See more info here.

Please post here your feedback about hardware, software and anything else regarding high-def video.

Ok, I tried it and it worked. I don't think my setup is as complicated as the one described. no s-video, etc. I thought most webcams today are capable of 640x480 and sometimes more at a reasonable frame rate, although maybe not 30fps.

Only one of the computers had a camera. It was an _old_ intel pro 640x480 usb 1.2 webcam on a 2.8 P4 HT Xeon. The other machine was a 2.4 P4 w/o HT. ffsdhow is installed on both machines.

the fps directive didn't seem to make a difference, so I eventually left it out.
the 640x480 directive made the image less pixelated and much more clear. This was especially noticable on full screen. The cpu was slightly over 50% on the HT xeon and around 40% on the receiver. The sent traffic went up ~33%+ with the 640x480 directive.

I never got ffdshow to kick in. (the icon didn't come up on the task bar like it does when I play dvds.) So I am missing something there, given the cpu I would imagine that it, by itself, could improve the received video.

now if I can find my $20 1024x768 IR webcam, I can try that.

What are the possible config.xml video directives, parameters and values?

rearden

I tried this tonight and it worked great. I noticed a noticeable improvement when I use the modified config.xml vs. the non-modified config.xml

FYI, for those who haven't poked around with the config.xml, it's in your c:\docuemtns and settings\<user name>\Application Data\Skype\<skype username> directory.

Can't wait for this to make it into production version of Skype! I've been contemplating the purchase of two Macbooks so I can use iChatAV. But if Skype can improve its video quality, maybe I can stay with Skype instead.

Thanks!

It would be nice if there could be a button or something to turn this on and off. I have people whose computers can handle it and those who cannot. But the video quality is quite a lot better, and better enough that I want to use it when possible.

Bandwidth meter shows about 48kbps up and about 10kbps down. Frame rate on the 10kbps side is several/second (so pretty jerky).

They aren't kidding when they say you need a machine with a lot of horsepower. Skype itself never seems to use much more than 55% of the cpu, but the amount the System uses goes up. I assume that is due to the camera/usb. I can get it to work between non dual core or HT machines but only one way. If I try both ways then the video starts to get very delayed, by 10s of seconds and sometimes by minutes.

I don't know if this is related, but during my last HD video call, I had a few instances of "skipping record syndrome". The audio would repeat 1-2 seconds several times. When it did this the skype cpu usage would drop. We were using DIRECT_TCP (dang firewalls).

I still have not figured out where the PAL_D option is found and how to get ffdshow to kick in, but it appears to work well by just adding the two dimension lines to the config.xml file.

rearden

Hmm, no difference on my end. How do I configure the Skype Video format to be "PAL_D"? I don't see it in config.xml, nor in the video config dialog.

I've made attempts on 3 PC :

- a PIV 2,8C with 2,5 GB RAM and HT, (logitech Quickcam zoom)
- a core duo T2400 with (1x)1GB ram (FE21S sony embeded webcam)
- a core duo T2500 with 1GB (2x512MB) (logitech notebook pro deluxe)

> I did not find "video format" was "PAL_D" (I did not find it any way)
> I set ffdshow (already intsalled) according to recommendations

=> it worked well on all 3 PCs, the definition of the picture is much better as in the skype2.0.0.107 I'm using regularly.

It is really much better.

The quality of the sound in skype3.0 is less good as in skype2.0.0.107.

I make videocalls with my aunts : 84, who is deaf (she has an auditive apparatus).
with skype 2.0.0.107 and a clear one chat 50 on my side (I just bought) :
she can hear me without me having to shout or repeat even with TV on.

with skype 3.0.0.216 and a clear one chat 50 on my side (I just bought) :
I have to shout and she doesn't hear well at all with no TV, I have to repeat often and without success quite often.

I have to say she listens from the embeded speakers on the sony FE21S which are rather good.

As a consequence I reverted to skype 2.0.0.107.



BTW I have an humble suggestion for skype developpers :

My aunt never touches her PC, I configured skype to answer automatically and to automatically use video.

I would really appreciate skype developpers to add a new option setting the starting video window size for a call at full screen.

unselected (default value of the option I suggest) the video window would open as it is today.

option selected (ticked) : the video window would automatically start at "full screen" on receipt of a call.

=> the big advantage is that skype would allow for elderly people, to be called by their families without having to touch the PC
(automatic answer + the suggested fullscreen option).
(the webcam, embeded in my case, points at the sofa, the rest of the time the PC displays family pictures as a slide show)

The default video size is too small for an elderly people to see from a sofa.

The population is getting old in europe and families are more and more widespread, that would make skype a good choice for them all, taking into account the superior sound quality of skype, of prominent importance for aging people.

In the absence of this option, I have to remote control my aunt PC.
I can do it from home but not from the company I work because of firewall (though skype passes through).
additionnally I my familly, my sister thinks it's complicated (for her) to remote control a PC that's why this option would be welcome !

My Quick Cam Orbit indeed produces much shaper images. It is significantly slower though on the receiving side. I did not adjust the receiving side.

I was really interested to connect my Canon Camcorder. I could not get that working. These are the issues:

- Connecting through firewire does not give a consistent XP cam name, DXdiag says: "Microsoft DV Camera and VCR" while Skype says "Canon DV Device" and my video editor says "Canon -- MSDV"
-Naming is consistent through a USB connection. (my Canon allows for both USB/Firewire)
-Neither connection did get the Camcorder working. There is always the Skype message "Skype did not find preferred video source....", while other video programs do connect. As mentioned in other threads, this would have to do with the resolution and/or format of the video source. I hoped that the DX filter approach would solve that, but it did not. I played a little with the settings of FFDshow but am not familiar with that mechanism.

BTW I used the recording mode of the Canon, not the network mode. The latter does work in Skype but gives an inferior image quality.

I would be really interested to get the Camcorder working. Anyone any idea?

Just gave this a try. Logitech for notebook deluxe was the cam. Video quality was up noticably, yet frame rate was no where near 25 FPS. more like 1-2 fps. I tried on a Dell inspiron 1150 with 512mb and cable modem. CPU was pegged all the way. 54G card was barely pushing 0.25% and it clearly indicated the need for more CPU power. Nice try, I need better hardware for this exercise. Will give it a go on the dual core at work. Did the mod on Skype 2.5 as well by the way.

Cheers,
H

As in the case of SFS, I also couldn't find the line for Is it also possible to use the ffdshow files at http://www.free-codecs.com/FFDShow_download.htm? Those are newer files as to the ffdshow-tryout files at sourceforge.net.

Same here. I just tested my Camcorder withTracker Cam free . When that helper starts, ffdshow kicks in (windows system tray). But this does not happen when a Skype (video) starts, at least not during a video test under Skype's options. And since the test in my case does not find the camera I cannot test it during a video call.

Same question: should ffdshow kick in and when?

I gave it a try today,

I was using a Macbook Pro and sending to a Dell Windows Inspiron (Single Core) Laptop. iSight look great, and I can notice a significant inprovment. (I was also using a open wireless network which runs reaaallly slow!!, however it still worked fine.)

I tried to do this the other way round on the pc, the first attempt didnt work, (maybe it did but the single core couldn't handle it!). I can't really be bothered to try again, can't wait for this to be a standard feature in skype!

thanks guys!

Did you get 25 fps? That does not seem to work for me on a PC, laptop, win XP.

I tried it yesterday only on my side to see what effect the other perswon would see. From what he told me, the picture was first OK, but if I move the picture develops large pixel blocks which might slowly disappear again. After a while the picture froze totally and I had to restart the video.
I did install fdd (with the raw video config) and modified the config.xml for this. After removal of the modification I expected the video again to be as before, but it still seems to develop these large pixel areas in the video which are not updated in time or correctly, even after removing all the stuff. How do I get the modification totally undone again?

I tried a few combo's of camera (webcam and camcorder) and driver/helpers (FFdshow, DVdriver,e2ecapture).
- Since some or most modern webcams support higher resolutions, ffdshow is not needed.
- ffdshow is needed if you want deintelacing. The visual effect without deinterlacing is that moving objects show long lines at the borders of the object
- The image at 640 is much clearer at the receiving side.
- The actual fps is far from 25 fps. The FPS setting does not work I think. Could it be that the CPU really determines the FPS setting? Could it be that one had to find the Pal setting? Where is that?
- the device name of <Device> setting in the cfg file is automatically updated, once it is included. The update reflects the last video device setting under Skype's options as long as you don't use 'deafult'
- the extra video settings sometimes disappear out of the cfg file after video device trouble

I don't wanna go back. The quality improvement is significant.
Using
- Logitech 5000 Pro webcam
- Pentium 4 3.00 Ghz HT
- 3 Mbps/384 Kbps

Call quality info showing 54kbps upload and like somebody already mentioned I wish there was a button to turn this feature on when it could be used.

i need help guys, im running an HP and i cant find the config.xml file i have follow the directory path noted above but come up empty. any help you guys could provide would be much appreciated thanks

I also have a problem finding it - can anyone extend a helping hand to get us started?

OK, found it (without any help! - where is anyone when you need them?), but here's a further question:

I'm not sure what the [DEVICE] is. I've put in both the camera name and alternatively the video card name in that area, but don't see any difference in the quality.

I have checked to make sure the script is running. What gives?

Thanks in advance!

As mentioned in my last post in this thread, my Skype under my Win XP pro sets/modifies that and possibly other added video entries with the last value selected in Skype. So if you select a camera in Skype options, the camera name will appear in the XML file after saving.

Maybe having the "pro" verion makes the difference - but nothing changes in my .xml file with my XP Home version. Nor does the quality improve whatever I try.

My setup:
Logitech Ultra Vision
XP Home SP2... nothing else running.
256 ram, 160GB disk etc.

Thanks for your reply!

I think this shows that you either need a top of the line single core processor or a dual core. I'm planning on getting a new PC soon (possibly a quad-core) so I'll let you know what the out come is, but currently I'm running an AMD 3000mhz processor (which probably doesn't clock much above 1.66 ~ 2.0 Gs on a global level).
Having XP or XP Pro shouldn't make any differences in quality. CPU speed is a must, and having ram would also be a plus. It might be good to close any open programs especially firefox or internet explorer!

One thing is for sure, a good light sources is needed for most web cameras. I've noticed the better the light source, the better the quality and... maybe a higher frame rate. Just a nice desk light works well, especially one with a condensed bulb, or anything that can emit close to natural light.

good luck everyone

Did you
1) (one time) change the xml files manually with the to be added video entries?
2) then change the video camera setting through Skypes regular options? However, do not set it to windows default camera.
My config file changes automatically to the video device used, but only if 1) has been done once

Tried it today by adding the following lines:

<CaptureHeight>480</CaptureHeight>
<CaptureWidth>640</CaptureWidth>
<Fps>15</Fps>

Both parties use a Logitech Ultra Vision Webcam (capable of 640x480@30 fps).
Party 1 uses DSL 6000 with 576 KBit/s Upstream and a Pentium 4/HT 3.0 GHz,
Party 2 uses DSL 1000 with 256 Kbit/s Upstream and a Core2Duo 6600 at 2.4 GHz

Worked very well, although video sent by party 2 wasn't as good (compression artifacts were visible) as video being sent by party 1 (no visible artifacts, marvellous quality), probably because of the upstream bottleneck.

ffdshow was not installed.
Video was not set to PAL (whereever that can be set).

Jitter: fluctuating at around 62
Paket loss: 0%
Roundtrip: 109 ms
Relays: 4
CPU usage was around 80 % at Pentium 4/HT, not measured at Core2Duo.

Overall very cool.

Windows XP home
Skype Version: 3.2.0.145

Worked great on my Alienware Laptop but not so well with Sony Vaio both have built in Video Communication Cameras (VCC).

Now here is my question never did not find the PAL_D setting so never did get the FFDshow to kick in have searched Google tell fingers are numb

Can someone help me out

Thanks from Macau SAR

Yes. Check out a program called WebCamDV made by OrangeWare (it costs US$20). There are some other programs that do the same thing, but I'm using WebCamDV and it works great. Basically, it adapts your Mini-DV camcorder to a webcam, specifically a DirectX video source. Windows also uses VfW/WDM video sources, but I'm not sure which one is "faster". I have a Panasonic PV-GS320 Mini DV camcorder, which supports both USB and Firewire (IEEE 1394) connections to the PC, and WebCamDV recognizes both, converting them to valid video sources usable by Skype (and lots of other programs). So in your config.xml file you will use "WebCamDV Capture" as the device name. I high recommend WebCamDV. No, I don't work for them! 8-)

As for the other settings, I have the FPS set to 20, and the video size set to 640x480. My CPU is an AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (a single core processor which actually runs at about 2.2 GHz), with 2 gigabytes of RAM. I'm using the firewire connection from my camcorder to the PC. I have a cable internet connection with a speed of 10 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. I had ffdshow installed, but it actually messed up the image (it cut the middle portion out and moved it to the left side?!), so I uninstalled it. It seems to work fine without ffdshow installed... I video conference with my brother in Texas (I'm in Florida) so I can see my 18-month old nephew. I told my brother about the "hack" and he applied it -- he has a pretty decent Dell laptop (not sure of the exact specs) using a wireless 802.11g router over a DSL connection, but he says that my video is very smooth, high quality and "almost real time", and he estimates it at 15-20 fps (is there a way in Skype to show the actual fps value? that would be cool). The video I receive from his microsoft webcam is actually very good too -- fast and responsive, high quality video, and it even looks good at full screen (he's broadcasting at 640x480 also). Overall it is a very good quality video conferencing experience. I'd say "excellent" but I know there is room for improvement. It is great to be able to see and hear my little nephew, he's so cute! As for lighting, the picture seems to be 10 times better in natural sunlight, as compared to indoor lighting, so we tend to video conference in the early afternoon.

BTW, this also works great with my Logitech QuickCam Orbit MP via USB connection. Of course, I don't have to use WebCamDV when using the QuickCam, but it is possible to do so. I have yet to compare the quality and speed of video on my camcorder with the USB connection versus the Firewire connection.

I just tried but I'm not sure if it worked or not. It didn't look any different to me. I need to do some more testing tomorrow but how do I verify fps & resolution? or is there any way to verify it other than by eye?

I'm trying one way on single core high end laptops. I"m not worried about two way, just pushing the video out.

Surely this is because Skype compresses the heck out of the video. I have 5M of UPSTREAM bandwidth (on fiber). Is there anyway to tweak Skype to use a LOT more than 128K?

My first test results on system 1:

Connection: Cable 1000 kbit/s upload
Webcam: Logitech Ultra Vision Webcam
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 2.0Ghz (single core)
RAM: 1024MB
ffdshow: ffdshow_beta3_rev1324_20070701_clsid.exe (but skype doesn't seem to be using it)

Skpye Settings:
snippit from config.xml


Regarding the Pal_D setting, I think it only applies when you are using a real camera that connects via S-video. I don't think it applies to a USB webcam so no need to worry about that.

Regarding ffdshow, I think the reason why skype isn't using ffdshow is because when you install it Skype.exe is not included in the list of programs for which ffdshow should be used [default setting].

Skype results:
Codec: AMRWB
CPU: 98%
Video send: FPS 5 (cam:18 bw:30 cpu:21 rcv:46), complx 15

Comment from other side: Image quality is excellent even on full screen but frame rate is drastically reduced, it's like you are moving slow motion. (This could be because of inadequate cpu)

where/how did you find it?

I followed the SkypeGarage instructions linked at the head of this thread. I bought a Belkin Hi-speed USB 2.0 DVD Creator. I connected my camera via S-video. I configured ffdshow. I changed config.xml, trying 25 and 30 fps. I believe I've configured that correctly, because the settings do make a difference when using my Logitech QuickCam Ultra Vision. The only thing I couldn't do is configure my capture device as PAL_D, because my camera is NTSC. I tried several versions of Skype, including 3.6, 3.6 beta, 3.8, 3.5, and 4.0 beta 1.

The Belkin capture device works fine with every other program I've tried. But in Skype, I only get black video. ffdshow is not invoked.

Any ideas?

It's more than a bit annoying that there's no way to get high quality video from my camera, even though it's 10 times the cost and quality of these supposedly high quality Logitech cameras.

Sorry, the lenses on your camera may be better, but the output of your camera is much worse if you have an NTSC camera. NTSC is something around 320x200 in resolution, but the new webcams are in the 900x700 range. Pure resolution is not everything, but the output of your camera will not give you a quality picture. The difference is similar to VHS and DVD or NTSC and HDTV.

The guidelines on this forum are not longer necessary to force higher resolution video.
rearden

It's not an NTSC camera. It's a MiniDV camera fed to my PC with FireWire or S-video. I have verified that the effective resolution of my camera is quite close to 640 x 480. Your 320 x 200 figure is incorrect. Composite NTSC has effective resolution on the order of 580 x 480, S-video is about 660 x 480, and digital (DV, SDI) is 720 x 480. (480 becomes 576 for PAL country models) It's true that some webcams can deliver higher resolution, but that's of no consequence for use in Skype.

Can you please explain?

I think there are several issues. 1. If you camera is capable of higher resolution is it actually doing it? 2. Is the output type you choose compromising the quality of the output (not theoretical specs but what it is doing)? 3. Is the capture card you are using capable of effectively translating the input into a higher resolution picture?

The newer versions of skype use high resolution automatically. You can use the hack to attempt to force a higher resolution image, but skype will still downgrade the resolution if it thinks it should.
rearden

Yes, my camera is capable of outputting 640 x 480 resolution, my capture card is capable of capturing it, and the the capture card driver supports 640 x 480 on the output pin. It works beautifully in other applications. It seems that Skype is just quite picky about which devices it will take 640 x 480 video from, even when using the config.xml hack. I think it has something to do with which color spaces are available on the output pin.


Well, that's not true. I just tried it with my Quickcam Ultra Vision, which is capable of 640 x 480 @ 15 fps, and fake 640 x 480 @ 30 fps. In Skype 3.8.0.139, HQV only worked with the config.xml hack; without it, video never topped 320 x 240 @ 15 fps. Using Skype 4.0.0.145 beta, HQV did not work at all. Apparently Skype removed the config.xml hack *again*.

If anyone knows of a video capture device that works with HQV in Skype, please, please let me know.


Truly Skype must hate me, because I've spent a ton of time and even some money trying to get HQV to work with my camcorder, doing everything I could think of, and it still won't work.

I had some theory that Skype was just very particular about the color spaces or frame rates that it wanted to see on the output pin of the DirectShow capture device. But that theory didn't pan out: the devices that HQV video doesn't work with support the same video output parameters as the devices that HQV video does work with.

Here's what I did get HQV video to work with: Logitech Quickcam Ultra Vision, and my HP notebook's HP webcam. But these are low quality cameras, not worth the effort.

I used Skype beta 3.6.0.159, and release version 3.8.0.139 under Vista for all of my tests.

I tried:


* Belkin Hi-speed USB 2.0 DVD Creator (the capture device mentioned in the original Skype Garage article): doesn't work in Skype at all. It produces an Unknown error.

* Conexant Bt878 and Fusion 878A-based cards, using the btwincap driver and several other drivers: video worked with all of them. Using btwincap, the HQV config.xml hack produced an unknown error, and HQV hack didn't do anything with the other drivers.

* Conexant CX23883-based card (WinFast TV2000 XP Expert): HQV hack does nothing

* Philips SAA7135-based card (ADS Tech PTV-351) with several different drivers: HQV hack does nothing

* Fusion HDTV 5 USB Gold: doesn't work in Skype at all

* Adaptec Gamebridge AVC-1400: doesn't work in Skype at all

* SplitCam: HQV hack does nothing

* Willing Webcam: HQV hack does nothing

* Canon DV Camera (FireWire connection): doesn't work in Skype at all. A Skype admin has said that Skype is supposed to support some DV cameras natively, but he won't say which ones, so I'm unable to test this.


I even looked at Skype alternatives, but found nothing suitable. iVisit supports HQV with a special combination of hardware & drivers, but unless your Internet connection is around 1.5 Mbps, the frame rates get horribly low. SightSpeed supports HQV from a DV camera, but only at 1.5 Mbps and up.


I refuse to buy a Logitech webcam. Their notion of high quality is laughable.

I understand part of the reason for Skype choosing to enable HQV automatically for only certain cameras. For a lot of cameras, trying to pull high frame rate and resolution at the same time will actually lower the video quality. Logitech is guilty of this with some of their cameras, too. There's no simple automatic way to tell if a camera would support HQV. So Skype has an internal list of cameras that HQV is enabled automatically for. That's fine. But everyone shouldn't have to suffer at Skype's making this feature exclusive. They ought to publish the requirements for HQV for manufacturers and consumers to use, and the put in an option to manually enable HQV. Doing so wouldn't exclude the kind of marketing tie-in that Skype & Logitech have now.


I applaud Skype for bringing us HQV in some form. Skype has some very well engineered technology. But what Skype is doing, enabling a feature for Logitech cameras but not for any other brand, is akin to how they enabled certain features only for Intel processors a while back. That case brought a law suit. I don't know why people stand for it now with Skype & Logitech.


By the way, the HQV config.xml hack seems to not work in Skype 4.0.0.145 beta. If people who use this feature don't raise their voices, Skype might remove the feature again, just as they did in the 3.6 release version.

I have a Quick Cam Ultra Vision too, and I want to know if this hack works with the latest version of Skype, 3.8.0.154 which is what me and my gf downloaded.

Anyone gotten this to work? I tried and she said it looked like it was ok for a little bit (gotten a better vid), but then flickered or flashed and went bad again. I didn't install the other software, however.

Any help would be appreciated.

If it doesn't work in this version, where can I get a version where it *does* work?

The hack does work with the Quickcam Ultra Vision, but you have to work around some quirks of that camera. The camera can only deliver 640 x 480 at up to 15 fps. If you ask for a higher frame rate, it will give you 320 x 240 very poorly upsampled to 640 x 480. So use the hack and set the frame rate to 15 fps. Also, you need to use the default Windows driver, and *not* the Logitech driver. Under XP I found that the Windows driver was fairly reliable delivering true 640 x 480. Under Vista, it was less reliable, sometimes slipping back to 320 x 240. You can turn on Skype technical call info to verify that the hack is working. But you can only tell if the camera is delivering true 640 x 480 by looking at the video.

The Logitech driver seems to always or nearly always give 320 x 240 upsampled to 640 x 480 when you ask for 640 x 480. Thanks a lot, Logitech. It's because of your crappy driver (and similar ones from other manufacturers) that Skype couldn't just automatically enable HQV for every camera.

Thank you so much for helping me out. Do I select the windows driver simply by going into Tools|Options|Video Settings|Select Webcam|and select Default Video Device? I'm using XP Pro but my girlfriend has this same cam, same version of Skype, but Vista. I'm guessing if I use this Default Video Device, I'll loose the 'Right Light' functionality of the cam?

If you have any ideas how to get the Vista default drivers to work consistently, that would be great to tap further into your pool of knowledge.

I almost bought $200 worth of Logitech cameras so I could see my long-distance sweety better. If this hack works, it will be nifty.

Is skype the only product that is offering this kind of big and high quality cam connectivity over the web with conventional hardware, like the Ultra Vision cameras from Logitech?

Appreciate it!

-Jake

To use your Quickcam Ultra Vision with the default Windows driver means uninstalling the Logitech driver and then reconnecting the camera so that Windows will install the default driver. I don't remember the best way to uninstall the Logitech driver off the top of my head; try these in this order: run the Logitech driver installer and select the option to uninstall; look for the Logitech driver in the add/remove programs control panel; uninstall the Logitech driver from the device manager.

I don't know how to make the Vista default driver more reliable. Perhaps you can take the Windows default driver from XP and copy it to Vista, but I bet that's not easy.

As far as other software that does HQV, yes, there are options. iVisit and SightSpeed are programs that I tried, but they require a very fast network upload speed. (1.5 Mbps)

I've had a go with 2 Logitech S7500 webcams. One user has 800kbps available upload bandwidth and the other has 160kbps up.

It is the incredible inconsistency of the connection which really really annoys me. The cams do transmit 640x480 but it may as well be postage stamp size because the codec just makes everything into large blocks. The framerate is not stable and often seems to get stuck at 15fps.

Essentially HQ video sucks.

Why can we not force FPS or get access to codec quality settings to force use of all available bandwidth??. It is very frustrating to see a blocky image and see under-utilised bandwidth.

I would also guess that people would prefer 20FPS with better quality than 30FPS and an blocky image.

When I connect two Skype clients on a LAN the image is better and tops out at 500kbps, yet when 800kpbs is available on my DLS line it never uses it.

Disappointed.

Just having 800 kbps upstream on your DSL connection doesn't mean you can achieve that throughput to another Internet endpoint. Skype has some congestion control scheme to set its transmission rate dynamically.

But in general I've noticed that Skype tends to use a lower transmission rate than I would achieve with a bulk TCP transfer. I don't know why they're so conservative.

FYI,
I have 30fps 640x480(depending on bandwith ofcourse) with a Pinacle DVC100 (USB)for $49USD, I have tested on XP and Vista, V3.8.0.154. Works great with 640x480 mod. No hassles out of the box. SVID and NTSC inputs.

Skype HQV config.xml settings are not working in Skype 4 beta. If you appreciate this feature, head over to the Skype 4 beta forum and let them know.

RemoteGuy, I could kiss you. You don't know how much time I spent trying to get HQV to work with my camcorder.

As you said, the Pinnacle DVC100 works very well with the Skype HQV config.xml settings in Skype 3.8.0.154.

Overall, the Skype HQV video quality is quite good with my progressive-scan camcorder, and way better than any Logitech camera. Here's what I found:

• The DVC100 doesn't de-interlace, and neither does Skype, and Skype doesn't invoke FFDshow. So you'll need a progressive scan camcorder to use the DVC100 with 640 x 480 in Skype. That's not a bug in the DVC100, just a limitation. If you use 640 x 480 and an interlaced camera, it looks pretty bad - worse than 320 x 240.
• Use the Pinnacle driver from the web site. The default XP driver doesn't work. I didn't try the Vista default driver, but the Pinnacle driver works in Vista.
• In Vista, it was a little bit unreliable. Sometimes upon starting the video, it was black. I had no such problem in XP.
• Video quality is pretty good, but not perfect. There is some black crush that couldn't be corrected from the driver's proc amp settings.
• The default proc amp settings are pretty good. I was able to adjust the picture to compensate for my camera and the Skype video codec, which both seem to under-saturate the picture.
• The DVC100 added some sparkling video noise to the bottom one or two lines. Conveniently, there is a driver setting to mask the top and bottom few lines with black or grey.
• The DVC100 seems to be quite susceptible to electrical noise coming over the USB cable. It was not a problem on my desktop, but on my laptop, whenever I had the laptop plugged into wall power, the video had a lot of visible noise, and the levels adjustments were noticeably off.
• You need to select the video source (composite or S-video) in some app other than Skype. But once you do, the setting is remembered.
• The capture device supports resolutions of different widths. I tried setting Skype CaptureWidth to 720, 640, 480, and 360, and Skype transmitted the video at the width I set. 720 probably won't be any better than 640 for most video sources. Using 480 or 360 could possibly improve the picture if your CPU or Internet speed is limited. I tried using 640 x 240, but it didn't work. (I thought that could be poor-man's de-interlacing)

There doesn't seem to be anything special about the DVC100 DirectShow capture pin properties that would make me think Skype should support HQV with this device and not some others. It supports YUY2 and I420, 30.0 fps, 720 x 480, 640 x 480, 480 x 480, 360 x 480, 352 x 480, 352 x 240, 320 x 240, and 160 x 120. That's not really any different from some of the other video capture devices that I tried.

Hi,

I agree, with your comments. Have you checked out the add-ins...

https://extras.skype.com/1672/view

Mikogo looks to be a useful screen sharing tool. Has anyone got any feedback for it?

I was just wandering a thing...imagine I buy a better camera, set all this stuff working (with dual core bla bla).

I do a lot of videconference, but I cannot control my party's pc, so what shall he/she need to see my smiling face HQ? Does he/she need a specific version of skype as well? What about cpu speed?

Another issue: what I really need is not a HQ video, but a high frame rate video (15 fps would be enough, even if only 320x240). I even tried in the same lan, so bandwidth is not a problem, but the framerate is always poor (I've got a sony vaio 2gHz dual core laptop with Vista, 2GB ram, and an embedded sony vgp-vcc7 camera). If the problem is the camera, I can buy a new one... Even when I test the webcam in the skype configuration panel the framerate is poor (let's say...4-6 fps).

Tnx

Skype standard quality video is 320 x 240 at up to 15 fps. There are no special requirements for that, except a camera that supports it and sufficient network throughput and CPU power at both ends.

For your low frame rate, the limitation is probably your camera. You'll need a good camera and perhaps also better lighting. (many cameras will reduce the frame rate under low light, so as to have longer exposure of each frame)

For HQV, the PC at the other end should be sufficiently fast, but doesn't need to be a dual core, necessarily. Both ends need Skype 3.6 beta or later. You will need to modify your config.xml to get frame rates above 15 fps, unless you have an official Logitech HQV camera. The Skype video config preview is not an indication of the best frame rate that Skype can pull from your camera.