VidChat? Plz?

[Orchard]

I don't know the feasibility, but my friends and I are extremely spread out and are currently having to use another piece of software for voice communication. I prefer to have video as well, so we're using a tool called OoVoo.

Any chances you'd undertake that project as well?

I won't get my hopes up, but if anyone knows of a good free and non-processor sucking multipoint, multiplatform video chat software, I'd love to hear about it. Skype is not an option as it is not multipoint. OoVoo is nice, but is VERY processor intense. I'm still trying to evaluate openwengo and others, but if you guys did this in a way that operated well with RPTools, that would be awesome!

I'm thinking more barebones than Oovoo (which has all sorts of extras like chat, file transfer, video effects, etc) that are probably the cause of the processor killing and could be safely removed for a very lightweight client that could still support 6-8 persons. I want video as that really makes it less confusing as to whom is speaking. Make it so that you can throw in a dockable sidebar that is always on top (like oovoo has) with thumbnail videos and that's about all you'd need. It wouldn't need the same level of flexibility as a lot of vid-chat clients, so you could avoid some of the hassles that oovoo or skype programmers have to deal with.

Just a thought, and I'm cool with it if you don't want to do it, but it would be a cool addition to the RPTools for those of us that are playing far-flung games. Text chat is great but lacks efficiency in some ways. Voice is better, but just voice has a tendency to result in chaos unless there is a way to see who is talking or to control whose turn it is. Video eliminates much of that (as my friends and I have found).

On the other hand, if anyone knows of a good lightweight mutli-platform multipoint vid-chat client that can handle 6 people, I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks

[Full Bleed]

On the other hand, if anyone knows of a good lightweight mutli-platform multipoint vid-chat client that can handle 6 people, I'd love to hear about it.

I believe that Ineen handles 5 (4 incoming.) Not sure if it's more or less processor intensive though. It hasn't had a new version come out since '05.

Going to be trying oovoo myself (just set up an account yesterday as a matter of fact)... but I suspect that it won't just be the processor that's getting hit so hard with 5-6 people... it'll be the bandwidth. With that many people it claims to need a consistent 512kbps down AND upstream. Many providers don't give that much upstream consistently. You should have all of you players check out their bandwidth at DSLreports and see if that's where some of your issues lay.

My biggest question is going to be about how decent the voice quality will be during all those streaming video feeds.

[trevor]

The primary issue is one of resource allocation. Would you rather use a video chat program written by one person, in a couple spare hours a week, that would detract from development of other features, or one that has a dedicated team of developers working full time on only that specific thing ?

[Orchard]

Going to be trying oovoo myself (just set up an account yesterday as a matter of fact)... but I suspect that it won't just be the processor that's getting hit so hard with 5-6 people... it'll be the bandwidth. With that many people it claims to need a consistent 512kbps down AND upstream. Many providers don't give that much upstream consistently. You should have all of you players check out their bandwidth at DSLreports and see if that's where some of your issues lay.

nah, the bandwidth isn't that big of a deal (okay, it is a deal, but I have FiOS, and everyone else has a reasonably decent connection too: my connection is 5MB DN/2MB UP, I think the SLOWEST in the group is 768k up and like 3DN or something).

he primary issue is one of resource allocation. Would you rather use a video chat program written by one person, in a couple spare hours a week, that would detract from development of other features, or one that has a dedicated team of developers working full time on only that specific thing ?

And this is why I'm not entirely certain I want the feature, but I am interested in seeing if there is interest from anyone besides me, or if there are other, better, tools out there. I have a decent-sized group, and I can't add anyone to the group (I think the max for oovoo is 6 total), which is a real problem. If I knew more about coding I'd take the project on myself, but I'm really not competent to approach the project (unfortunately).

So, let's say this: it is something that if you ever have time, some of use might appreciate, but more importantly, if anyone knows of alternatives, let me know.

FWIW, I have a somewhat older processor (Athlon XP 3200+ w/1.5MB RAM & nVidia 7600GS AGP) and oovoo takes between 65 and 80% of my processor, but only around 33MB RAM. Network wise, I've never really had much problems. For my buddies that use newer multicore processors, oovoo is fine, but I'm not in a position to buy a new one. Oh, and oovoo on the MAC has a SERIOUS memory leak. After about 1 hour it's using approx. 800MB memory and needs to be bounced (one of our guys uses a mac powerbook to connect up). Maptool, however, is awesome and I'm so glad I found it. You guys ROCK!

[Full Bleed]

And this is why I'm not entirely certain I want the feature, but I am interested in seeing if there is interest from anyone besides me, or if there are other, better, tools out there. I have a decent-sized group, and I can't add anyone to the group (I think the max for oovoo is 6 total), which is a real problem. If I knew more about coding I'd take the project on myself, but I'm really not competent to approach the project (unfortunately).

If there was a 3rd party program that could be plugged into MT... and/or supported through an API or something... I'd be very interested. But I believe it's unrealistic to expect Trevor to build a video-chat program from scratch.

So, let's say this: it is something that if you ever have time, some of use might appreciate, but more importantly, if anyone knows of alternatives, let me know.

The only VTT that I know of that has video integrated into the software is Itabletop. But it is currently a far cry from MT in TT and mapping features.

[Orchard]

I guessed that, and not surprised.

Just wished it weren't....

So. Does anyone know of anything?

[revinor]

I have done a small test with JMF recently (as a test for videcam for the battlemap idea for maptool). Generally it is working, but it is a resource/bandwidth hog even for 1-to-1 connection if you need reasonable quality. With 5 people, trivial implementation would connect everybody to everybody - I doubt you can run it on together with any other application.

FMJ looks bit more promising (http://fmj-sf.net/) from the point of accelerated codec support + better compression, but it is still not really finished - maybe it is good enough, maybe not.

Still, I'm not 100% sure about it. There is NO way that with small amount of development you will get anywhere near the quality of applications like Skype or Ovo. I'm especially concerned about voice quality - video can stutter or even break for a moment, any voice disruption is immediately noticed.

[jespley]

Brad just put me onto www.mebeam.com

I haven't actually tried the video conference yet but it looks promising especially given Brad's endorsement.

[Orchard]

Brad just put me onto www.mebeam.com

I haven't actually tried the video conference yet but it looks promising especially given Brad's endorsement.

Looks interesting...I'll have to check it out.

I'm curious about the quality.

Frankly, my biggest concern with oovoo is the fact that it consistently steals the processing power of my comp up to 85% or more, which isn't cool at all.

I need something that has fewer features, not more.

I don't need chat windows--Maptool has this. I don't need file transfer. I don't need smilies, or any of a host of other services. I just need voice and video. And oovoo is too much.

[Hawke]

I haven't messed with it at all, but the new Four Ugly Monsters has video chat:

Chat. A new flash based chat allows for users to get together and chat live. Users are allowed to create their own rooms (private if they want) and it supports audio and video as well.

[brad]

I'll do a quick review of mebeam.com.

I like it because it is free, runs on your browser, doesn't take up much system resources, and the video streams are put through the mebeam servers so it is a low use of bandwidth. Also if you know a little php or html and have a website, you can make a custom look of the page and even mess with the quality of the video. Oh and one last thing, you can have up to 16 people in a chat room.

Drawbacks. While the quality is great(I have a custom page with it set at 80%) you don't have any control over the size of the video. If you start up a mebeam room with just you in it, that is the largest the video will ever be. As you add people it shrinks to fit people in. For my purposes at 2 to 4 people it is great. At 5 to 7 people it is still fine, but I wouldn't want the pictures any smaller. I have never had more then 7 in a chat room(that is the size of my gaming group), but if the pictures kept shrinking I think I would find it annoying. The audio quality is good, but not as good as say Ventrilo. Also you have to turn the microphone on and off with the mouse, which people can forget to do and if everyone isn't using a headset can lead to feedback. So, both for a little better quality and for the hotkey option my group uses Ventrilo for the audio part.

So, overall I think it is a convenient video option that is high enough quality for most gaming groups. And it is nice that it is free and you don't need to download anything for it. I am sure there are a number of pay for programs that have better features and quality though.

[BigO]

What about Voice Chat?

ooVoo switched to a paid model and there-after we've been using a Skype audio chat and it works fine because our voices are all distinct enough.

Is there a free java library for something like this? I imagine it would be a lot less complex to implement, and would certainly take up a lot less resources.

Imagine how much faster private talks between the GM and a player would be if he could just click a button next to the person on the connected players list and start talking.

I should clarify that the only way that I ever use maptool to play a game is over the network. We are spread out all over the place.

Voice chat would be da bomb-diggity!

[UntoldGlory]

Integrated voice would be a winner in my book!

[RedDog]

Why add voice chat when ventrillo and teamspeak are already established? (...Skype is just evilware; just ask RPMiller...) These programs are already pretty well optimized, have a nice set of features...and best of all...not having it integrated means less things to break and troubleshoot in MapTools.

...as for video, I would rather have coding resources dedicated to more robust functionality in the current features such as layer control, topography, scripting, drawing, configuration, etc, etc, etc.

[Orchard]

I've actually been considering switching my group over to either ventrilo or teamspeak, but I'm actually waiting until the google 2008 summer of code [soc] ends and we see how the pidgin project ends. One of the SOC projects is to add video & voice to pidgin (formerly GAIM) and multipoint support while their at it.

If that works out, I'll just switch over to that, and we'll be done. If that doesn't work, then I'll be back to considering ventrilo or teamspeak. because while skype is okay, i've had some issues. and mostly i want some of my players to use push to talk (grrrr!).

They know who they are!

But seriously? I want trevor's time to be dedicated to pushing core features. When I requested this I hadn't realized how few free libraries of this sort were available.