August 23, 2007
Video Chats Arent Just for Tycoons
By JOHN BIGGS
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/technology/circuits/23basics.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=929f0808bdb46932&ex=1188100800&pagewanted=print
A few years ago, the phone was the only quick way to get in touch with
distant relatives. Their voices were all you got, so it didnt matter if
Grandpa was still in his bathrobe and slippers.
Now that it is easy and cheap to add video to your next call home, Grandpa
might need a wardrobe team.
Many video novices are sharing family conversations online using
off-the-shelf products and a PC. Once the realm of science fiction and
boardroom meetings, videoconferencing at home is now highly sophisticated
and, in many cases, free.
Homes with youngsters might not need to look much farther than the game
room to start a video conversation. Microsofts Xbox 360 offers free
videoconferencing with its Xbox Live Vision camera, which costs about $40.
The camera requires a gold-level Xbox Live account ($8 a month), and it
also requires you to convince the children to take a quick break from the
latest shoot-em-up for a nice video chat with the cousins.
All the videoconferencing outlets have a method to keep calls private, so
they are not available for all the world to tap into over the Internet.
The simplest way to start videoconferencing with a PC is to use a service
like Skype (skype.com) or AOL Instant Messenger (aim.com) and a pair of
Webcams. The iChat software that comes on all of Apples computers uses the
AIM network to make voice or video connections to other PCs. Both Skype and
AIM allow for fairly smooth video connections among two or more family members.
All the members of the Sigur family in Brussels Brandon, Sylwia and their
3-year-old toddler, Adrian use Skype and Microsofts messaging service,
once known as MSN Messenger but now called Windows Live Messenger, to talk
to Brandons parents in Albuquerque.
We talk for at least an hour every week, and they can watch Adrian jump
around the living room, play his guitar and show off his Lego creations,
Mr. Sigur said. We stopped using the phone to call.
Mr. Sigur said that if his parents are not already online, he uses Skype to
call their regular phone and remind them to get on camera. Just knowing
that we can see each other at any time has led us to forget the distance
between us, he said.
In most cases, Webcams can automatically adjust your video feed to
compensate for low lighting or audio problems. The services allow for video
chats between Macs and PCs, and most require a fairly fast Internet
connection. Skype, for example, requires a minimum dial-up connection speed
of 33.6 kilobits per second (Kbps) for voice calls, but Vincent Oberle, a
Skype engineer, suggests a faster connection at a minimum of 128 Kbps for
video, while 256 Kbps is ideal.
These services usually take a least best approach to connection speed and
video quality, which means that a chat between someone on a fast Internet
connection and a person on a slow or congested one will run at the slower
speed, reducing the number of frames sent per second. The latest version of
Skype for Windows and some other chat services offer an indicator of
transmission speed during video chats.
Stephanie Cottrell Bryant, a technology writer and the author of
Videoblogging for Dummies, suggests getting a laptop with a built-in camera.
If I were outfitting my mom for video chatting, I would get her a Macbook
Pro with an iSight, she said, referring to the machines camera, which
peeks out at the top of the screen. Its easy to get conferencing working
using iChat.
The biggest issue Ms. Bryant has faced is getting her grandmother to hop on
the video bandwagon.
She still leases a telephone from the phone company, she said.
When the children get bored with video chatting, you can always crank up
the special effects. Many Webcams, including Logitechs Quickcam line, come
with software that can turn the conversations participants into dinosaurs
and cats using computer animation. Other software can turn your video into
a sepia-toned broadcast from the halcyon past or a dreamscape of swirling
color.
If you want to take family chats to another level, there is also an
entirely new set of tools appearing online that allow broadcasting of live
shows with multiple participants. All of these services are free and only
require a Webcam, a microphone and perhaps a sense of cinematic timing.
One of the simplest video broadcasting sites is Operator11
(operator11.com), which allows you to create live shows that are then
recorded and available for replay online. It acts as more of an online
meeting room with video and audio built in.
The service lets you to create a studio where you and up to five friends
or family members can participate. The shows director controls the camera
and can turn participants on and off and add prerecorded video clips to the
mix.
Ustream.tv is another live broadcast system that lets you stream live video
from a Webcam. Anyone can create an account and broadcast live all day.
Parents can use it to transmit video of the children at home to watch in a
Web browser at the office, or to broadcast family events to many distant
relatives at once. The video streams can be protected with a password.
Ustreams founder, John Ham, said he had seen a growing number of family
videos appearing on the site. Families are using Ustream to connect when
they cant be together physically., he said. Weve seen weddings,
birthday parties, student graduations, all over Ustream.
BlogTV.com is a streaming video site that allows two people to talk at once
in separate windows, as on a TV news interview. A text-only chat room
alongside the video adds a bit of interactivity, allowing viewers to ask
questions and make comments during the broadcast. While its primary target
is video bloggers, the site could be useful for recording a discussion of
family history or genealogy because it lets an interviewer lead the
conversation.
Another site, Mogulus.com, which has not yet opened up to the public, will
be of interest only to the more ambitious and knowledgeable family news
team. It is essentially an online television studio complete with on-screen
graphics and a text crawl at the bottom of the screen just like on CNN.
Multiple people can string together video clips, creating shows and
broadcasts with input from everyone in the group.
Whether these tools and services will replace the call home or the family
newsletter is unclear. But some preparation might be in order for an
all-video, all-the-time world. Maybe some acting lessons and stage makeup
classes and it probably wouldnt hurt to put some clothes on before you
pick up the phone.
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George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu