Cross Platform Video Conferencing Software?

soyle asks: "Most of my family recently aquired webcams, but we all run different operating systems (Mac OS 9, Linux and Windows 98). Searching through the web for software that supports most of the above yielded pretty much nothing at all. I contacted one vendor who provides a free-beer version of a MacOS/Windows solution, but the person I spoke to said they they thought a linux port would require too much effort. However, if anyone had a basic skeleton for an application providing basic video/sound in/out, they'd be willing to work with the developers in order to plug in their own transport-code and develop a useable application. So my question is really twofold: Does anyone know of an existing video conferencing application that supports all three major desktop platforms? Does anyone know of an application whose developers would be willing to work with said company?"

H.323

[ReluctantBadger]

You might want to look at H.323 - http://www.openh323.org/ [openh323.org]. It's got support for Linux, plus H.323 is used by NetMeeting on Win32, now all you need is a Mac client. Also look at http://www.packetizer.com/h323link.html [packetizer.com]. You may even be able to do a porting from the openh323 linux code to OSX?? (not sure on this one)

Re:H.323

[NotoriousQ]

for *nix try this -- I had a nightmare getting it compiled -- but it looks promising -- uses the H323 and seems to work with netmeeting. Gnomemeeting [gnomemeeting.org]

PS. I have not actually tested the conferencing part yet -- that would be done tonight.

free(beer) cross-platform videoconferencing tools

[ninewands]

Look here [ucl.ac.uk] for tools for Windows/Linux and just about every other Unix variant. No Mac support, but the freeware packages you've found that run on Windows/Mac should suffice as long as they adhere to the standard protocols supported by the UCL tools.

QuickTime will play these back

[epeus]

Vic, Vat, Rat et al all use the RTP protocol for audio video conferencing, which is what QuickTime uses for streaming, so QT player will play them back (albeit with a 3 second lag).

VIC

[Manic Miner]

I used to use VIC [ucl.ac.uk] at work for simple "are you in" multicast office monitoring using webcams, we just turned the bandwidth and frame rate controls down low and put the cameras somewhere so you could see people where in but not what they were doing :)

It worked great for us, you can have several streams in view at once, then click on one for a larger picture. It is only a video tool, so needs to be used in conjunction with something else for audio needs.

The whole thing worked great with creative USB web cams and ran on windows and linux machines just fine. I expect a MacOS X port wouldn't be to hard, plus it uses the standard communication protocols so I should hook up with other packages just fine.

Check out Speak Freely !!

[Adrian Voinea]

I use Speak Freely [speakfreely.org], because it is a great cross-platform application for for audio conferencing.

It has a lot of cool features, such as an enhanced answering machine, ICQ interoperability and it supports about a dozen compression algorithms, including GSM and 128-bit Blowfish.

SF is a very fine product, and it's available on Windows and Unix [fourmilab.ch]

It's very cool because it's licensed under the GPL, it's source code is available. And it has a cool name :)

CU-SeeMe?

[The Mayor]

How about CU-SeeMe [rocketcharged.com]? This is an old videoconferencing software developed at Carnegie Mellon in 1993. I haven't played with it in years, but it meets the free software requirements you ask, and supports Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Re:CU-SeeMe?

[Noodlenose]

We used it successfully to have an interplatform chat with 9 participants, using a humble Imac Rev B with a 128k ISDN connection as central broadcaster (or whatever you called it). Worked well for the Matt Bianco Mailing - List [mattbianco.com].

Dirk

unix reflector, quicktime rumors

[spike666]

CU SeeMe has the ability ot use unix "reflector" servers.

supposedly Apple was also going to release another Quicktime Conferencing system based on Mpeg4 once the whole MPEGLA thing is settled...

CU30 can do windows and linux. full frame rate too

[deathcubek]

but I think qvix technologies is still sitting on the windows version. You'll have to ask them (or port it).

Features-

30 frames per second

full size frames

doable on dsl and moderate hardware

software exists on windows and linux

linux has a gpl'd version


Cu30.sourceforge [sourceforge.net]
Qvix Tech. [qvixtechnologies.com]

GnomeMeeting works fine with Netmeeting

[BigJim.fr]

My little brother uses Windows, and I was videoconferencing with him yesterday evening using Gnomeeting. No problem at all :
http://www.gnomemeeting.org/

From http://freshmeat.net/projects/gnomemeeting/ :
"GnomeMeeting is an H.323 Video Conferencing application which uses the H.323 protocol. It can connect to a variety of other H323 applications including Microsoft NetMeeting. It also supports ILS servers. GnomeMeeting can work with or without a webcam, and is able to create pure audio communications or traditionnal audio+video communications."

What is this, HotJobs?

[qurob]

However, if anyone had a basic skeleton for an application providing basic video/sound in/out, they'd be willing to work with the developers in order to plug in their own transport-code and develop a useable application. So my question is really twofold: Does anyone know of an existing video conferencing application that supports all three major desktop platforms? Does anyone know of an application whose developers would be willing to work with said company?

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