Video chat with N900? - Page 5 - maemo.org

MNX1024 | # 41 | 2009-11-22, 15:53 | Report

Just to clear this up and confirm what I understand.

Basically, with aMSN on the N900, the web cam feature works, but there won't be any audio? Which mean, video call is possible, but minus the talking part?

And, how safe is installing this app on the N900? It wouldn't be like the app's in garage, where there's a chance of bricking the device by installing it?

Last edited by MNX1024; 2009-11-22 at 15:55.

pinsh | # 42 | 2009-11-22, 16:34 | Report

I asked a Nokia person about this and I was told that they are working on supporting video chat.

From what I can see these are possible reasons why video chat is not yet supported:

Google chat: Uses SVC (scalable video coding) extension of H.264 for video. AFAIK there is no open source decoder/encoder available for this and there may be no implementation which is optimized for the OMAP processor. So far Google hasn't even managed to provide a plugin which works on x86 for Linux.

Skype: Since video chat works on x86/amd64 Linux, the only reason I can see is that they have to port the codec to the OMAP, which may take some time and may not be a high priority for them.

The Following User Says Thank You to pinsh For This Useful Post:
ArnimS

MNX1024 | # 43 | 2009-11-22, 20:15 | Report

Installed aMSN about an hour ago because I couldn't resist temptation.

Here's my thought of the app.
It's a complete resource hog, especially when I try to use the webcam. When using the webcam, typing and sending message is so laggy. It would take several seconds for the letters to appear after you type and about 2-3 second for it to send after you hit send. Almost forgot to mention the most important thing, I can't seem to get the webcam to work yet. The other end keep saying the only thing they see is white.

Also, it takes quite a long time to load, about 5-10 second and same time frame to log in. There's also no panning, the only way to navigate is to drag the scroll bar on the right.
The app also randomly shuts down on me too.

Last edited by MNX1024; 2009-11-22 at 20:34.

The Following User Says Thank You to MNX1024 For This Useful Post:
Gadgety

Gadgety | # 44 | 2009-11-22, 21:51 | Report

Thanks for trying it out! Did you try just running the cam, without sending any messages? The way I understood kakaroto was to use aMSN only for the webcam, and use another app for audio. Perhaps it's worthwhile joining the aMSN forum.

Gadgety | # 45 | 2009-11-22, 21:52 | Report

Originally Posted by pinsh View Post

I asked a Nokia person about this and I was told that they are working on supporting video chat.

From what I can see these are possible reasons why video chat is not yet supported:

Google chat: Uses SVC (scalable video coding) extension of H.264 for video. AFAIK there is no open source decoder/encoder available for this and there may be no implementation which is optimized for the OMAP processor. So far Google hasn't even managed to provide a plugin which works on x86 for Linux.

Skype: Since video chat works on x86/amd64 Linux, the only reason I can see is that they have to port the codec to the OMAP, which may take some time and may not be a high priority for them.

"A Nokia person"? In management? A tech responsible? A sales clerk in a Nokia store?

pinsh | # 46 | 2009-11-22, 22:08 | Report

Originally Posted by Gadgety View Post

"A Nokia person"? In management? A tech responsible? A sales clerk in a Nokia store?

I think it was Samir Agarwal (Head of Maemo Operations) or it may have been someone from the marketing department, I can't remember exactly. It was at the store event in Chicago and I talked to quite a few people about various N900 related things.

The Following User Says Thank You to pinsh For This Useful Post:
Gadgety

MNX1024 | # 47 | 2009-11-22, 22:08 | Report

Originally Posted by Gadgety View Post

Thanks for trying it out! Did you try just running the cam, without sending any messages? The way I understood kakaroto was to use aMSN only for the webcam, and use another app for audio. Perhaps it's worthwhile joining the aMSN forum.

I did tried it out with the cam only, but it just won't work. Like I said before, the person at the other end can only see white. As for my own im, the place where the webcam should be is blanked, even the display picture disappeared.

The Following User Says Thank You to MNX1024 For This Useful Post:
Gadgety

Gadgety | # 48 | 2009-11-23, 08:53 | Report

Uh, oh. Too bad.

kakaroto | # 49 | 2009-11-23, 10:09 | Report

Hi again!
To answer MNX1024: no, there's no risk, it won't brick your phone, it's just a user space application, that's all, it needs however about 2 or 3Mb in your root partition, so make sure you have the space (I will in the future make the tcl and tk dependencies install to /opt and create symlinks to /usr/lib instead).

Yes, aMSN is a resource hog unfortunately.. the more contacts you have the more memory it needs, it's not really a CPU hog, but more like a memory hog, and when we talk memory, it usually means swapping, which could lead to app to be slow.. here's a disclaimer I wrote on the amsn forums :

Originally Posted by

aMSN on the N900 works quite well, I'm using it on it everyday, but I think it's necessary to tell this small disclaimer to people :
aMSN on the N900 is a bit slow, mainly when some actions happen, opening the application takes a long time, but once it's loaded, it's ok.. trying to sign in also takes quite a huge amount of time, but once it's connected, it's pretty good, opening windows and chatting is fast, etc.. so that's good.. however, aMSN uses a lot of memory, so most of the time it will be in the swap, which means that if you're using the N900 for something and haven't focused on aMSN for a while, then when you open the window, it will be quite slow and unresponsive (until the N900 moves the memory from the swap back into the RAM).
Also note that it's not 'hildonized', which means the UI is not really made to work on a mobile device, so the menus are not the normal maemo menus, and if you want to type a upper case letter or numbers or symbols, you need to press shift (or Fn) at the same time as the key you want, you can't just press shift, then the letter.. and you can't have caps-lock or fn-lock (by double pressing shift or Fn) either.
Sometimes you'll need to use the stylus for some things, like for example accessing the menus, or use the scrollbar.
I would recommend that you select the Dark Matter skin as your default, and enable the "show detailed contact view" option in the view menu as soon as you start.
Apart from that, it's pretty usable!
By the way, I now have access to the maemo extras repository and i will soon try to upload amsn there so people can install it directly from the application manager.

Now that you've read the disclaimer, let's see.. you say it's slow, takes 5 to 10 seconds to start and to connect.. it doesn't seem right, I'd say it takes more like 40 to 60 seconds to start.. maybe 20 to 30 seconds to connect...fd
after that, it works just fine.. typing and sending text is instantaneous.. and I also tried typing/sending while doing a webcam call (sending AND receiving), and it was just a bit slow, but maybe a lag of 100ms, maximum I'd say 200ms, but definitely not a few seconds... maybe you had switched to some other application and the n900 was still swapping, or maybe you had something else take too much of your cpu...
I checked and aMSN seems to be taking about 40% CPU for a sending only webcam session, and about 75% CPU for sending and receiving, so there's still some juice in the device, so there's no reason for it to be so slow for you.

Now about your 'the other contact only sees a white screen', that's a bug, not in aMSN, but in Windows Live Messenger (WLM)... read more about it here : http://www.amsn-project.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6412
If you want the webcam to work, you can either forward your 6891-6890 ports in your router to the device, or tell the other person to use aMSN too, the webcam should work fine between two aMSN instances (since aMSN doesn't have the bug that WLM has). Oh, aMSN for N900 was also compiled with upnp support, so if your router has upnp enabled, it should also work (in theory, not much testing done, upnp support is very new in amsn).

p.s.: make sure you configure the webcam first, I tried aMSN with both the back and the front camera. By default /dev/video0 is the back camera, so make sure you open the lens on the back otherwise, you'll see a black window (and maybe that's why you thought your display picture just disappeared).

The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to kakaroto For This Useful Post:
Gadgety, Netweaver

Gadgety | # 50 | 2009-11-23, 13:22 | Report

Whew! Sounds promising!