Web Cam and Video Conferencing

iamtaylormade

One Step from The Edge
Joined
18 Mar 2004
Messages
46
Have multiple questions, hence the post here.
Just purchased a Logitech Clicksmart 510 web cam and installed. All seems to be pretty good, takes pictures, movies etc. But I have not idea how to video conf. with it. I will be going to Germany for six plus months and I would like to be able to "see" my family via "live" web cam (not just email movies). Im new to the web cam thing and am clueless. Is there a web site that hooks the two together, do you FTP somehow or what. Also, do I need the same camera and software on the "other end" to hook up? Any help would be appreciated.....Thanks in advance.
 
There are a number of video conferencing options:

Netmeeting - already part of XP, works ok, video codec is not the best tho.

Windows Messenger - cam option works ok but both users must have XP for it to work.

Yahoo Messenger - seems to work pretty good, cant change the vid size tho.

CuSeeMe - easy to use and works great, disadvantage is the free version (Cornel) doesn't come with the mjpeg codec that you need to see color vid, the commercial version costs $30-$40 and is a resource hog. Codec problem is not that hard to get around but probably more trouble than you want to go through.

Ivisit - works ok but you have to go through their server.

Paltalk - same problem as Ivisit, I had problems trying to video conference with a 98 users, couldn't figure out what the problem was.

The above are all free programs, the ones below all cost money:

ICUII
ISPQ
and others, just do a search on google.

To answer the rest of your question, yes you both have to have a cam (doesn't have to be the same cam) and both have to be using the same video conferencing program. Just do a little research to determine which program will best meet your needs. BTW, firewalls, NAT, and proxy servers can cause problems with video conferencing programs so you might have to try more than one program if you have problems connecting or seeing the other person.
 
JW,
Thanks for all the info, I started to fool around with yahoo's stuff but I see the problems you wrote about. I will check into some of the pay programs, sometimes they're a bit better. I did do a search but I like to get everyone's opinion, especially knowing alot here have or do use this stuff and the typical web search doesn't give very unbiased info. Thanks again for the help.....
 
You might also want to check out the link to Microsoft Portrait on the front page of this site.
 
Yup NetMeeting is pretty good. Maybe try paltalk if that doesn't work, then again paltalk kinda sucks for me sometime. No, you dont have to have the same software on the other end, unless it were like Netmeeting or Paltalk then they u wud have to have it to so you could video/conference.
 

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Also Hi EP and people. I found this place again while looking through a oooollllllldddd backup. I have filled over 10TB and was looking at my collection of antiques. Any bids on the 500Mhz Win 95 fix?
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