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A couple of weeks ago I spoke with Phoneboy about iChat. Many friends of mine told me that iChat was great, both in terms of UI and video quality.
So we decided to give it a try.

We had the opportunity to try it just a few minutes ago. Unfortunately, I was (I am) in my living room together with my wife (watching a TV show), so we tried it without audio. Well, just on my side… In fact Phoneboy could clearly listen to the TV show. His italian should be better now

Anyway, video was very good, a part from some pixelization and blocks when he moved his head. Almost no light on my side, but it seems that he could see me pretty well.

After that, we immediately switched to SightSpeed. Even if video size was a little bit smaller, it was visibly better. No blocks, no pixelization. Even when Daemon began to show me his mobile phones and hats Full screen view was good as well.
We also used the chat tool of SightSpeed. It worked, but the overall user experience was not so good.

Speaking about the user interface, iChat is far better. No competition. I already expressed my opinion regarding SightSpeed: too big interface, heavy and… well… ugly, I’d say. Moreover, I experienced some font issues: text was bigger than the buttons.

In conclusion, I’d say:

Video quality: SightSpeed won
User interface/experience: iChat won

What I’d use ? iChat. Unless SightSpeed guys change their software’s UI. For a normal videoconference without so much movement, iChat is pretty good. But, when full motion is involved, SightSpeed is much better.

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