Omnimaga
Omnimaga => Site Feedback and Questions => Topic started by: DJ Omnimaga on January 19, 2013, 02:13:21 pm
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I was wondering if the French counterpart of HCWP (video chat between community users) that occurs on Saturday afternoons in French instead of Wednesday evenings should move to Google Hangout like juju wanted to? While there are pros about it over Tinychat, there are lots of cons too:
Tinychat pros:
-Compatible with every browser except mobile ones
-Doesn't require an account
-The URL never changes. For example, TCAP URL on Tinychat is always http://tinychat.com/tcap/
Tinychat cons:
-Use Flash, which is getting deprecated over time
-Is very slow
-A crapload of ads
Google Hangout pros:
-Larger interface
-Invite-only it seems, so less risk of spammers
-Apparently it might be possible to use it on mobile devices, but someone might have to confirm this.
Google Hangout cons:
-The URL changes every week, so if no one lets you know it, then you can't join
-You need a Google Plus account to join. If you're not a fan of social network, you're pretty much screwed
-Doesn't work in every browser (such as Opera), which singles out many people who are not willing to open a different browser just to join and go through the trouble of logging in again and again due to their cookies/login/password being only saved in their main browser.
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Actually it's not my idea, but the folks at TI-Planet (Adriweb et al.). But yeah, we're testing it out because we seemed Google Hangout would be better than Tinychat for quality.
Each one have their pros and cons, so let's vote which one you prefer. Obviously, those with Google Chrome seems okay with the change, but as DJ_O said, that would single out those who have an incompatible browser.
Here's the URL if you wanna try out (redirection to the current hangout URL, which might solve a con):
http://tcap.juju2143.ca
Or else, there's always the Skype option (but it requires at least someone with a premium account to gets the cams on).
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Yeah, the issue is that I hate Chrome with a passion. The interface just sucks IMHO (the lack of a menu bar that I never managed to get used with) and it also has its share of compatibility issues too, such as Spoiler tags in Code ones on SMF forums. I'm not a big fan of Firefox either due to all the random freezes (although it no longer lasts forever but rather 30 seconds or so)
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Well, personally I have no problem with those problems on Chrome (the only issue I kinda dislike is the fact the tabs doesn't scroll so if you have more than a screenful you can't see anything, I guess it helps limiting your number of tabs to a sane value), so yeah your mileage may wildly vary, according to your preferences.
Also here's the similar topic on TI-Planet: http://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=11099
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I wonder if there should be a poll there or something with the same pros/cons (and more if there are any) so they can vote too? (or maybe they can vote here so no one vote twice)
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If TCAP moves permanently to Google+, it would be great if a tutorial was written somewhere because it is hard to find the right link to the hangout (even though this time it was okay since Juju gave a direct link :P), and once there, there is a chat on the left but it is not given that everyone sees it.
Other than this, I don't see a problem for it to move on Google+.
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What about HCWP?
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Another problem is that Google+ hangouts only allows 9 people per chat from what I've seen.
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Skype didn't use to require a premium account to video chat. Did that change?
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I think it did
(for group chats)
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G+ Hangouts only allows 9 videoing users at a time... You can have several in group chat
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Skype didn't use to require a premium account to video chat. Did that change?
It doesn't, unless there's more than 2 people in the conversation.
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Ah, ok. Didn't know that.
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Yeah I agree with the tutorial if it moves.
Also, I don't think Skype is a good idea, even if it becomes free, because the high quality causes extreme bandwidth usage. Also if you play games or use your connection, sometimes skype calls disconnect. I had this happen when playing Starcraft Brood War on my 2.93 GHz computer sometimes, using a 30mpbs connection