PCMagazine says "videoconferencing software deserves a second look from the people who dismissed it early on", offering a roundup review of seven applications in Videoconferencing: Look Again (Dec. 9, 2003). They offer the following advice on what to consider:

"Anyone you want to meet with online will need a Webcam and the same app you use. And if you plan on meeting with people in more than one location, you'll need software that supports more than two users per meeting. If collaboration is important, you'll also want tools for sharing information, like shared whiteboards and the ability to show applications and files to remote users."

They understate (IMHO) the importance of a high quality, low latency video picture, but rightly point out the need for the application to work from behind a firewall and NAT routers.

Their recommendation? SightSpeed Video Messenger.

".... It works from behind most corporate firewalls and delivers some of the best video quality we've seen. And it's cheap. Unlimited minutes cost $29.95 per user per month. But you can use SightSpeed at no charge for up to 100 minutes a month (with a limit of 10 minutes a day)."

"...SightSpeed provides the best video quality among the products in this roundup, thanks to a few factors. First, the software creates a peer-to-peer connection between systems, rather than going through the company's servers, so it can deliver data more efficiently and with less latency. Second, SightSpeed uses a unique compression method, which strips out about 80 percent of the data from a video stream without removing data that is critical to the viewer."

8:38:01 AM    
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