Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zappo" data-source="post: 1312339" data-attributes="member: 633">I haven't done it. However, I am currently working in the field of cheap videconferencing, and I'm about to leave my country for five months. As a result, I'm planning some videoconf gaming and I think I have the skills to pull it off.  First of all, you'll need broadband. With a 56k, it would be tough to get decent audio through, and video is right out.  The easiest way is to use two Windows computers and Microsoft Netmeeting, which is installed by default on any Windows version and is very easy to use. Any webcam will do good enough video, and you can find webcams for 40$ or less. Most of them are easy-to-install USB devices. You'll also need a good microphone, one that can pick up sounds from a few meters so that you can just place it in the middle of the table and forget about it.  Netmeeting also has a shared whiteboard, which will be very useful to draw maps and notes on. It can also allow any application to be shared, which could be useful to show pictures and texts.  The first problem is bandwidth; unless you really have lots of it, the video will be choppy and the audio could be skippy. I would play around with the program settings to make sure that a good codec is used for audio, sacrificing video if need be. You don't really need a fluid rendition of your pals' faces (use the whiteboard for maps and drawings), but a low-quality audio will get on your nerves fairly quick.  The second problem is that at least one of the two must know the other's IP address. Netmeeting provides an online directory service, but I wouldn't like the idea of anyone being able to know my IP. It's not a telephone number, someone could do some ugly damage with it. I think a better idea is to use ICQ or a similar service to communicate the IP address for the call.  If the above doesn't work, or if you don't run Windows, it's time to pull out the Mash videoconferencing apps from <a href="http://www.openmash.org" target="_blank">www.openmash.org</a>, which are what gets the closest to professional videoconferencing tools while still being free. They are not easy to use or configure, but they allow a lot more control than Netmeeting, so you can probably adjust the bandwidth usage between audio and video much more finely, and change codecs to better suit your needs (different codecs are better at different things). You could still use netmeeting for the good whiteboard and program sharing.</blockquote>

Verification