Skype & inadequate webcams

[pbharvey]

My apologies if this has been addressed previously.

 

One of our daughters just went off to college and we communicate via Skype video. She has a Mac and we have been using a Mac at home as well. The Mac we have been using has now become frequently unavailable due to school work. My wife urged me to get another computer so we could talk to our daughter at will. So me, being thrifty, ran out and bought an inexpensive Toshiba instead of another Mac....after all it was about 1/2 the cost. No surprise, in the get-what-you-pay-for world the Toshiba is horrible at Skyping. My question to the masses is: is it most likely the cheap camera or an issue with processing the video? I really don't want to buy an add-on web cam but if I have to juice up the processor a bit that would be OK.

 

All comments regarding Mac vs. MS or "what did you expect out of a $500 laptop?" have already been thoroughly discussed in our household

[Mike O]

I rather doubt it's your new laptop. Most (if not all) non "netbook" laptops have plenty of adequate processing power to handle SKYPE. (FWIW, the small notebook I'm typing on at the moment is an HP Netbook which has an ATOM processor that is less than suitable for processing video streams, audio streams and lots of bandwidth intensive network traffic). If it's JUST poor video, I'd be inclined to borrow or buy a different web cam to test the theory that the laptop camera is of poorer resolution than your other MAC. Again, fwiw, the camera on my netbook is pretty poor quality (but then I didn't care about that when I bought it).

 

Mike O

[smiller]

Just FWIW my HP Mini netbook (Atom N270 procesor) handles two-way Skype video calls just fine. The built-in camera isn't the greatest though and I'll bet that's the OP's problem. Try a better camera, you can always return it if it doesn't help.

 

[John Ranalletta]

I upgraded to a Logitech 9000 camera from the cheaper Microsoft units.

 

When we have a bad connection on Skype, we try Google Chat and Windows Live Messenger.

 

[pbharvey]

I upgraded to a Logitech 9000 camera from the cheaper Microsoft units.

 

When we have a bad connection on Skype, we try Google Chat and Windows Live Messenger.

 

I'm really trying to avoid getting an add-on camera. I just don't want to fuss with it and extra wires, etc. I just want to open the laptop and talk to my little girl.

 

Does Google Chat & Windows Live Messenger have video capability?

 

 

[Eric S]

Google chat does have video chat - works great.

 

And man, remember when video phones were just the stuff of sci fi? Amazing times we get to experience.

[Mike O]

You should try Google Chat and Windows.

 

But my guess is that a poor quality video cam in your laptop is not going to improve simply because you're using a different service.

 

Mike O