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Stickam - great for IMing with multiple webcams or mics

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Post subject: Stickam - great for IMing with multiple webcams or mics
Posted: Sat 12 May , 2007 8:35 am
I've cried a thousand oceans, and I would cry a thousand more if that's what it takes to sail you home.
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I'm sure you're all just dying to join yet another instant messenger service :P but I'm really impressed with this one and thought I would mention it for those interested. Not to replace any you have right now (it certainly won't be the case for me), but as an occasional alternative? You betcha.

So the last few months, I'm having a right ball webcamming with people and taking screencaps of the shenanigans. It's a bit of a hassle to position all the windows so that I can see cameras as well as the chat window, though. My computer settings are really large, so the screen fills up quickly.

I recently joined a community that also has crazy chats and then posts screencaps from it. What fascinated me was the abundance of webcams in each of them. Seemed like a nifty feature. The most windows I ever had was five or six at once, but just in case the need ever arose, I decided to check this website out. We've been able to convince a few people to purchase cams and hopefully even more join in from there. [ img ]

Anyway, so its http://www.stickam.com/ and after playing around a few times (thanks, Mossy and Rune!), these are some things that I have found:
  • Pros
    -there is no program to download, you just need javascript to run the chat
    -it can handle an unlimited amount of webcams
    -there is no pausing nor delays with the cameras whatsoever
    -you can mute everybody's microphone, or just specific ones, including your own
    -microphones can overlap, so it is like an actual voice conference (on Yahoo IM, only one person can talk at a time, so you get cut off a lot)
    -there appears to be a zoom function if you want one cam bigger than another, I just haven't found it yet. :P
    -I'm not sure how much Stickam had to do with this, as opposed to my mic itself, but Mossy was actually able to hear a dog barking in my neighborhood because I had the window open. :scared: Never experienced that sort of quality in a YM chat.
    -you can create your own chat room and make it password-protected so that random pervs can't participate. You just share the password with specially-chosen pervs.
    -the chat rooms stay around for an hour after participants have left, which is good if you accidentally closed it or perhaps more people log on after you figured it was dead. :P

    Cons
    -no archiving (Mossy was able to copy & paste text from the window, at least, though I was not)
    -webcam spaces are only slightly bigger than an avatar (the ones I capped were 119x89 pixels), which could be a downside for some
    -Rune's normally-perfect webcam stream was all pixelated and I could barely hear her. Not sure what was up there, but noting it all the same.
    -the window doesn't blink when there's new responses, so you do have to check back
    -I'm not sure if you can make your cam or mic unavailable for certain people to hear or see. Hopefully you can, but if not, it would be a con for me. Looking into it.
Here's a screencap so you can see the set-up:

[ img ]

Mossy was just on the mic, so her window is still occupied but without a video stream. Rune apparently lives in an orange submarine. ;) The other spaces are empty and you can just click on whichever you want - there's no assigned spot, if that makes a difference to you.

If it all sounds good to you, my screen name is evenstarnikki, Rune is theonerune, and Mossy is spjew. The entire site seems to offer a lot, I was just attracted to the chat part of it and haven't poked around elsewhere as much. Apparently you can record and post videos, in addition to music, which is definitely a nice feature.

Hope to see y'all around. :)




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