Friday, July 17, 2009

Skype vs. Oovoo

I've decided to look into Oovoo to see if this product would be better for us to use over Skype for our video conferencing needs.  I'll list out some of my initial thoughts, which assumes you're already familiar with Skype.  Our main issue with skype that i want to resolve is the problem that Skype doesn't import the video AND audio; it only does the video.  So we get some syncing problems when using a dv camera. 

Oovoo Video
Pros: 
* 2-way, 3-way, x-way conference calls
* 2-way video sessions are free
* 3 different levels of quality - low, standard, hi
* 3 levels of quality directly correlate to bandwidth and cpu usage. 
* more manual adjustments for audio than skype.

Cons: 
* UI is awful.  a millions widgets and buttons without a clear flow or purpose
* Cpu utilization overall is high b/c it's written in java
* crashed on me several times (mac install)
* 3-way and up concalls require a paid memberships - starting at $7.95

-->  I'm still waiting on the main point of making sure the audio comes with the video in the dv stream.  I'll update y'all later on this one. 

2 comments:

  1. It'll be awesome if audio does come with the video in the dv stream. Set up would be so much faster!!! Not to mention we can do more than a 2 way conference call =)

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