Best Web Cam Chat Programs

[Perryg114]

I just bought a couple web cams so I can send one to the folks so they can video chat with the grand daughter. I was unimpressed with yahoo messenger's ability to do this with any kind of frame rate. It would seem like the data stream should be compressed by the sending computer and then uncompressed on the other end. I would rather have faster frame rates and some pixelation or better yet the ability to adjust the compression settings to get better frame rates. My security camera system can send several video channels of data at much higher frame rates than yahoo is doing with one. I would think that the camera software should have some control over video compression rates etc.

I bought two MS VX-5000 web cams. The resolution is pretty good and the frame rate is fair when viewing with the microsoft viewer but it is down right crappy with yahoo. Also some control over the window size would be great as well.

Perry

 

[mpilchfamily]

Go with the best.

Skype
http://www.skype.com/

 

[Perryg114]

Yeah I just downloaded that and it does just what I want. I have not tried is sight to sight yet but the wife and I video conferenced on my LAN and it looked great. I guess it went out on the web and back so maybe it will work just as well with two computers over a longer distance. I beats yahoo and similar chat programs hands down.

Perry

 

[Rottie]

you probably like oovoo program http://www.oovoo.com/

 

[43st]

My folks and I use the video feature in Live Messenger. It's worked fairly well I think, but it's still a webcam conversation (we sometimes just use the phone and use the video from Messenger).

Skype seemed to install some sort of peer to peer client that hammered our connection. Quality was nice though, but too much bother to ask my (old) parents to enable/disable just for a call.

 

[heymrdj]

We use Skype, but it really hits the bandwidth hard. With me and the gf's logitech cams, we get great picture, but it's frequently 45KB each way (about 320kb/s). So not all connection can handle that. Yahoo's is crap. We found skype because we couldn't stand yahoo. When the person moves at all of 5fps...you hardly feel connected at all.