Video Chat - anyone know anything?

[MarkerMouse]

Anyone out there have any experience with video chat? My new laptop has a built in webcam. I haven't really looked into it much. I know Yahoo! messenger has a webcam feature that allows you to transmit a live picture, but no audio.

I've heard about Skype, and others but am wondering if anyone has tried anything, or what they thought about them. As with everything there are no doubt good choices and bad choices.

I'm always a bit cautious about free internet tools, not wanting to invite a flood of spam, or other undesirable consequences.

So, who has some insite into these things?

 

[jsmith]

both yahoo and msn messengers have voice features that work pretty well-MSN is lower bandwidth and a little more forgiving of network instablitiy.

 

[DisneyJen0504]

I use Skype all the time to talk to our friends that recently moved to NC. It is so easy. Download from skype.com, set up your username which you need to give to the people you want to talk to and vice versa. Then you both log in and one calls the other one and voila! You are skyping. Its so easy and free as long as you don't choose any of the extra features.