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?"

Comments

iSight with iChat on Mac

[zygote]

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.

Re:iSight with iChat on Mac

[ssuchter]

I definitely agree, iSight w/iChat is the best. A few months ago for Mother's Day, I set up videoconferencing for my daughter's two grandmothers, we're spread out across the USA. I tried MSN Messenger, Skype Video and iChat. iSight+iChat was *so* superior to the others in terms of picture quality and video quality (slightly different considerations) that I ended up upgrading my Powerbook to a MacBook Pro, giving the hand-me-down to my parents, and setting up my in-laws with an iSight for their Mac Mini computer they were planning on getting rid of. The quality is simply in another class from the other solutions, in my experience.

Re:iSight with iChat on Mac

[Graymalkin]

iChat with a DV camera also tends to work really well. A big advantage of a DV camera is a big lens and manual controls. Instead of having to trust the iSight's auto white balance and brightness (or use iGlasses) you can manually set what you need to get a good shot. A DV cam with an IR remote also works well when doing presentations or group chats where you might want the camera to zoom in on the frame sometimes but zoom out to emcompass everyone.

Re:iSight with iChat on Mac

[BiggerIsBetter]

The thing about iChat is that it uses H.264 compression, which gets more quality for a given bandwith than MPEG4 and similar compression. Any chat system should perform better using H.264 (if the host can handle it).

WebCam is the more likely suspect

[MoogMan]

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.

Re:WebCam is the more likely suspect

[Myself]

Agreed, it's probably the camera. The compressed image will never look as good as the original, so if the original is just barely acceptable, the compression has a hard time telling important details from discardable details, and the result will be unacceptable.

Most cheap camera sensors are horribly hungry for light. Fix the lighting situation first, and see if the problem goes away. Then, look at a better camera. If you can post a 640x480 snap from the camera on the web, and have people click on it attempting to load the high-res version because they assume it must have come from a nice camera, then you can start to blame the software.

While doing some research into USB cameras a while back, I found a few recommendations for the Vista Imaging Vicam USB. That's to distinguish it from the parallel port version: This sucker was designed back when cameras were curiousities for the rich, and no expense was spared. It's built around a beautiful quality CCD. It's sold as the 3Com HomeConnect Camera, also the InsideOut Networks / Digi Watchport/V. They're all the same guts, and work with the same drivers.

I picked one up at a flea market for $5 and I'm impresed. The stills are incredible, and it's sensitive enough to produce really useful images in candlelight. (Just don't move; in low light it can take a good fraction of a second to gather a frame's worth of photons.) The design is thoughtful, too: The included tilt/swivel stand is attached with a standard 1/4"-20 thread, so removing it readies the camera for practically any mount.

My Personal Experience

[BobKagy]

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.)

Answered in the question

[Sigma 7]

"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.

Wigiwigi

[Verteiron]

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.

My solution

[AndrewStephens]

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?

MSN all the way

[Donniedarkness]

I'm a soon-to-be college student (very soon-- next week), and I wanted to buy some good webcams for my girlfriend and I to be able to see each other with.

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.

Re:Not to ask the obvious but....

[DavidinAla]

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

Get CAMFROG

[Khyber]

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.

Re:Get CAMFROG

[Perseid]

Camfrog is okay. The image quality and frame rate are actually quite good. But it's more for group chats than one-on-one sessions like most chat services are. If that's what you want, look at camfrog. If you want to webcam chat with your brother in law in Florida every so often, Camfrog is probably not the answer.

Also, the signal to noise ratio in the larger chat rooms is terrible. As the parent said, dozens if not hundreds of people from what appear to be various muslim countries flood the English-only rooms with foreign languages and broken english asking every female cam they see to "open tits" and whatnot. IMO this makes the larger chat servers unusable.

And lastly the free version is quite crippled. So Camfrog is an option, but be sure to try it out for free before you give them any money.

VLC works better than the major webcam apps

[Anonymous Coward]

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..).

Sightspeed

[yasny_jp]

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.

PC Magazine Thinks SightSpeed is the Best

[dannyastro]

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."

Re:Windows Media Encoder or other real time encode

[Khyber]

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.)

Ultra-Videoconferencing

[guardia]

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.