etc. Not to mention the bugs and "doesn't fall into any useful category" NATs, and user options that change the type of NAT (disabling DLink's (default) "Game Mode" setting changes it from a cone to a fully-symmetric NAT - i.e. to one that's VoIP/video-unfriendly.)

Skype sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Skype:

1.) proprietory
2.) sucks

Thanks, but i use gnomemeeting for my video chat needs. It has much better voice quality anyways.

Re:Skype sucks

[Luminary Crush]

Very insightful.

Consider using GnomeMeeting behind a firewall, to another machine behind a different firewall.

In this environment, Skype works, and GnomeMeeting doesn't... at least, not without some fancy firewall/NAT work, which is over the head of too many people. Skype simply 'works'.

It also works much better cross-platform. I've tried to get GM to work with NetMeeting and get very inconsistant results (no firewall) to no results (firewall).

The challenge is to get Skype to open up their protocol.

Re:Skype sucks

[Frogbert]

Yeah gnomemeeting is all good providing you want to talk to the 27 geeks and overweight starwars nuts that use it.

2 bad points

[Chatterton]

I have just tried it... And uninstalled it...

1) Doesn't work if you have any TV card installed
2) Why does he need an ActiveX component to download it ?

It's really a great EULA...

[Aero Leviathan]

If you wanna see funny, search the text of the EULA for the string 'Yahoo!'. Looks like someone needs a better find & replace function... :)

Lemme guess...

[2names]

This "girlfriend" lives in Canada, right?

:)

Direct download link here

[Anonymous Coward]

No need to use an ActiveX or XPI tool just to download one file.

http://itanium2.dialcom.com/videoskype/spontania4s kype083.cab

Save .cab file, extract with WinZip or similar, then run the installer.

Rename .cab to .xpi in the URL to get the Mozilla version; I haven't been able to figure out how it works, but presumably it just extracts & runs the same installer.

You're welcome.

Anon because there are more important things in life than Slashdot 'karma'.

Closed Source and Skype

[EnergyScholar]

As a long time user of voice over IP I was pleased to see that Skype was free and seemed to offer practical cross-platform voice communication. After installing and using it for a while we found that it delivered on its promise to 'just work'. We eventually determined two things about Skype:

#1 As promised, it 'just works'. Even a totally new internet telephone user was able to use the software effectively on the first try. For pure communication function Skype is better than any other VOIP software I have used.

#2 Skype seems to to inject some really noxious behavior any computer it is installed on.

Upon careful investigation we found that, in addition to allowing clear and effective voice communication, Skype was doing bad things. Specifically: Skype uses its host to transmit data not related to the user; Skype modifies the network stack on each machine we installed it on (a PC running Windows 2000 and a Mac running OSX) such that all network traffic went through Skype's modified local loopback; Skype's network stack changes caused other software to slow down and crash, even when Skype was not running, even after uninstalling Skype. On the Windows host Skype embedded many entries into the registry which it did not remove upon un-installation.

To this relatively untrained eye it seems as if the makers of Skype have both the means, motive, opportunity, and the complete lack of ethics to use the network of Skype-installed computers as a large zombie 'botnet. In order to eliminate the bad behavior introduced by Skype we eventually had to completely flatten the hard drive on every machine touched by Skype and re-install the operating system and all software from scratch. None of this bad behavior violated the wording of the Skype license agreement, as far as we could tell, because the license agreement is worded to allow such awful behavior.

In short, we found that Skype seems to be either Spyware or Malware, depending your definition. Since it provides a desireable function I suppose one could also classify it as a trojan. I'd really like to get a look at, and then publish, Skype's secret source code, to see just what 'extracurricular activity' it is up to.

I hope that other slashdot users can examine Skype and see if these observations are correct. If, indeed, Skype has as much nasty, poisonous code under the covers as it seems to have, then people need to be warned and something needs to be done ...

Re:Closed Source and Skype

[Anonymous Coward]

Skype modifies the network stack on each machine we installed it on (a PC running Windows 2000 and a Mac running OSX) such that all network traffic went through Skype's modified local loopback; Skype's network stack changes caused other software to slow down and crash, even when Skype was not running, even after uninstalling Skype.

Where is this documented, so it can be independently verified?

Re:Closed Source and Skype

[anethema]

There have been some fairly extensive studies about skype and about how it works exactly. None of them found anything of the sort.

Just a troll..

Re:IP over Skype? - good idea

[Corpus_Callosum]

For those that seem sceptical, this is actually a reasonably good idea.

The purpose would be to layer a routable network layer on top of the encrypted P2P network that is the skype network, not to layer it on top of VOIP. Privacy, security and anonymity are the keys to making something like this valuable.

I don't think you could use IPv4, however. To make such a scheme work, you would need a very large IP address space that was completely reserved for the Skype nodes themselves to ensure propper routing. But this is a really interesting idea. IPv6 ontopof (Skype encrypted P2P) ontop of IPv4 I am liking this.

Re:Is this going to be any more successful

[under_score]

I haven't read it. Does it say that the product should actually work and be operable by normal people?

Yes, among other things :-)

Re: communicate securely

[apankrat]

..communicate securely..

Are you implying that Skupe lets you to communicate securely ? Last time I checked that claim that but offer no prove. Sorry, but closed-standard security should be treated as no security at all .. or you'll be in for a big surprise.

Nothing do to with whether it works or not

[anti-NAT]

It's all about vendor lock-in. User friendly software isn't isolated to proprietory protocols.

Imagine "Proprietory batteries not included" on a the box a toy comes with. You might have a cupboard full of batteries, however, if you don't have the right proprietory one, the kid with the new toy on Christmas day won't be able to play with it.

Imagine having to buy a TV set for each channel you wanted to watch. Imagine having to buy manufacturer made petrol for each different car. Imagine having to only park in manufacturer made car parks. Imagine only being able to drive on manufacturer made roads. ...

Not perfect under Linux,

[anti-NAT]

because I want to run Linux on a PowerPC. I can get a open standard VoIP phone for Linux on Power PC fortunately, however, I then can't talk to Skype users. Maybe open standard VoIP would be better, to avoid Skype vendor lock-in.

IETF STUN

[anti-NAT]

STUN - Simple Traversal of User Datagram Protocol (UDP) Through Network Address Translators (NATs)

Both of you - references please ?

[anti-NAT]

There is some precedence with the spyware or malware allegations, so that does put a small amount of weight on the claims the parent poster made.

Re:Both of you - references please ?

[anethema]

To be fair, the creators of skype have nothing to do with the spyware in kazaa if thats what you're refering to. Thank sherman net.

Skype is, as far as ive ever seen, spyware free.

You can find protocol analyses like these around

http://arxiv.org/pdf/cs.NI/0412017 (PDF)

Re:Both of you - references please ?

[anti-NAT]

Thanks for the link.

Re:Both of you - references please ?

[anethema]

NP

cool

[Tomfrh]

This is good