Video Conferenceing w/PC
 

Since I live in Ohio now, and my parents live in Michigan, my dad and I got to thinking that setting up video links would be cool. We already have nationwide cellphones to handle the audio, so I'm not worried about that. My questions are all about the video side:

We both have broadband connections, no problem there.

I think we can figure out the camera (hardware) questions, but what software does one use to link the feeds?

Any help, always appreciated.

Thanks.

Yahoo Messenger has a good web cam service.

Also try "Eyeball Chat." Very good web cam service there too.

Eyeball Chat is good because it will bypass a lot of firewall stuff and enable the most juxtaposing networks to connect.

Personally I would go for Yahoo Messenger. The Super Mode on it is so cool!

whats that whole 'super mode' do anyway?

I use Yahoo IM all the time. The video-conferencing mode works great! Super Mode is for two users that are both connected via Broadband. If you can make this work, your connection is way faster, and the video is a lot less jerky. However, my brother is in New York City and I am in Seattle, we both have DSL, and we have not been successfull at using Super Mode. It doesn't always work.

I watch my nephew on Yahoo all the time. It's great... I'm in NYC and he's in LA. :)

MSN Messenger is probably about 5 times as quick as Yahoo Messenger and seems to pull in better quality. This is my suggestion. Only use yahoo if you plan on having more than 10 people connected at once.

If neither of you are behind a firewall, good ol' Netmeeting gives pretty large resolution compared to some of the other applications. But even a weak firewall will render it useless.

If one or both people are behind a firewall that they can't change (i.e. university network, etc.) then iVisit works very well.
Eyeball Chat is good as well although I haven't had much experience with it.
I try to stay away from the messenger programs because they give such small pictures.

My gf and I are currently 6 hours from each other at different colleges and I don't know what we'd do without webcams :-)