Videoconferencing Tips

The 1.5 beta features a interface redesigned specifically for the Mac, a new dialer for calling landlines and mobiles, improved search capabilities and Address Book integration, and Skypecasts, which are sort of a cross between a podcast and a giant conference call. The video preview offers all the new features of the 1.5 beta plus the ability to video chat with any other (Windows or Mac) Skype users. Skype is quick to remind you that Skype for Mac with Video is a preview, which means they have only done limited testing and can't promise the sort of reliability you'd typically expect from a beta.

SightSpeed 4.5 features real-time two-way video and voice communications. The software lets you send video mail, publish video content to Web sites, locate other SightSpeed members using a directory and more. In addition to Intel support, the new 4.5 release improves privacy features.

The AIM® service has always been a leader in providing you with new ways to communicate. We've worked hard to become an essential part of your online day. Now it's time to work together to push even further.

The AIM service is changing into an open and dynamic platform. Now, developers will be able to drive the AIM service in innovative new directions, confined only by the limits of their imaginations.

The technology captures only that visual information (around 80%) that is required for the brain to identify an object, mostly its edges and its shape. The brain automatically fills in the rest of the missing information. This allows the video to be compressed at a much higher ratio than other standard codecs. 90-to-1 rather than 15-to-1!

I also made extensive use of Skype, Gizmo Project and SightSpeed. SightSpeed, which is a client was amazing to use. Back in my San Diego office I had Brooke on camera and I showed her how to configure MacMail on her desktop as an intermediate step to Entourage from Web based email. She pointed the iSight at the screen and I told her what went where. Call it IT from across the ocean in real time.

New UI, and a new community / public directory model, transform Sightspeed from a point to point communications tool, into a virally propagated video communications tool. Skype is trying to do this, but doesn’t have near the video quality that Sightspeed has. And that, of course, will be the big differentiator. Just as Skype disrupted the VoIP market by proving that PC to PC voice could be a quality experience, Sightspeed has the same opportunity with PC to PC video.

Accordingly, this executive will be directly responsible for development of the product itself – UI, feature set, roadmap – as well as the marketing of that product which is evolving to integrate multiple video-centric services, including community and commerce as can be seen in current version 4.5 which just launched on February 13, 2006.

Chip giant Intel and VoIP specialist Skype have teamed up to offer users free 10-way conference calls.

This new feature will be available in version 2.0 (and future versions) of Skype. Intel also claims that 10-way conferences will only be possible if the user has a PC equipped with its Core Duo or Pentium D processors, both of which are dual-core chips.

MatrixStream Technologies, Inc., will soon be releasing the world’s first H.264 AVC (advance video codec) Video on Demand and IPTV Set Top Box (STB) and PC Player capable of the highest of high definition (HD) signal formats with 1080 vertical pixels by 1920 horizontal pixels. MatrixStream’s 1020HD STB will match and even exceed broadcast and satellite quality video over any broadband network the same way that VoIP can be used over any broadband connection.

The FlexPath technology should allow ntl to offer fast simultaneous delivery of multiple services, including downloading of large media files, security services such as closed-circuit video, video conferencing, online gaming, and multicast HDTV, all over existing cable networks using easily-available home networking devices.

Hold broadband Internet in the palm of your hand with this new Calypso C1250 cellphone. It hooks up at 11Mb per second, a far cry from any Internet access you can get anywhere else (can you say, “videoconferencing?”). Besides working at normal cellular frequencies, this phone also speaks WiFi, and a offers Open Source Seamless Mobility, allowing it to roam between cellular towers and WiFi as well has Bluetooth.

As Lotus rolls out their next exciting generation of their Sametime product at their Lotusphere 2006 show, BrightCom extends it with a low cost, simple deployment solution for high end video. Simply place a BrightCom ClearView card into your Windows PC and click on your Sametime link as you normally would to launch a business quality audio/video meeting.

The first Skype Answering Machine has just received a timely 2.0 update and is now enabled with "Video Greetings". The video greeting is recorded by using your default webcam software. While premium versions of SAM enable call recording as yet there is no capability to record video calls. That may come of course in a future version.