We had a good time today playing with Ashod's new video technology mulwigi1

Don't be fooled by the exceptional quality. I selected the best pic. (grin) To my right is Ben in Sweden, Carlo in Denmark and Willem in the Netherlands.

This should only played with by video geeks who have 300 kbs upload bandwidth. This is not server based. It is Peer 2 Peer. My CPU utilization was 45%. With four people the audio sucked, but with three it was quite good.

Overall it was good to experience the maturing of Ashod's technology

If you want to play, get the instructions here.

I keep getting Chat Messages requesting information to help people select a webcam. I keep recommending the Logitech 4000 Pro along with some words about why. Do people listen? Sure they go off listening to their wallet. (grin)

This picture should tell the story. Carlo bought a new webcam.

It is dark in Denmark. Carlo had to have a light shining in his face as well as the ceiling light. Very uncomfortable for him. So his natural colour becomes unnatural and the frame rate drops. Very uncomfortable for me.

With the new Logitech 4000 Pro webcam Carlo needs no extra lighting shinning in his eyes. His colour is natual and the higher frame rate means the pic is more fluid.

Of course next week when my new Logictech Fusion webcam arrives Carlo will be pissed as my technology trumps his again.

Our tests were carried out using the latest version of wigiwigi.

Imagine multi-user video conferencing for any IM client: Yahoo, Skype, MSN, ICQ, you name it. That is what I tested with developer Ashod Apakian at WigiWigi yesterday.

This program is not ready for prime time. Unless you are a real geek I would wait a couple of weeks before downloading. So why bring the topic up? I think this opens up a fascinating way to deliver media content.

It works like this. I install wigi5.exe. Wigi icon shows up in my system tray. I go to any IM client and open a chat message to a contact. Establish application focus by clicking my cursor in the chat window and hit the Ctrl key 3 times. A Chat Message is formatted see it View image">here.

The recipient of the chat message, if they have wigi5 installed simply double clicks the wigiwigi call code and copies to their clip board. The wigiwigi application send this code to a central server which then establishes a peer 2 peer video and voice link between our two computers.

Here is the result.

The wigi5.exe is only 450KB iin size. Remarkable for a video application! If the recipient of my chat message does not have the application it can be downloaded in about 10 seconds and installed and configured in another 10 seconds.

I tested with Yahoo and Skype. I will review in more detail when Ashod polishes the video quality and adds the multi-user capability. Lip sync was really quite good. Pictures were very fluid too.

Update: works great with Google Talk!

What ideas come to your mind for using this technology?

Ashod's WigiWigi Video application has moved to the beta stage.

The User Interface is still a bit crude for mom to use but the one-to-one video quality and fluidity is setting the bar higher for all contenders in this market.

I will be doing more testing during the week and keep you posted. Right now it is for geeks only. But I don't think it will be that way for long.