Video Phoning

[Vince Twelve]

My family has grown greatly in the last year and has also spread across the globe and we'd like to find an easy way to link up the ol' webcams and have a good chat (preferably with audio as well as video).  We'd obviously hope for it to be free.  There's also the added hurdle that my parents are Mac users and we would thus have to use a program that supports cross-platform video conferencing.

I was hoping that someone here might have had some experience with this and could offer some advice.

[SpacePirateCaine]

I'm not entirely sure how helpful it'll be, but AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) is available on most platforms, and seems to support video as well as audio chat. And, as an added bonus, if you refuse to use the advertisement-laced AOL chat client, I'd suggest looking into using Trillian, at least for the PC users, which also supports Yahoo! Messenger, MSN messenger and ICQ - so if some of your family have one but not the other, you can still communicate using one program (A life saver for me, since I have some friends that exclusively use one or another). Video chat has recently been implemented in Trillian, so it should work, though I've admittedly never tried.

Similarly, I'd suggest Adium X for the OS-X users in your family. It apparently doesn't yet support video/audio chat, but does support multiple chat platforms, so should be handy when it does. And support for those shouldn't be too far off. My Mac-using friend Dave seems to swear by it, and it also has a groovy 'Metal Gear Solid' communication codec skin... If you like that.

If you don't mind just audio while you try to work out a video chat that's compatible with everyone, I'd suggest using Skype - easy to use, and has the added benefit of cheap computer-to-phone-to-computer calling, should you find a need for that. It's also a pretty solid program - except for a little international lag, I've managed to talk to someone in Nova Scotia, Canada from Japan (12 hour time difference) completely free, for a few hours at a time with little problem.

[Vince Twelve]

Thanks a bunch, SPC!

I was avoiding the AIM solution because they only support video on Windows.  But now I see that in the latest version, you can use AIM video with iChat, which is really cool.  However, I can't seem to find anything on the AIM website about audio and audio interoperability with iChat....  but I'm finding some vague hints about it working on some message boards.

I'm down with the Trillian (and with the hip lingo, apparently) but it's lacking the Mac support.

I think I'll download the evil AIM and see if we can get it working with iChat tonight.

Any people with any other experience or suggestions with this?

[Pesty]

We use Yahoo Instant Messenger and a webcam to video chat with my brother in law's brother who's currently in Iraq. We got the audio to work only once, so I don't know about that, but it's good to be able to at least see each other and type. Since the only mac I own is a Mac Classic (System 6 in the hizzy, yo), I really don't know if it will work, but I thought I'd share my solution to a similar problem.

[Kinoko]

Actually, this'd be cool for me too. Me and my boyfriend recently bought matching webcams so we can keep in touch when I'm gone, but it'd be great to talk to friends as well sometimes if they have webcams too.

[Meowster]

What's the deal with Skype? Is it spyware free?

[SpacePirateCaine]

Yup, no spyware or anything I've noticed. And AdAware seems to agree with it, ,so I can't really find any fault with it, aside from it having a dumb name. I guess they're making their money off of the money people spend using skype-in and skype-out (Calling to and recieving calls from normal phones). It's a pretty decent program, by my reckoning, not to mention easy to use. If anyone's had a legitimate problem with Skype alone, I've yet to hear of it.

The spyware concerns of Skype seem to be mainly with those who download the Kazaa-Skype package, apparently. Then again, Skype is made by the Kazaa people, but by most reckoning, it's safe, as it was (apparently) Sharman Networks who riddled Kazaa with the spyware it contains today. So yes, if you download it with Kazaa, their more shady program, you're asking for trouble - but downloading it directly from the Skype website should be entirely safe. I've been using it for a while, and have yet to have any trouble, or see any problems with my computer that weren't already there.

But if you don't feel safe with it, feel free to google it. I did while writing this post, and found plenty of opinions, but most of the 'Skype=Spyware' opinions were from people with no proof I can see.

For the sake of thoroughness, I'll link you to the Skype End User License Agreement and their Privacy Statement. I took the time to read through them while writing this post - if you care, the pertinent sections of the EULA are 2.4 - Third Parties, 4.2 - Protection of Your computer (resources), and 5.2 - Your Confidential Information and Your Privacy. Lots of legal mumbo-jumbo, but the Privacy statement at least seems to offer peace of mind, at least to me.

And the introductory cartoon on the skype page is damned fun.