Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Video Chat -- Who Has the Best Quality Picture?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the crystal-clear-and-smooth-as-glass dept.

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?"

5 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. WebCam is the more likely suspect by MoogMan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  2. Not to ask the obvious but.... by ralphart · · Score: 1, Insightful

    ...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.

    1. Re:Not to ask the obvious but.... by DavidinAla · · Score: 3, Insightful

      By that reasoning, we all ought to stick to old CGA monitors. Who cares about higher resolution or more colors? Who really NEEDS stuff like that? The old standards were good enough to tell roughly what something was. Right?

      People want things that look better and clearer. Few people NEED high-resolution monitors or digital cameras or even printers. (Isn't 300dpi good enough for anyone? Or even dot matrix, for that matter?) No, we enjoy being able to hear things more clearly and see pictures more clearly. If you're stuck with the "small, choppy image" that you suggest, why bother with the video at all?

      David

  3. Answered in the question by Sigma+7 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "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.


    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.

  4. VLC works better than the major webcam apps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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..).