Re: Wow, video chat on the tablets is amazing...
 

gee I thought Skype was so easy. perhaps easy but not always stable on Winders.
Not unable, unwilling. And I'll bet that I'm twice the average age around here. My VCR has the wrong time not because I'm too stupid but unwilling to set the time on 10 devices after every power failure and time change, it just isn't important. But I DO want to make video chat work on the NIT so I took the time. Turned out to be simple enough and it works. WTF are forums like this about if with all the help someone isn't willing to try just because it takes a little thought and direction.

There are plenty of locked down devices that do only specific tasks via specific providers. Those devices are easier because they only do specific tasks and can be made dead simple. There is a huge market for that kind of thing but I'm in a different market and willing to find the device that works the way I want it to even if I need a little direction or knowledge.

What was this about? Oh yeah, video chat. Very nice indeed.

Re: Wow, video chat on the tablets is amazing...
 

Glad this thread came up, as this was one of those "yea yea OS 2008 great lots of new features yada yada... oh, and we fixed video chat..." that received so little hype for such a killer feature! I was sitting around last weekend and suddenly thought "Hey, I bet I could get this working and it'd be kind of neat", and I'm with you guys, I had it setup on my NIT and running in about 20 minutes. When I'd first got my tablet my Dad specifically also got one so he could do video calls with it, and that was back in the 2007 days when you had to do tablet to tablet.

As far as SIP VS GoogleTalk/Jabber/etc... it depends what you're after, who you are, etc. Personally I found setting up SIP much easier and faster... have you ever tried to setup a new googletalk account on the tablet itself?? That takes a while and is not exactly the easiest process in the world; now if you have an existing google talk account it's a completely different story.

I setup Asterisk on one of my linux boxes and had everything up and running in about 10 minutes; once you've got it setup, adding SIP accounts that are capable of video is as easy as copy and paste a few lines of script. Setting up on the NIT and any other phone/softphone is as easy as "enter username, enter password, enter address of switch/domain". Nothing complicated, the only difference is that you have to have somebody with a server setup that way to make it that easy. In my case I had the server up, and I had my parents both setup their PCs and NIT in about 2 minutes.

In terms of exterior SIP providers, it shouldn't be any different, the main problem is that most of the free ones out there haven't put the effort in to set things up and keep them up to the latest software capabilities. Video has been around for quite a while in the way the NITs do it (h263), but most SIP providers haven't bothered to implement/keep the code up to date because they haven't seen any demand for it. (Saw a few forum posts from various providers all stating this); will that change? maybe... will you get better responses from a small service charge SIP provider? Probably...

Oh and on the camera changes from N800 to N810, keep in mind there really isn't any reason to improve the camera hardware... the existing one in the N810 is more than capable of functioning for the one purpose it was intended: video chat. Low lighting it's not fantastic, but overall it's quite decent and given that it's only designed to run at a low resolution and needs to be very small/low power it works very well.

Re: Wow, video chat on the tablets is amazing...
 

When I got my N810 one of the first things I did was to setup my girlfriend with my old N800 to do video calls with her. Over here in the US we don't have video calling over mobile like they have had in Europe and Asia for 3 years so its quite a revolutionary experience. We love it and use it all the time.

What came as a big surprise to me was that Video calling over 3G provides a close to identical experience to video calling over wifi.

Re: Wow, video chat on the tablets is amazing...
 

For those of us willing to take the 20 minutes to set this up but unwilling to dig around looking for a tutorial that will get it running on our N800, could you point us in the right direction as far as how you got your setup working?

Thanks
Mark

Re: Wow, video chat on the tablets is amazing...
 

excellent! Different strokes for different folks. I should have clarified that I too have setup my own Asterisk server which is my primary phone system for business and home use. I simply had enough of the incumbent providers and their practices regarding the SOHO user. For individual users they are fine but don't provide what I need by a long shot.

So with my own PBX I have phone numbers for my local area and a few remote locations that need to call me, they call a local number no matter where I physically am without any roaming or long distance charges. I then add extensions for my family and friends near and far. With a video capable phone, NIT, or softphone they can do video chat over SIP, even my aging mother can handle it and loves talking to the grandkids. All of this costs me no more than one cell phone number. But I did have to learn a few things and maintain it. For the huge savings and increased functionality I'm willing to put up with the initial headaches. The headaches are only one time but I use it long term.

Re: Wow, video chat on the tablets is amazing...
 

This message came in while posting so I didn't see the question. Many variables so we can start with what services do you currently use that work on the N8? I use SIP but most of the commercial providers don't support video. The other posters might be using something more suitable for you.

Re: Wow, video chat on the tablets is amazing...
 

Many Variables ?

Wow now you scare me more than the "2 minutes it takes" scare I had before.

Se this is where the simple vs complex issue become muddled. For you - an experience and savvy computer user setting up a PBX on your machine is easy, so setting up the N800 is super-easy for you.

Now don't think this forum users - think a N800 user - your parents, my parents, an average joe's grand parent and rethink all the steps again with them in mind

a) Its easy - just setup a PBX server on PC
b) on N800 install a SIP client - from a, b, c choices which each do three different things
c) setup the ports to allow these services on router (assuming they are doing over Wif, or what use for a NIT)
d) on NIT setup username posrts, password or whatever else you need.

See, at much before this point, my poor parents would have said - why don't you just use a regular phone and call us like a good son. We dont need video.

And I wouldn't be too off to say most average users are like this.
You have to take yourself off from your savvy computing self and put yourself into a a coomon user shoes when you think about why some apps are so popular because of its simplicity and why some arent.

This thread was about Video and how simple it is on the NIT with the built-in google chat client.
And thats where the SIP clients have to take their apps too - to get broad usage I believe.

IcelandDreams - I don't mean to not accept your point that it isnt too hard if we are willing to put in some time,
but if you think from another's standpoint, for some people its not a simple thing either notwithstanding those 20 mins of complex jargon and cryptic commands and different options.

Re: Wow, video chat on the tablets is amazing...
 

You can start a video call between 2 3G phones. That works.:rolleyes:

You can start a google talk video call between 2 tablets connected via wifi. That works... and is free.:D

You can start a google talk video between 2 tablets connected via bluetooth and 3G phones:eek:. I do that with my mother when I need to call her from places far away from wifi...

Re: Wow, video chat on the tablets is amazing...
 

Not unwilling, unable. This has nothing to do with being stupid or intelligent, this has to do with knowing the conventions that computers use.

Different people, different knowledge. One world.

Re: Wow, video chat on the tablets is amazing...
 

The thing that struck me was just how easy the video chat is to set up on the N800 and N810: just enter your Gmail id and password.

I'd gotten the impression from other posts on here that it took all kinds of herculean efforts to get the tablet video chat working, but that's totally untrue, it's a very simple process.


Yeah, having dealt with a lot of newbies you notice this phenomenon called "computer blindness". Intelligent, imaginative people who excel in other areas of life often have severe problems using computers, because they don't understand even basic concepts like switching between tasks.

I know a non-techie who was amazed when I showed them that a computer can do several things at once, they'd been dilligently closing windows before opening new ones. This person I'm talking about has a PhD so they're not stupid, they just have no experience with computing.


This is why I'm so sceptical about wimax's chances outside America, here in Europe we're already on 3.5G and much of Asia is even further ahead. For most internet purposes, 3G is a perfectly adequate substitute for broadband, and 3.5G is even better.

3.5G can provide speeds of many megabits, and more and more network operators here have flat rate internet charges, so there's really no reason to use an alternative such as Wimax under those circumstances.

Things are different in America though, US phone networks aren't as developed or open or as cheap to use, which is why Wimax stands a chance of doing really well over there.