The Rough Road To Videochatting

I had talked for about three minutes when I saw an IM from Helaine. No one on the outside could see me!

Glad I’m typing now because my throat is a little sore. I just finished a one hour videochat. It was fine though it didn’t go as planned. I remember shows like this in ‘real’ TV too! Lots of them.

I was all set to go live using the Livestream.com Procaster. I hit the button and began. Everything looked fine. I had talked for about three minutes when I saw an IM from Helaine. No one on the outside could see me! I have no idea why.

I made a quick switch to a web based controlled, but I was giving up a lot of functionality. I had webpages and graphics set to show. Now they’d be a no show. Frustrating.

Before I do this again I need to figure out what went wrong and how to keep it from going wrong again. There will be more chats.

11 thoughts on “The Rough Road To Videochatting”

  1. I think a real mic placed up close, or a clip on, would allow you to talk in a more normal voice without straining. It seemed that you were speaking as if the listener was a bit deaf. That takes a lot more air! There was a slight reverb due to the room, which a close mic would also reduce. It wasn’t bad enough to worry about. I think the people that were hearing echoes had more than one instance of your page up. The audio was actually pretty good.

  2. I enjoyed it too – it was great to see you again and to hear your take on lots of different things. One suggestion – maybe you could take questions ahead of time so you wouldn’t have to read the live question feed as you talked? Plus you wouldn’t have the same questions coming up all the time. But however you do it, I hope you do it again! (And then we have to figure out how to make it a profit-making venture for you!)

  3. The Echo was cured when I turned off the Speaker icon on the Livestream page and just let the sound come from the computer system alone. I could tell you were upset that it wasn’t working the way you wanted it. For the first time it went great. I know it will only get better. If Helaine is going to moniter, maybe she can keep track of the questions and feed them to you via IM.

  4. i caught about 10 minutes of the middle portion — everything sounded/looked fine. I was unaware of any earlier difficulties. Procast has worked fine for me with minimal effort. You’ll get it, hands down. If you need help debugging give me a shout (although I imagine you would have many willing helpers)

    i use this mic: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882999127 for narration, video casting, and misc projects. It’s not pro quality… but at around $100 it’s not pro price, either. It is very very good, and USB makes it a breeze to switch it from computer to computer

  5. I got home too late but tried to setup a sign in account and it told me my email is invalid. ?? I’ll try again but my email seems to be fine otherwise! Wished I’d been home to join in! Next time~

  6. Enjoyed the chat very much. You know, a few days ago while driving home from work, I was listening to Craig Allen on CBS/Newsradio88 and he mentioned that the space station and the shuttle would be visible around 7pm that night, one “chasing” the other. So, I dragged the family outside and it was spectacular – we watched them first in the northern sky but then they passed right overhead. As good as it was, it reminded me of why we all miss you so much — not just the weather but all the other goodies you let us know about as well.

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