VideoCallTips.com Recommended Video Call items

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Many who read our site, including the vendors of many of the products wonder... How did we come to the conclusion for our recommendations and ratings?

Well... in testing over 25 solutions and several versions of these applications, we found through testing many features and functionality that certain items became apparent and all our testers felt the same and we came up with a criteria to test against.  Of course overall quality of the video call was the number one thing, but there were several other criteria that we soon found we needed and tested for.

1.  A "Work Anywhere" configuration.  The solution had to be configurable to work in homes with a personal firewall software and/or a hardware router without special configuration.  This way the solution could work somewhere other than a home, a hotel or airport for example.

2.  A "Work Anywhere" configuration that worked in hotels and other public Internet access locations like wireless hotspots and airports.  Operation from within a corporate network was not a requirement, but extra points are given to those solutions that do work in a corporate environment.

3.  An easy interface or ease of use.  We didn't want too many features that made a basic Video Call hard to initiate.

4.  Audio quality.  We looked for a time lag between audio and video or that video was out of sync with the audio or if the audio was just plain choppy and bad.  Of course we could and did use Cell phones and evaluated products to use cell or landline phones for the audio portion.

5.  Video quality.  There are two forms of thought here.  Image quality versus frames per second or pixilation also called dithering of the video image.  Basically, does the video have a sharp image (like a picture) and give up speed (frames per second - fluid video motion) for performance, or does it give up sharpness for better speed and more fluid motion.  We concluded that image sharpness was the first preference and fluid motion second.  What good is it if your lips are in sync with the audio if you can't see the image sharply ?  We want the video to look as close to a photo as possible so we can see the little features when communicating with our children or those that have a hard time seeing like grandparents and the elderly.  We didn't mind if the motion wasn't fluid as long as the picture was sharp and clear.  We wanted to be able to read letters from a book.

6.  See both sending and receiving video screens in an acceptable size.  We looked for this feature in order to have the ability to read books or show pictures to family and friends and be able to easily see what we video we are sending.  Some solutions use a small picture-in-picture for the video you send to improve performance and we found this to be an undesirable condition.

7.  Additional features.  Features like file sharing, remote desktop, Instant Messaging, Phone Calls, multiple person or conference calls, web interface, full screen or larger screen capabilities, etc.

8.  Internet connection speed requirements.  The solution had to have the ability of working "home to home" or "hotel to home" which have slower Internet connection speeds than businesses as a general rule.  So we looked at DSL and Cable modem speeds of 128Kbps upload and 500Kbps download speeds as the minimum that the solution had to perform well.

9.  Cost.  Of course the cost for features is a measurement that must be looked at.  Free solutions tend to have basic features, while commercial solutions have more features, but also a cost or subscription fees.  Are the additional costs worth the extra features or performance.

10.  The ability of having video without audio.  This way you could use a cell or telephone, or a second application that was better at audio if needed.  Most if not all apps you can mute the microphone, but if the application was still sending audio even though you didn't use it, video performance could or would be affected by the audio overhead.

11.  Reliability.  Did the application/s function consistently across all the testers in all the configurations.  Or did the solutions perform better in certain situations, higher speed Internet connections for example.

12.  We did NOT test for PC to Apple/MAC functionality.  Only a few applications even have this capability and so we decided, find the best solution and if it works for PC to Apple/MAC - great.  If not... make a request to the vendors for a feature upgrade.

• VideoCallTips.com Rating system: 12345 (5 being best)

Ratings are in order of score (High to low) and then alphabetical

VideoCallTips.com Recommended Video Call items:

Plantronics .Audio60 $24.95 Plantronics .Audio90 $29.95 Ipevo IPE-FREE1-BLK $39.95 Polycom C100S-BLUE $129.95 Polycom C100S-GREY $129.95 Ipevo IPEVO-XING $129.99 Plantronics CS50-USB $254.95 DLink DVC-2000 $389.95 Grandstream GXV-3000 $269.99

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• Ipevo FREE1 is a Skype compatible telephone for both Windows and Mac OS X and works with any Video Call solution
• Polycom C100S Speakerphone is the best speakerphone available for true hands free Video Call operation
• Ipevo -XING Speakerphone is a top of the line unit for hands free Video Calls.
• Plantronics CS50-USB is the best cordless option for hand free Video Calls.   Operates over 100 feet
• DLink DVC-2000 Video Telephone is an H.323 compatible video telephone that can be used for Video Calls without the need for a Service Provider
• Grandstream GXV-3000 is the top of line SIP and H.323 compatible video telephone that allows for direct calls between two devices without a service provider.

Recommended Books:

Everything you needed to know about Personal Video Conferencing by Michael Gough.

Everything you needed to know about the popular Voice over IP / Telephony application 'Skype' by Michael Gough.