Eee to Eee Skype video with ThoughtFix
Last night I had the pleasure of what may be the first Eee to Eee Skype video chat with none other than ThoughtFix! We were both in our home office settings and therefore on a dedicated broadband connection. Using the new Skype for Linux 2.0 beta and the integrated cameras and microphones on the Eee PC works well in general, but the video framerates aren't up to par with the Windows and Mac versions. Those machines get a generous 25 fps (and VGA resolution), but on the Eee PC, I'd estimate we were in the range of 5-10 frames per second.
When you watch the video, you'll notice a few glitches: camera freezes and restarts, plus a complete application crash on one of the Eees. I've been spoiled by my PCs and Macs, but that doesn't make the Eee any less fun to use. At $399 and on Linux, it's amazing to me that we could even have the video chat! I'm looking forward to more stability in this beta version of Skype for Linux but until then, I'm having fun with it. Thanks for hosting the call ThoughtFix!
Nice video! It is important to remember that the Skype on the EEE is in beta as you guys pointed out and especially that the video support is brand new. Pretty cool usage for such a little notebook. :) I must admit I am surprised a bit how much of the screen is not really screen but rather bezel. I am basing that on the video of Dan's EEE where it looked like the black screen is really big but the actual display part is only a part of that. Nice job, guys.
Posted by: James Kendrick | December 07, 2007 at 07:44 AM
You guys should be using the great tray app to enable/disable your camera instead of having to use the command line:
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:controlcamera#the_easy_way
much much easier...
Posted by: Aaron | December 07, 2007 at 11:18 AM
Thanks Aaron. I saw the tray app mentioned on the forums, but haven't had time to install it. Will do soon though; manually enabling the camera is a time waster! ;)
Posted by: Kevin C. Tofel | December 07, 2007 at 11:40 AM
instead of the tray app I just wrapped the skype app in a camera_on/camera_off script
details to be found in the eeePc forum of course..
Posted by: bobm | December 07, 2007 at 12:57 PM