Need Mac based Software Suggestion

[AceVid]

Hi smart people,

I need some suggestions in regards to a Mac based software solution. I've taken a brief glance at the I-Chat. The enviroment is mixed, some old Vtel Vistas, some Polycom FX's a Codian 4210 MCU..soon going all Tandberg Educator (based off the MXP 6000) The Desktop/Laptop Mac would need to act like other endpoint (as far as basic conferences go) in our enviroment.

Thanks in advance...

[Joe Vallender]

You might check out: http://xmeeting.sourceforge.net/.

[AceVid]

What about iChat..it now supports H.264....anyone have any experience with it?

[tom9933]

iChat is great but I’ve not heard of a way to get it to talk to anything besides another machine running iChat. We’ve asked the Apple rep to put H.323 compatibility into iChat, but never heard anything back. It seems like for the moment Apple is content for iChat to be an island technology. My only hope is that with everyone moving towards LCS then maybe Apple will follow, unfortunately I doubt this will be the case.

[trapehzoid]

Microsoft has communicator for OSX now.. but I don't recall seeing it if had video or not. Forgot to look

[tom9933]

Cool that answers one of my questions for the Microsoft rep, now if I can just get the CALs issue sorted out :)

[dylane]

Please forgive my ignorance, I'm very new to all of this, but doesn't iChat also work with any PC running AIM?

[tom9933]

I know there was some talk about iChat being compatible with either Yahoo or AOL way back when, but I don’t know if that ever came to pass. In theory at some point in the very near future all the clients should be somewhat compatible, but I’ll believe that when I see it.

[Shawn Jones]

I was just reading about this on Apple's support/Discussion site for the current version of iChat. There are currently problems with iChat to PC chat applications (AOL and Yahoo), in fact, 6.5 minutes in to a A/V conference, the PC Video will freeze.

[smoody]

Microsoft has communicator for OSX now.. but I don't recall seeing it if had video or not. Forgot to look

Trapehzoid,

Do you have the url for this product?

The closest thing I could find on the Microsoft site is the "Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access" which according to the site: "Communicator Web Access provides IM and presence to users who are connecting either from within the corporate network or over the Internet using one of many supported Web browsers" (doesn't say if Safari is one of them, but I'd guess IE for MAC would work - although Microsoft has stopped development for this).

Thanks much

[trapehzoid]

its actually messenger (sorry). And checking on the webpage, it doesn't support video.

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default.aspx?pid=msnmessenger

Its much like the older Messenger v5 for Windows.. it works with LCS, but doesn't offer the multimedia or sharing stuff.

[smoody]

Trapehzoid,

Thanks for the response.

I've tried earlier versions of Messenger for MAC and was fairly unimpressed by the feature sets for collaboration with PC's; it's a real shame they aren't incorporating video or application sharing in this version (will they ever?).

We've used WebX for collaboration between PC's and MAC's (OS X) which does work fairly well but it's not a free service.

[trapehzoid]

I think the problem is the windows stuff still pretty much relies on the old netmeeting foundation.. which of course doesn't exist on the Mac side.. so that's why its never been ported.

I still think Microsoft only pays lipservice to Apple and isn't really motivated to innovate for Macintosh programs.

The Mac unit in MS I'm sure is committed, but you need Corporate focus too to make an impact

[Shawn Jones]

Hi smart people,

I need some suggestions in regards to a Mac based software solution. I've taken a brief glance at the I-Chat. The enviroment is mixed, some old Vtel Vistas, some Polycom FX's a Codian 4210 MCU..soon going all Tandberg Educator (based off the MXP 6000) The Desktop/Laptop Mac would need to act like other endpoint (as far as basic conferences go) in our enviroment.

Thanks in advance...
If you haven't already, take a look at the link Joe posted. I installed ophonex on my wife's 17" Powerbook with a iSight Camera, and it worked just fine, software has some annoying bugs-can't disconnect a call you initiate. The xmeeting software is in alpha phase, but the ophone is working. I have not tried the xmeeting software yet.

[Armyjazzer]

I have tested xmeeting with a polycom MGC and had video problems. They may need an update on the MGC.

It works with our Codian MCU and also connects to some of our Polycom and Tandberg endpoints that we have tested so far.

It also registers with our Cisco gatekeeper, haven't tested with the Polycom gatekeeper yet.

We are going to do further testing.

:banana: