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Skype 2.0 Adds Video
Golygydd Max writes "Skype is showing that there's life after the eBay purchase. Techworld reports that the company has just launched the beta of Skype 2.0, having added video to its telecommunication software. The company is already lagging behind the likes of AOL and MSN in offering this, but Skype must be hoping that the size of its user base will help it - its store is to start selling videocams almost immediately." The LA Times has a review from a 2.0 beta tester, if you're interested in a hands-on look.
CUSeeMe
Seriously, the only people who are into video calls have one hand on their hammer, the other on the keyboard. There are relatively few people who have the bandwidth to make a half decent video conference. Granted that will change.
The video phone has been around for some time now, although I don't know the price of it so that may have been responsible for it not being adopted, are video phones really wanted? They've never taken off for the normal phone, will they suddenly take off for VoIP?
I can't see it myself. Plenty of programs have supported webcams, but in my experience most people don't use them, only a very small minority. So why is everyone clamouring to add this? Is it merely to say "look. We've got a new widget!"? Or is there truly demand for this, that I'm just ignorant of?
A multi-platform Video Skype and you got yourself something way cooler than Msn nor Yahoo Messenger largest user base or not.
Skype doesn't work nearly as well as they claim it does. There is always a time lag effect. The person on the other end of the line only hears what you have said after a certain delay. The amount of time lag depends on what day you call.. there are good Skype days and bad Skype days. On good Skype days the time lag can be so small that you hardly notice and it's nearly as good as a normal telephone line (although still both people won't be able to talk at the same time). On bad Skype days it's nearly impossible to have a conversation - better off just hanging up and trying on a different day. Bad Skype days usually happen when the internet is going very slow.
On the german newsticker http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/66829 it was stated that a "ADSL-Line with 512 kBit/s" is needed. everybody is wondering if they mean a ADSL with 512kBit/s downstream or if they realy need a bandwith of 512kBit/s. any clues? any official information on what bandwith is needed? anybody already tested it? cheers raudi
As I Live in an underdeveloped county and have relatives abroad so I know that a very good portion of the video conferencing is used by parted families
It works ok, but has some oddities:
.skype config directory. Kind of annoying, but once I do that, it's happy and lets me reconnect.
1) Only uses OSS, not Alsa. So it's not always happy sharing the sound device. (You can use OSS emulation, but still, not quite that happy)
2) Occaisionally forgets my configuration and won't let me log in. I've seen posts, that say the solution is to whack your
I'd love to see Skype 2.0 working under Linux, but even more importantly, I'd love to see an Alsa version and see if my experience is better.
My biggest gripe is that I use it to talk to my brother when gaming (instead of Teamspeak). For the whole once a week we game, it's fine. But under Linux, I can't run my game & talk on Skype. So I've got to boot into Windows to game.
But if you want to use skype to only talk, and not game, it's certainly fine for that.
Skype 2.0 is not currently available for mac and linux.
Since the version 1 skype never came out of beta for linux it's debatable whether there will *ever* be a linux version.
Anyway it's hardly the first cross platform video communication program - there are literally hundreds of the damned things.
I've been waiting for this, simply because I haven't found a good way for two people behind NAT to do video chat without some subscription fee. The NAT traversal in Skype seems to me to be the kicker, because it lets you connect easily without forwarding ports. Am I just an idiot, and there are other video chat programs that do this for free between say, XP & 2000 machines?
I have been using skype on linux for a while now, but the Linux support is getting worse.
Skype does not support ALSA, causing all kinds of weird problems. There is a bug in skype that require a restart after any voice call (it does not close /dev/dsp after use). These problems should have been fixed a long time ago.
I am actively searching for a better solution.
RFC1925
I expect Mac and Linux support are a bit of a way off, but after seeing Jake2, my faith in Java has been renewed... why not create a Java client?
Instant cross-platformy goodness (all be it wrapped in proprietary Sun licence badness)
If they can render Quake 2 at 260 fps then video at 15fps has got to be easy... doesn't it? Just make sure its rendered in jogl and joal rather than evil Swing. The one sticking point I can see is getting the data from the camera in Java... any thoughts?
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
This is a shame, in my opinion, because it quashes the internet's promise to break the stranglehold that the regular/government telecoms have over citizens. The ISPs in some countries in this region, for example, have skype's website blocked specifically to prevent people from paying the normal $2.50+/minute rates to call Europe or the states.
If technology is going to fulfill its promise to lift the burden off of those struggling in developing countries, companies like Skype would do well to do a better job of leveling the playing field - price differentials of a factor of 15 just seem downright unfair.
A-Bomb
Skype is going to have to be pretty insanely phenomenal to come close to iChat AV.
iChat's Audio Conferencing lags behind Skype but its Video Conferencing (4 way no less) is just crazily good. Apple built iChat from the ground up using the powerful Quicktime 7 implementation in 10.4 and it shows.
I'd used plenty of Video Chat products but iChat was the first time I got the feeling that the technology had reached "Batman" standards.
(Oh sure Batman, it takes you a day to decrypt some stupid riddle, you use a massive magnifying glass to spot a buoy on a bit photograph of the ocean and your computer is a selection of flashing lights without a graphical or even command line interface but perfect quality video conferencing? Piece of cake!)
Actually, there is this java program Mercury that allows video chat and that is compatible with MSN messenger clients. Pretty neat, it works on Linux and Windows.
http://www.mercury.to/