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Jun
6
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I had a brief play with Video4Skype last week - I was chatting to a friend in the UK (for free, via Skype) and mentioned a link I'd seen so we both downloaded the beta and tried it :
Matty, sorry for the less than flattering photo ;)
Basically, you initiate a Skype call and Video4Skype piggybacks the session - quality and latency were pretty good (> 5,000 miles apart) and of course no need to mess about with NAT / Firewalls etc. as I always have to with Y! (and more traditional forms of IP/video). After a sucessful attempt we tried again at the weekend - this time with our kids (who haven't seen each other for a couple of years) - but as you might expect with a live technology demo in front of an audience it didn't work. It looks like some part of the protocol needs to connect to a spontania server which was either belly-up or busy.
Anyway, it is a beta so I'll give them a break (and another chance) and there a number of other Skype / Video utilities emerging (no doubt in time for SuperComm) which I look forward to trying. As I've said before - this whole 'interesting applications over IP' is really taking off - even Microsoft today announced they are getting into the "TriplePlay" market - I guess the convergence of Home Entertainment and Home Communications is reasonably natural.
[Oh, and if anyone from the telco. industry is reading - please, please think of a better name than VOIP]
