Messenge 6.0 Broadband Webcams still Jerky - Help

[Mario]

My friend uses Messenger 6.0 with broadband connections at both end to
chat with her friend about 20 miles away. The video is smooth and
real-time.

Yet when we try using video (I'm across the country from them) it's
jerky and slow. We both have broadband. Neither of them are behind a
firewall of any kind.

I use the firewall on my SMC wireless router but I've bypassed the
router and turned off ZoneAlarm as a test and connected diretly to my
PC with the same results. Still jerky.

And to clarify 'jerky'; webcam images update every 2-3 seconds.

We're both on XP.


Help,

Thanks everyone,

Mario

[Jonathan Kay [MVP]]

Greetings Mario,

The 'Webcam' feature will only work 'smooth' if you're directly connected, if you're not
directly connected (like having your router engaged), it will go through a central server and
will appear quite jerky (3-4 second updates as you described).

Instead, you might try using the Video Conference option (click the Actions menu, then Start
Video Conference). The Video Conference option has no central server, and as such, it will
attempt to establish a direct connection.
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Windows MVP, Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com


"Mario" > wrote in message
m...
> My friend uses Messenger 6.0 with broadband connections at both end to
> chat with her friend about 20 miles away. The video is smooth and
> real-time.
>
> Yet when we try using video (I'm across the country from them) it's
> jerky and slow. We both have broadband. Neither of them are behind a
> firewall of any kind.
>
> I use the firewall on my SMC wireless router but I've bypassed the
> router and turned off ZoneAlarm as a test and connected diretly to my
> PC with the same results. Still jerky.
>
> And to clarify 'jerky'; webcam images update every 2-3 seconds.
>
> We're both on XP.
>
>
> Help,
>
> Thanks everyone,
>
> Mario

[Mario]

Jonathan,

Thank you for your reply.

We tried the Video conferencing option in 6.0 and although we could
chat I could not establish a video connection (blank screen on their
end).
No firewall at her end. Router firewall by-passed and my PC attached
directly to the cable modem on my end.

I'm going to try again when the opportunity arises. Any other hints I
should be aware of?

A friend also pointed out you can type 'conf' at the Start/Run command
line in XP and it will call up Netmeeting - I know this allows you to
manually enter IP addresses so I'm going to try that also.

Get this though, I was chatting with another friend in Regina (hold
back your laughter :) and we were just using regular Messenger 6.0 and
it was near real-time video. Pretty amazing actually. Very liitle lag,
smooth too. Go figure.

Thanks again and I'll keep you posted.


Mario




"Jonathan Kay [MVP]" > wrote in message >...
> Greetings Mario,
>
> The 'Webcam' feature will only work 'smooth' if you're directly connected, if you're not
> directly connected (like having your router engaged), it will go through a central server and
> will appear quite jerky (3-4 second updates as you described).
>
> Instead, you might try using the Video Conference option (click the Actions menu, then Start
> Video Conference). The Video Conference option has no central server, and as such, it will
> attempt to establish a direct connection.
> ____________________________________________
> Jonathan Kay
> Windows MVP, Messenger
> Associate Expert
> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
> Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
>
>
> "Mario" > wrote in message
> m...
> > My friend uses Messenger 6.0 with broadband connections at both end to
> > chat with her friend about 20 miles away. The video is smooth and
> > real-time.
> >
> > Yet when we try using video (I'm across the country from them) it's
> > jerky and slow. We both have broadband. Neither of them are behind a
> > firewall of any kind.
> >
> > I use the firewall on my SMC wireless router but I've bypassed the
> > router and turned off ZoneAlarm as a test and connected diretly to my
> > PC with the same results. Still jerky.
> >
> > And to clarify 'jerky'; webcam images update every 2-3 seconds.
> >
> > We're both on XP.
> >
> >
> > Help,
> >
> > Thanks everyone,
> >
> > Mario