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Video Chat -- Who Has the Best Quality Picture?
Milo_Mindbender asks: "There are lot of PC based video chat programs out there now, but every one I've tried lately seems to have pretty low-quality video even when both participants have cable-modem and high quality USB2 or Firewire cameras. The recent 'Windows Live' update was advertising better quality video, but it doesn't look any better to me. Now, I'm asking the Slashdot crowd: of the programs you've tried which ones have the best quality video? I'm mainly interested in low-cost or free Windows PC solutions, but for the benefit of all the readers maybe we could come up with 'best Windows', 'best Mac' and 'best Linux' recommendations?"
I think the iSight (non built-in) generates a pretty good image. It has a rudimentary auto-focus and handles less than optimal lighting.
The amount of compression applied -- which I imagine is a product of the bandwidth available -- is probably a bit factor in image quality as is image size.
The camera built into the MacBook, iMac and Mac Book Pro also performs pretty well.
All in all, like everything else, there are alot of variable that will affect your mileage.
the future is here, it is just not evenly distributed - w. gibson
"Now, I'm asking the Slashdot crowd: of the programs you've tried which ones have the best quality video? I'm mainly interested in low-cost or free Windows PC solutions, but for the benefit of all the readers maybe we could come up with 'best Windows', 'best Mac' and 'best Linux' recommendations?""
The one group that can appreciate a good video hookup.
i haven't tried any of the video conferencing stuff for linux and mac. but i can *unscientifically and unprofessionally* say that i can't find much diff on the quality of the video. i do find that a good cam will definitely help, but i get the impression that there's not much, if any, difference between msn, yahoo, and skype. if it's of any use though, yahoo tends to broadcast choppier video. ironically, i use YM as my primary IM, since most of the people i know have a yahoo id. mod me troll if you must, but i really can't find much of a diff.
. o O ( TwO hEaDs ArE mOrE tHaN oNe... )
But ... waht if she's ugly on the other end .. or a GUY?! Wouldn't you rather to NOT be avle to tell? :D
How this made it through the lameness filter, I have no idea.
Silly question, but have you ever considered that it may be the camera that has a poor resolution or refresh rate?
As for video chat, I generally use Ekiga. It's a little buggy, but it works better (and is simpler) than many other SIP clients around.
"Silly question, but have you ever considered that it may be the camera that has a poor resolution or refresh rate?"
I'd recommend a good camcorder (on a tripod) with a decent microphone. Piped into a board that spits out Mpeg2. A decently powerful computer with a good video card. Broadband helps.
Any camera won't do too well in if the conditions you're shooting in aren't good. Good lighting, no backlighting, and a full view of your face (for focus) will have a larger positive impact than whatever program you're using. More tech doesn't always work as well as good composure.
Cheers,
In my my previous comments I mentioned trying a number of services after getting my family webcams.
We now use MSN 7.5 (pre Live) quite successfully. It can switch to full screen, which helps considerably when there are people gathered round the PC to chat as a group. Occasionally have trouble with something locking up, but restarting the video conference usually fixes it.
I tried a number of services with my brother in another state before deciding on MSN. Skype had just released a beta of their video service, and the video quality wasn't quite as good. Yahoo didn't have a good update rate. I didn't try AOL which seemed to want to install much more than a chat client. There were a number of clients like ineen, so similar that I swear its the same software with different skins for different markets. All had tiny video.
After trying all of these I realized how important it is to keep the audio in sync with the video being displayed, and to degrade in a manner that is easy on the eyes. MSN outshone the others in this regard. (Talking on the phone as we start the conferences, you can really notice the delay imposed to keep the sync. But after we're just talking on the PC, its much more important to keep the audio in sync than to reduce the latency.)
...Just how good does your video chat quality really need to be?
Time to scope your requirements. If you're just chatting up your buds, do you really need much more than a small, choppy image? If you were doing remote brain surgery or something extremely critical where a great deal of visual information was necessary, that's another matter.
I'm not being argumentative - just asking the question.
Cable modem? That's why.
Let's assume that you are have a 300kbps upload rate (which is on the low side for cable, but will do.) You are also dealing with a video compression codec that needs to be real-time (i.e. low-compression). In some cases, you have more than one person in the video chat, either requiring a multicast or multiple connections.
In addition, you are not wanting to fill that entire 300kbps - that would choke the connection and cause issues if you happen to be on a slow period (or otherwise slow down the connection for other things.) Effectivly, you have a 128kbps bitrate, possibly 64kbps.
While that bitrate can provide acceptable movie quality, it flings you into "low-quality" world. Unless this is the exact bitrate you are looking for (i.e. this is "high-quality" video conferencing), you'll have to deal with the image quality that you've got. Alternativly, get a fibre-optic conneftion so that you can have an ultra-high bitrate.
If you can forward a port or are directly connected, try Wigiwigi. The program is flakey and very much "under development", but there is no chat app with better video quality out there, period.
http://www.wigiwigi.com/
The specific app you want is WigiHQ.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Many people of commented that I, in fact, have the best picture from video chat software. I put it down to just being very good looking. Have you tried getting a better hair cut?
sheep.horse - does not contain information on sheep or horses.
I didn't need power windows, power steering, power breaks, a CD player, power seats, and a lot of other extra features I got in my car. But I wanted them so I got them. We rarely NEED everything we WANT, but that doesn't stop us from looking for what we want.
So I'm not sure what the point of your question even is. I personally find the blocky image annoying. Whether I'm smoking bong hits remotely with stoner buddies across the country at 4:20AM or whether I'm chatting with my woman while I'm on the road, I want better video quality. Period. Granted, better quality video is much prefered with the woman, but blocky video is annoying no matter what.
I looked around at some programs to determine which would be the best (I did, after all, just spend $130 on the cameras). I really wanted to like Skype, but the video didn't seem to go very smoothly and the quality wasn't so great. Also, it didn't show the full range of my camera (it cut off the edges on the sides), which produced a "zoomed in" picture. Yahoo Messenger just sucked, period, and I refused to use AOL because it wants to install other crap with it. I've also never liked the look of it. I was cursing Google for not including a video-chat function with Gtalk (which is by FAR my favorite messenger. Nice, sleek, and not annoying).
As much as it pains me to say this, I chose Microsoft's chat solution. Windows Live Messenger has the best, smoothest, highest-quality picture of any of the programs I tried. The audio also synced up nicely with it. I say MSN all the way.
Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
It comes in Windows and OSX flavors (With *MAYBE* linux support coming soon.) I've used this EXCLUSIVELY for the past few years, and in many of my other comments and journal entries you'll see mention of this program. This program is good enough that you could (with enough bandwidth and proc power and RAM) watch 100 people at once doing sign language as fluidly as real life. It's that good. Only downside, you need to pay 50 bucks to be able to do most of the kick-ass stuff in Camfrog, but it's probably one of the only programs I've paid for. The server software is $200 dollars, and you can restrict access so tightly without the need for MAC banning (thru a ban/allow list you can edit in text editor of choice, so you can first block out the net, then only allow people in by nickname.)
You will be pretty floored by how well it performs for such a small program. Also, the current OSX version is BETA, so most internal cams on newer notebooks will not work at all. It's smaller than most good V/V chat programs out there (3.6 or so megs for windows, 5.6 for OSX I beleive.) Try it. It's compatible cross-platform. Mac and Windows users can chat with each other, and when you have broadband, it's sweet. I give guitar lessons live thru this program, to a nice 100 people at once with a decent server. Let's see iChat do that with 100 people at once.
http://www.camfrog.com/ click the download link.
http://download.camfrog.com/macosx for the Mac users.
Enjoy. There's rooms for everyone/type out here. Just watch out from idiots from Turkey, Egypt, and most of the Middle East. they're all pervs and will ask anyone for sex, or will pop into a room and randomly start whacking off. Thankfully *MOST* user-owned rooms have moderators (sadly a pay-for only feature, email the guys over at Camfrog and let them know what features you'd like in this program before you pay $50 for soem decent damned software!)
Don't mod me down for advertising/shilling for these people. I'm not paid by them. I'm a very impressed customer. And anyone else talking about ANY other program is advertising as well as I am. Be hypocritical if you dare.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Usually when I broadcast my webcam (a Logitech Pro 4000), I simply use VLC's streaming output. A 320x240 video at 30fps looks pretty good at 192kbps when I use the h264 codec. Of course, h264 gives the best quality/bit compared to the other available codecs, but it's a bit CPU-intensive, so sometimes I use a less efficient codec at a higher bitrate. This type of stream is only one way, but that's never been much of a problem for me, since each person can run their own stream. Plus, as a bonus, it works in both Windows and *nix (and OSX for receiving..).
When I must show off my hairy manbreasts to all the hot ladies on the internet, I choose Windows Media Encoder.
Multi-bitrate streams are very useful, since then you can pump out three or four different rates, depending on who all is watching, and what your upstream is.
Also, realize that no video is going to look terribly great on a cable modem, as some have uploads as low as 128kbit. Even 'moderate' at 512mbit isn't going to be that great once you split it two ways.
I've been using Sightspeed for quite a while now to talk with my girlfriend in Japan (I'm in the US) and I think the video quality is excellent. I haven't mesaured, but I'm pretty sure I get at least 20fps, and even if I make it full screen (on a 24'' widescreen LCD), the quality is still impressive. I'm using an iSight connected to an Intel MacMini, and my girlfriend has some generic Logitec webcam connected to her Windows laptop.
Treat every day like it's your last; delete your browser cache before going to bed.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1979143,00.as p
From the review:
"Bottom Line:
Hands-down the best free Internet video calls offered by any Web service. You'll be amazed at the video quality and tight synchronization of audio and video when using a broadband connection and 30-frames-per-second webcam.
Pros:
Phenomenal video quality. Unlimited free video calls, video e-mails (up to 1 minute with 30-day storage), text messaging, and voice calls to other SightSpeed users. Windows and Mac support. Low-cost calls to traditional landline phones. Voice-only calling mode.
Cons:
The expected beta hiccup in the interface here and there."
Ichat uses the H264 codec, which is the same one used in the HD-res (1920x1080) quicktime movie previews at apple's websites. I believe it is the codec in either Blueray or HDdvd also. In anycase it looks great. The stand-alone isight camera is very good. The built-in camera is pretty good. In the past I've tried iVisit, yahoo, aol, and a couple other ugly buggy things. I have not tried the "camfrog".
Take a look at Sightspeed.
From their website: "SightSpeed, Inc. is the leading provider of free and premium Internet video and voice communications services (VVoIP and VoIP). The SightSpeed community and software enable consumers and small businesses to make the best quality video and voice calls and to send video mail over the Internet. SightSpeed's award winning service turns a PC or Mac into an easy-to-use video phone to communicate with friends, family and colleagues around the world."
... is what I've been using for a while now when I want decent video and sound. I primarily use MSN Live for chat, but find that the video features have a tendency to lag alot, and get blurry so you tend to miss facial expressions. AIM is a good deal faster, but tends to be flakey.
Eyeball Chat runs quickly and there seems to be hardly any noticible lack of sync between audio and video.
is it possible to get an iSight to work on linux, and is there a H264 video conferencing app for it too? i have a crap webcam and aMSN is awful.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Have just a newbie question : Is this so called iSight program available on windows as well or is it only macOs program ? .. )
(had to ask this, as the question is about what program and not what webcam produces the best image
Paltalk operates a video chat service and the quality is very good. They started doing it for dial up and had to be very efficient. What is great about the service is that you can do multi-way (6 max I think) video chat and it still looks good.
www.paltalk.com
Also, realize that no video is going to look terribly great on a cable modem, as some have uploads as low as 128kbit. Even 'moderate' at 512mbit isn't going to be that great once you split it two ways.
That's why you don't have people pull directly from your encoder, you push your stream to a more reliable server, and let the server handle splitting the stream for many people. You may get a minute or so of delay, but that's about good enough to show off yourself. Personally I use Camfrog - more live TNA, in large group rooms, and you can always drag someone into private one-on-one chat if you're really good at charming ladies (or guys, whatever you prefer.)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I used a Canon GL-2 camera for videoconferencing for a while. It's currently living a different life doing more mundane things but I did notice a few things.
Close-miking is important so that there is no question of what you are saying and what you are saying doesn't get drowned out by the ambient sound in your room.
But the consistently best picture I got was by using high-intensity lamps (desk and other variety) that have bulbs that produce 3200K white light (it's actually yellow but cameras, when set for "indoor" will naturally white balance to it).
Of course the best is a set of Lowel lights that are properly set, but one is hardly going to do a casual videoconference with a $1,000 kit of lights. But incorporating a couple of high-intensity lights and, perhaps, bouncing the light off a white wall or reflector onto your face will create a really nice image that will show up very well in a videoconference.
The current state-of-the-art in terms of technology and software is the Apple solution. I'd imagine Microsoft will try to challenge the Apple iSight and iChat AV solution in their upcoming Vista and I'd imagine the Open Source community will have a rather heterogenous hodgepodge of stuff that will work, but the proprietary vendors will probably lead the way in this instance.
Remember Cornell's CU-See-Me? It got bought out by White Pine Software.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
I like this service
I've had the best results by far with Skype. Even on a 256/64Kb connection it manages to deliver solid framerates (obviously downstream is slightly better, but it's still very impressive) with my iSight in the MacBook. The downside to Skype is that it likes to use 130% of the available cpu time. I'm assuming this is an optimization issue since the Mac version of Skype with video is in its early days and trying it out on Windows only 40% was used and the frame rate was ever so slightly higher (I'm not entirely sure if Windows uses 200% as max with dual cores or not, so perhaps it's the equivalent to 80% on OS X). Either way you need a fairly beefy machine to use Skype - but when it runs it's awesome.
iChat also delivers very good video quality provided you have the bandwidth. It is, however, not possible to have a video conversation on the same 256/64 line that Skype thrives on. I know that it performs very well on a 2Mb/384Kb connection though - but then again Skype gets even better frame rates than iChat and beats the living daylights out of MSN Messenger, Yahoo, Trillian and AIM's video conferencing.
If you're doing Mac to Mac you might want to stick with iChat provided there are no connection issues (Skype seems to have very little problems while iChat *can* have some) because the cpu usage is much lower. As long as I'm not on battery power, I prefer using Skype though. Every time.
Check this out if you want high-bandwidth, hi-fi, hi-res video conferencing:
http://ultravideo.mcgill.ca/
The software runs on Linux and can be downloaded by anyone interested.
Polycom.
+++OK ATH
No one mentions Ekiga, the #1 Open Source video chatting application. Why? Because it offers only small resolution video, using older codecs.
People, persuade and try to motivate Damien (&co) to implement H264 and larger video sizes in Ekiga and you will later be very very happy.
Funny you should mention the H.264 compression behind that. I just happened to read Macintouch's benchmarks for the new Pentium Mac Pro line, and the numbers for Quicktime exporting are vastly superior on the new chips. The numbers in their benchmark showed the Intel Mac Pros exporting QT movies just under 5 times as fast as a G5 dual-core 2Mhz.) The Macintouch folks commented on Apple's seeming focus on H.264.
The upshot being that, if there was any concern with the new Intel Macs giving up any of this video chatting advantage, probably that's not a worry. The new machines cook in that compression.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I recently found VZOchat http://www.vzochat.com/ it is free and very simple and I think it gives the best video quality so far. I like it more than Yahoo, MSN, ISpQ and others that I tried before. I use it when I travel to see my family, however I am not sure I would use VZOchat for business. The same company has another service called ZoomCall http://www.zoomcall.com/ that they advertise for business use. ZoomCall is also free to try, but then you have to pay soemthing to use it. I tried them both side by side with my friend (we both have cable) and ZoomCall gave us even better qulity, but for my needs VZOchat is good enough.
This is slashdot. Finding even 1 girlfriend is statistically unlikely. You can always buy technology, but finding a girlfriend.... priceless :)
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
http://www.area52.force9.co.uk/ekiga/
:) works very well,
Thats a howto for ekiga for windows