Disruptive Telephony

As much as I may criticize Skype at times, I continue to be impressed by the technology they create and the powerful ways in which Skype enables us to communicate. Yesterday Jim Courtney called me to test out the "upgraded" Internet connection at his home in Toronto and he used the Logitech C920 webcam he recently reviewed while I used my MacBook Pro laptop.

I swear I could probably count every hair in Jim's mustache!

The video quality was truly amazing (and if you click on the image above, you'll get a slightly bigger version - I was not viewing it in full-screen when I made the capture). Looking at the technical specs for the call, Jim was sending 1280x720 using the H264 codec. I was apparently also sending that level of quality over to Jim (although using the VP80 codec).

The audio quality was also excellent and we had a great call. Obviously, Jim's upgraded Internet connection worked perfectly fine! ;-)

Kudos to Skype for making this amazing quality of video calling available - for free - to all of us!

For those curious, here is the detailed technical info for our call:

P.S. If you weren't aware that you can get this kind of info, you need to first enable it on the Advanced panel of the Skype for Mac Preferences. Then you can choose "Technical Call Info" from the Window menu (or just press Cmd+5).

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