Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iChat VideoConferencing, Java 1.4.1, and MPC7457

Duck (Duct) tape for child care?

Originally posted by acj
We in Alaska take duct tape very seriously. We use it for anything from holding partially wrecked airplanes together (to get to the salvage shop only) to child care.
Click to expand...

You funny! 😀
Actually, I hear it is a wart remover as well.
No kidding either!

Child care? Do they play Duct Duct Goose.
and now back to the subject.............
 
How exciting! *yawn*

Hmm... I ask myself all the time why people wet their pants about that video conferencing thing???😕

It may have been a nice toy back then, when computers started to have enough power to manage a video-stream with a few fps and chatting started to become popular.

These days it is just nice when you can do it, but who is really using that stuff? I don't find it very exciting to see the other person sitting at the computer just like me, staring at the screen and fiddling with the keyboard...

What's the point? I never used that kind of stuff for business anyway, even though it was declared THE big thing back then. There was just no need for it. NEVER. And I also don't know anybody else in my environment who ever used it for more than just "playing with his computer toy" a little bit, no matter if private or for business.

So it's nice when iChat will be capable of doing such stuff (keeping the developers busy 😉 ), but it's far from being a killer feature everybody should be excited about.

Does anybody in here have a need for that feature? I am just curious... so tell me guys! 🙂

Just my 0.02 €.

groovebuster
 
Re: How exciting! *yawn*

Originally posted by groovebuster
Does anybody in here have a need for that feature? I am just curious... so tell me guys! 🙂
Click to expand...

Back in the day, about 4 years ago, my wife worked in one county and I worked in the next. It was a long distance call for both of us, so we set up AIM accounts and used their voice chat feature. She had a PC at work and I had a Mac and it worked great.

Now, I work from home and my office is about a 3.5 or 4 hour drive. I would like to be able to use iChat for voice chat to the office to replace long-distance phone calls. A video portion could potentially be useful for team meetings so I could see a white board or notes on an easel. I would rather not let them see me as I rarely comb my hair, now!
 
Originally posted by bidge
remeber though that most of Apple's computers already have built in microphones.
Click to expand...

I've owned 5 macs in the past 7 years and NONE have had a built in mic. My wife has owned 2 iMacs and the orginal one had a built in mic. Care to explain where 'most' comes into play?
 
Re: Re: How exciting! *yawn*

Originally posted by FatTony
Back in the day, about 4 years ago, my wife worked in one county and I worked in the next. It was a long distance call for both of us, so we set up AIM accounts and used their voice chat feature. She had a PC at work and I had a Mac and it worked great.
Click to expand...

When my wife was still living in Canada (I am from Germany) we tried that stuff too. But the delay and the drop outs were so bad that we gave up on it after a few tries. Maybe it was because she only had a 56k dial-up connection. But even without the drop outs the latency was givin us a delay of about 2 seconds and more sometimes. So it was kinda unusable.

Originally posted by FatTony
Now, I work from home and my office is about a 3.5 or 4 hour drive. I would like to be able to use iChat for voice chat to the office to replace long-distance phone calls.
Click to expand...

I also work from home most of the time, but still nothing beats the real phone in sound quality and reliability. From my experience...

Originally posted by FatTony
A video portion could potentially be useful for team meetings so I could see a white board or notes on an easel. I would rather not let them see me as I rarely comb my hair, now!
Click to expand...

But that's the point... is the resolution good enough to really see things written on a white board? In most of cases you can just guess what's on it. My experience again... Without having a broadband connection it renders pretty useless. And important meetings you normally do in person anyway. Neither a customer was asking for a video conference in the past, nor I was able to convince them to use a video conferencing solution as a substitute for a real life meeting. I tried a few times a while ago but always was looked funny at when I asked for it...

groovebuster
 
Originally posted by Kid Red
I've owned 5 macs in the past 7 years and NONE have had a built in mic. My wife has owned 2 iMacs and the orginal one had a built in mic. Care to explain where 'most' comes into play?
Click to expand...

He probably means that most of the Macs had a built in mike OR were delivered with one that you were able to use right away.

All the PowerBooks always had a built in microphone right from the beginning.

The Performas also always had one (built in or delivered with) as well as the iMacs.

The only Macs that never had a mike right away were the pro Macs (like Centris, Quadra, PoweMac, etc...)

So let's just say that Consumer Macs and PowerBooks always had a "built in" mike and it is right then.

By the way, I was always pissed back then, that I paid a premium for my pro Macs and they were never coming with a mike. A similar story like the AppleWorks issue...

groovebuster
 
Re: Re: Re: How exciting! *yawn*

Originally posted by groovebuster
Maybe it was because she only had a 56k dial-up connection.
Click to expand...

Good point. I've either been in an office with a fast LAN or at home with dsl.

Although I do remember one meeting where about 3 of us on the east coast of the US met with about 3-5 people on the west coast. We went to a dedicated facility for video conferencing. The facility had a camera on us, my mac's video out, a 35mm slide projector, a document scanner (pretty much just a hi-res camera mounted so that it could read printed documents) all accessible so that we could switch what the others were viewing. It worked really well, it wouldn't have been any smoother in person. Actually, being separated had its benefits. Anyway, it would be nice if you could use iChat to share your desktop in real time. I know there are other apps that can do this, but if you are voice or video chatting in a business situation desktop sharing would be an added bonus.
 
Those pro scenarios are maybe "sexy" in some situations and I never said it is totally useless at all. I just questioned if a feature like that is useful for the majority. A set up like you described costs a fortune and is only senseful in a pro environment when there is really the need to have conferences with people in totally different locations. Normally only interesting for big companies with branches and customers all over the planet.

And don't forget that iChat is an iApp... it is somehow the MacOS X version of the AIM. I don't think that it is aimed at the users that need a pro video conferencing solution.

I used CUseeme back then! It was pretty cool and was originally developed for the Mac. A pity that they only continued to develop for the PC later on. It had all the capabilities for pro users they needed. A virtual white board, file sharing and multi-channel video conferencing. I just never was in the situation to actually use it seriously. iChat is far from that... as I said before, just the AIM for Mac OS X. That's why I was curious if anybody would actually use iChat for audio and/or video because I can't imagine it...

Have a nice day. 🙂

groovebuster
 
You all seem to be experts on the subject of video conferencing -
Maybe you can help me -
I run my office from home in Switzerland and have colleagues in Easteuropean cities (all on i-macs - my influence) - the phone bills eat us alive and it would be nice to set up our macs to speak to each other and maybe see one another too via the internet, holding up samples or just seeing visitors in the offices I seldom go to.
What would be needed to get going as soon as possible ?
We are all on broadband and pay a monthly flat rate - yup it exists over here 😉
Good ideas from you all would be appreicated.
Thank you
 
Check out SquidCam.

Currently it is the only "cheap" VC solution that works with Mac OS X. It's shareware.

The next version will be also H.232 compatible so that you can connect to people using Netmeeting.

http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=15974&db=mac

It's worth the money (25 US$), since you are not forced to join something like ICQ or AIM to make it work.

And the dollar is low, so now is the time! 😉

Besides that you just need a microphone and a USB camera. I am not sure if you can just use a DV camera at the FireWire port. You have to check that yourself, if needed...

Grüße aus Berlin,

groovebuster

P.S.: To use something like that for audio as a telephone substitute it is very helpful to use a headset.
 
I totally forgot... if you are still using OS9 there is Videolink Pro. But it costs 40 US$. Advantage: it supports H.232 connections. Disadvantage: No Mac OS X version so far...

groovebuster
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back