Call to Japan - I need your help!!
Hey guys!
i really need your help here...
I want to do a voice chat to japan (from germany) and actually i hope for a video chat too.
The girl i want to talk to isn't into computers at all, but she is willing to install what i tell her...
now, here comes the big problem: she uses an iphone and a mac. She didn't know better when she bought this and of course i'm sorry for her, but i won't be able to change that fact at a distance.
I already tried webrtc and it failed miserably. She installed firefox on her mac and we tried firefox hello, voice version. She called me, i called her, we did it countless time... it just didn't work.
A video chat between my laptop and my tablet works that way, however.
I also tried webrtc using vline.com but it didn't work either... very disappointing.
Now i'm thinking of course about jabber/jingle/xmpp.
I told her to install jitsi though it will be hard for her to setup i guess.
Now here's the problem:
what xmpp provider do i use for me and her?
There are many of them and i can imagine that there are some slow ones out there... and speed is really important, since japan is far away and we're dreaming of a video chat.
I have a jabber account at jabber.at (actually i don't remember why i chose that one).
Should i use that one? Are faster ones out there?
Should i set up an account for her on the same server? Should i look for a jabber server in japan?
Do you have other / better ideas how I can make this happen?
oh and i forgot... the best microphone i have is installed on my cell phone running replicant;
so solutions that work between android and iphone would be preferred, but i see that this is difficult so other options are welcome as well.
Never used it, but this looks interesting, it is GPL for the source code.
http://bigbluebutton.org/open-source-license-2/
There is also Jitsi with LGPL, https://jitsi.org/
It looks like server software...?
Actually i rather want a solution for pc.
And I know about jitsi but what is the best way to set it up?
webrtc wise i have had success (only used it once with a techy. i forget
what web browser he used) with https://vmux.co it's free software btw.
hmmm what about (q)TOX? it's alpha, if someone would like to test video
and/or voice chat with me msg me and i'll send my address. I'd like to
try it :).
Thanks, but i would have to set up my own vmux server, right?
I don't have the hardware and time to setup my own server at the moment, sadly.
You do know that a server is just a program running on a computer, right? If you've ever played Freeciv, that uses a server-client model; any time you start even a single-player game, a server is started for the client to connect to locally. The only real limiting factors in hosting a server are your connection speed, your router (port-forwarding), and ISPs blocking ports.
There's no special hardware requirement. If anything, the hardware requirements for server software are typically far less than those of common desktop applications.
You can also get around having a dynamic IP address by using a service like No-IP.com.
I know what a server is ;)
I assumed that you have to install those apps on a running _webserver_ and that's what i didn't want to do if i can avoid it.
And yeah, i was mainly thinking about speed and connectivity..
i just checked my upload and it's about 800 kbit/sec,
so the resulting video quality would equal a one minute video at the size of 6 meg;
at that point i concluded that i can forget about this approach, but then i realized that something has to be wrong here.
I mean, the video i record _has_ to get uploaded anyway and since i already did a video chat, it somehow has to work.
So actually when it comes to band with, it's no different from using an xmpp server:
my video data has to get uploaded and i have to download the incoming stream. Only difference is that i'm sending directly to my conversation partner and not to some server.
But i'm sitting behind a router so i don't know if it will work out.. maybe i give it a try.
Subrosa.io is another F/LOSS project that works in the browser:
https://subrosa.io/
However, Pidgin and XMPP will be the easiest. Just pick a privacy respecting server:
http://pastebin.com/r2C69MUy
Oh, subrosa looks really interesting... though i fear the same problems as with webrtc, i will try it!
Are all xmpp server fast enough to do voice and video?
I am a translator!
tox didn't work the last time i tried it (a month ago). neither did hello firefox.
quantum - write your girl a mail and explain step by step the proceeding of setting up whatever you want.
She'll open the mail and just follow the instructions - everybody can do that as long as he/she knows how to read (I guess she knows english or german or whatever language you communicate with)
cheers
"She'll open the mail and just follow the instructions - everybody can do that as long as he/she knows how to read"
hmm sounds easy in theory ;)
i hope she'll get it done.
But first i have to look for a working solution and maximize my chances of succeeding fast by choosing the best programs...
Have you tried with Mumble[1]? Don't know if is the kind of software that you want as you can only talk (not a big deal if you think of it as a phone call). There are servers in Japan and it's very simple to use (the hardest parts are install and first configuration), but after that is as easy as open Mumble, select a room and talk. And of course, it has Mac support.
There is also a client for Android on F-Droid[2], should work with Replicant too. Don't know about iphone.
[1]http://www.mumble.com/
[2]https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=mumble&fdid=com.morlunk.mumbleclient
http://www.mumble.com/ is a Mumble Server Hosting Provider.
The Mumble's website is http://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Main_Page
It's really good, so if you looked for a voice communication software only, I would recommend it.
Probably the best would be to use a server which is somewhere in the middle of a route from Germany to Japan but it is not that important. I used US-based servers for communication with my American friends and it worked flawlessly even though I live in Central Europe.
BTW It's not hard at all to install and configure the client. However, it's probably the hardest part of the easy process.
@both of you
thanks a lot, i will resort to mumble once every video option out there failed.
Hello.
Having had the same problems, I would suggest Linphone. Is free software and it works very well in android, mac, linux, windows.... whatever.
Good luck with that japanese chick, I hear they are into kinky stuff ;-D good luck my friend.
If you need help with linphone (which you probably don't, as it works very easily) you can ask me here. I will check this again.
"Good luck with that japanese chick, I hear they are into kinky stuff"
:D
Thanks, i will try it out!!
But it's only voice, right?
Nope.
Linphone has video too.
Audio codecs are speex (16 and 8 KHz), gsm, pcmu, among others. I suggest speex 16 as it is free and you get very good quality.
Video codecs are VP8, H264 and MPEG4. Of course, go with VP8 (H264 hasn't worked for me for some reason).
It also has the ability to use ZRTP to encrypt both audio and video. Go on youtube and you will find some videos showing it off.
In my PC I was having some trouble getting it to work, but I did got it to work. And since it is available in all platforms, it should solve your problems.
It also has chat, but never used it. If you use it, let me know if it is any good :)
Btw, how is it going? Have you learned the truths about japanese kinky chicks already? :P
Forgot to put the website: http://www.linphone.org/
Also, don't forget to go to media encryption and choose ZRTP. You don't want them to hear what you say! (again, japanese chicks... kinky stuff... you don't what them to hear you!!!)
Firefox Hello?
Just give her a link and surely Safari should work decently with it.....perhaps.