I think this along with the tech community being suspicious about the lack of true end-to-end encryption has led to what appers to be the beginning of Skype’s decline.
As indicated in the blog post, “via some feedback channel” is clearly not working. People have been posting about this issue since the beginning of the year and they are doing nothing about it.
Peripherally related: The other day I was thinking that it’s almost 2016, webcams of 720p or better are abundant, and so are Internet connections with 5 Mbps or better upload speeds (caveat: populated areas, US and western countries). So WHY does video chat still look so awful? Is there no high resolution, high framerate software available that works well for this? Microsoft, Google, and Apple certainly aren’t putting any out.
weird. I get incredibly crisp and accurate video from FaceTime on an ipad mini 2 to another ipad mini 2 when both are on good wifi. When something about the wifi sucks (interference, distance, etc.), then the packet loss causes the video stream to train down to low res, but otherwise my experience has been pretty good.
Is your upstream always 5mbs minimum or average 5mbs? Realtime video chat doesn’t have the luxury of buffering, so if your link alternates between 1mbs and 10mbs every other second, that is effectively only 1mbs for skype, although it would work like a 5mbs link for Netflix.
Skype was great before Microsoft ruined it.
I think this along with the tech community being suspicious about the lack of true end-to-end encryption has led to what appers to be the beginning of Skype’s decline.
Isn’t this something you should just send to MSFT via some feedback channel? Why is this a blog post?
the entire internet, including this very forum, is group coping therapy for technologists
As indicated in the blog post, “via some feedback channel” is clearly not working. People have been posting about this issue since the beginning of the year and they are doing nothing about it.
Peripherally related: The other day I was thinking that it’s almost 2016, webcams of 720p or better are abundant, and so are Internet connections with 5 Mbps or better upload speeds (caveat: populated areas, US and western countries). So WHY does video chat still look so awful? Is there no high resolution, high framerate software available that works well for this? Microsoft, Google, and Apple certainly aren’t putting any out.
Apple FaceTime on fast internet is pretty miraculous, and Google Hangouts isn’t that bad either. What’s your complaint with those?
They look like grainy VHS video (360/480p, give or take).
All of these apps show you your own camera source material, so I know I’m not completely crazy. The quality was there at some point.
weird. I get incredibly crisp and accurate video from FaceTime on an ipad mini 2 to another ipad mini 2 when both are on good wifi. When something about the wifi sucks (interference, distance, etc.), then the packet loss causes the video stream to train down to low res, but otherwise my experience has been pretty good.
Is your upstream always 5mbs minimum or average 5mbs? Realtime video chat doesn’t have the luxury of buffering, so if your link alternates between 1mbs and 10mbs every other second, that is effectively only 1mbs for skype, although it would work like a 5mbs link for Netflix.