CQPhone was very impressive. As good or better then my gold standard CamFrog.Both consume similar bandwidth 6 to 8 of KBS or half again to twice a Skype Voice Call. Both have a frame rate that pass the finger test ─ a count to five while opening a closed fist, do the images match count. CQPhone is Peer 2 Peer which should result in higher reliability. Of course I always use Skype concurrently for my voice channel.

Vidpe (the name on the icon on my desktop and I assume is the name of the product because it rhymes with Skype) hails from Singapore. Ben Lee, the marketing manager hosted my demo. The product still has gliches. But it did past the finger test. What was sweet about this product was how tightly coupled it is to Skype via the API. I was told it was Peer 2 Peer, but you know marketing people! A packet sniffer indicated it was server based for video (I am awaiting a response from their technical people about their technology)I got a response he says it is P2P.

It will be interesting to test MSN 7.0 and see how the new Logitech partnership is unfolding

Betanews has an interesting quote, “According to MSN, 30 million people use the audio and video functions of the service each month.” If my math is right this is less than half of the number of Skype users per month. Interesting… maybe the war is over already. Maybe my math is wrong. I am sure someone will correct it. :)

Tell us what about your favouite video Skype companion. Which product do you find easiet to use? What gives you grief? What feature to you like best about CamFrog? MSN? Yahoo? How important is multi party video conferencing vs. one on one?