 Number 279 - August 2006 |
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| Video Conferencing Links Families | |
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by Dick Maybach | |
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When I first worked at AT &T, the company was trying to launch PicturePhone. For $75 per month it featured a black and white, low-resolution picture, but was available only for local calls. Now, forty years later, you can make video calls almost anywhere in the world with a much higher resolution, full color pictures--for free. The difference results from advances in electronics and the ubiquitous Internet. Today, with many families in different states or even different countries, video calls can help to hold us together.
To take advantage of this, you need broadband Internet access (either DSL or cable ), a fairly new computer, and a video or Web camera. Specifically, your PC should have at least a 1-GHz Pentium IV or equivalent, Windows 98SE, Me, or XP, USB (2.0 is preferred), CD-ROM drive (to install the camera software), 64-MB RAM (more if you have Windows XP), 200 MB free space on your hard disk, and a sound card (or its equivalent integrated into the motherboard). Most PCs sold in the last five years or so have ample resources. The camera need not be elaborate; I use a Logitech STX QuickCam, which lists for $55 and includes a built-in microphone. This includes a stand, which lets it sit on a table or perch on top of a laptop display or a desktop monitor. Internet Phone Provider Required You also need an Internet video provider. For most home users, one of the free services will be entirely satisfactory; the two I know of are Skype (http://www.sk.Y~.com/) and Microsoft's MSN Messenger (htt11://messenger.msn.com). There are also many video providers that charge ( e.g., Logitech's is $65 per year, but has a 30-day free trial), and they may well provide better quality service. I found that the Logitech software has a slicker user interface than does MSN, but the received picture is quite small, while MSN provides a full screen. (I haven't used Skype. ) The voice is not telephone quality and the picture is not what you get from the networks. In particular, there is a several tenths of second delay for both, with the video delay being longer. As a result, the audio and video arrive out of synch, which is a little distracting. More serious, delays of more than about half a second causes people to assume the other person does not wish to respond. This will produce some chaotic conversational experiences on your first video calls. People at both ends will often start talking at the same time; both will then stop, only to repeat the cycle. This can quickly result in considerable frustration to all. The cure is to restrain your urge to |
talk until the other person has clearly stopped. As a result, conversations are more like a series of short speeches than the interactive give-and-take we are used to.
Blurry Video The pictures are 640x480 pixels and 30 frames per second, which is about 9 Mbytes per second. Your ISP does not provide this sort of bandwidth, which means that the video must be highly compressed. For "talking heads" you won't see much degradation, but if you are an animated speaker, who uses your hands or rapid head motions, the video will become a series of blurred stills. However, the personality of the person still comes through, and the audio is not affected. The Internet also is subjectto occasional delays, which can temporarily interrupt both the audio and video. In my experience, these last at most only a few seconds. I became interested in this service, because my classical guitar instructor moved to Nashville. Commuting from New Jersey to Tennessee every two weeks was not practical, so I now take lessons over the Internet. As you might imagine, that the video and audio are not in sync is more serious here than in a normal conversation. Nevertheless, both my instructor and I are quite pleased with the results. As a bonus, my guitar lessons, which used to take two and one-half hours and almost two gallons of gas (including the round-trip drive to Manasquan), now take only an hour and a fraction of a kilowatt-hour of electricity. Straightforward Installation Installing the software and setting up the service is quite straight-forward. The CD-ROM with my Logitech Web cam had both the camera software and hooks to download software for the Logitech service and MSN Messenger. Just click on the icon and follow the instructions. For either service you will have to select a user name and password, so be prepared for this. You will also have to set up the camera (brightness, etc. ) and the microphone (volume) and tell the service which devices will provide the video and the microphone and speaker functions. By the way, because of the delays, you may experience bothersome echoes. You can eliminate these by using earphones instead of a speaker. Some of the more expensive web cams claim to eliminate these echoes, but 1 haven't tried them. I usually use headphones for my guitar lessons, and just put up with the echoes when talking to my grandchildren. |
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Number 279 - August 2006
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