Online

[James]

OK so in 2011 it will be our 25th anniversary. I say we break 20th century tradition and do something 21st century. We could all get web cams (hell they're cheap enough) and use Team Speak to talk !!

Very little expense for everyone and easy to do. All from the comfort of your home with no traveling expenses. I could set it all up in a weeks time

[Clark]

now I've heard it all, I use a Sony PS2 "eyetoy" as my webcam, the picture is great, it has a built in microphone, they cost about $12 used, and you can find them at any used video game store, what kind of software would we need to do this?

[James]

you'd need the web cam software that comes with the web cam and download the free software from team speak. oh and a microphone to talk

[Rochelle]

OK! Are you guys kidding!!! Someone would definately have to come to my HOUSE to help me with this one!! LOL!!! I just figured out the whole editing my profile thing!

[James]

I can walk you through the whole thing Don't worry.

BTW, Clark. Does Windows messenger have a web cam feature?

[Clark]

yes it does, but it can't conference more than two cams in a chat

[James]

OK not a problem, I'll work out something else. Hell I got 4 1/2 years

[Kelly Hampton]

Who knows what the technology will be then?

[tammi86]

Rochelle, do not feel alone...I am so technologically challenged it's not even funny! I can barely operate the DVD player at home...and at work I can do computer stuff to the extent that my job requires it, but that's all!

[Bob Lombardi]

Hey all. Here's the deal on webcams. I kinda know because we study this crap in school. The problem is bandwidth and system resources. For someone to operate a webcam, they are gobbling up mucho bandwidth on their internet connection. As an example of what bandwidth is, I'll say that it can be compared to a regular water hose. No mater how much water pressure you have, you can only get so much water through the hose over a given period of time. This amount usually coincides with your internet speed. If you have a typical dsl line, your speed can range (in theory) from 768 kilobytes per second to about 3000 kilobytes per second. When you have a webcam, you are trying to cram a series of pictures through that water hose. Each picture, along with the audio, can be upwards of about 300 kilobytes, sometimes more. That doesn't leave you too much more room. It also slows down the servers (consider the servers as a place that exchanges the data from your puter with other puters) Even so, your computer has to have mucho memory (RAM) and processor speed to be able to accommodate such streams of data. There are teleconferencing programs that enable multiple cameras, but I think you have to keep switching between who you want to see; that is, you can't view all conference members at the same time. I think that there are vendors who are trying to come up with something. In college, we tried fooling around with a free version of Skype. I don't recall if it did it or not. You can Google Skype (probably http://www.skype.com) and d-load the free version and see if it works.
In conclusion, I don't think they've figured out a way to stuff all that data into the limited bandwidth of an internet connection yet. I will actually be going back to school on the 25th and that is part of the curriculum.

[margarita]

You are really kidding, right?! I have no idea how to work a webcam.

[Bob Lombardi]

Hi Margarita!
No, I'm not kidding. I'm really going to school on the 25th. LOL. ;D But seriously, a webcam is no big deal. If you bought a newer webcam and plug it into a computer running windows xp, it pretty much installs and runs itself. If you use an eyetoy, a little tinkering is required. The explanation I gave was to describe why it is not likely to obtain multiple simultaneous webcam conversations.

Ciao,
Bob

[James]

Good points Bob! I didn't know you couldn't get multiple cams on one screen. Let's see what Vista does in a few years.

I know I can get everyone in a virtual room and have an audio chat via Team Speak www.goteamspeak.com hopefully there will be a step up in multi video

[Bob Lombardi]

Hello again,
I did a little research and it seems that Earthlink has a free video conferencing beta. It supports both Windows and Mac platforms. You can check it out for yourself at www.research.earthlink.net/confmgr/ . I don't have enough time to check it out right now, Beauty and the Geek is on in 17 minutes ;D

[James]

Oh good lord, not that show! ;D

OK looks like a possibility. We'll have to get some guinea pigs