[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
On Wed, 11 May 2011, Neil Winchurst wrote:
I should have said that I am using Mint 10 KDE. I have never looked at kopete so will do so now. Am I right in thinking that to use Skype both ends must have it installed whereas with Ekiga that is not so?
Ekiga works (or is supposed to work) with other SIP compatible videophones. I've made it work with Grandstream GXV3000's.
You may have an issue with CODECs though - e.g. H264 is not free, so very probably not bundled in with Ekiga, while it will be in most commercial desk videophones. You ought to be OK with H.263 or H.263+
Conferencing is a big issue - something, somewhere needs to mix the video signals to produce picture-in-picture so everyone can see everyone else - that needs a lot of bandwidth and processing power to do it in real-time. (If you do need to do this, let me know, as I have a customer who specialises in it, but typically you don't get change out of 10's grand, and need a 10Mb leased line)
(And don't confuse 'conferencing' with er, 'conferencing' - ie. multiple people each with their own videophone vs. 2 board rooms with one videophone each, a continent apart - the latter is easy, if expensive in that a nice 42" screen plus Polycom unit is 10 grand, it's the former that's hard!)
And the issue - which I whinged about earlier and Simons just mentioned is the geekery required to make SIP work endpoint to endpoint. There are free hosted PBX services out there, (including https://www.ekiga.net/ ) or I can sell you a service or you can roll your own, but (much as I hate to say this), it might be easier to just use Skype.
SIP and NAT were developed at about the same time (mid-late 90's) and no-one thought NAT would be around for very long, as IPv6 was on it's way..
Gordon -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq