By Tom Mulhern
If you’ve ever worked with another person on a project, chances are you didn’t sit together in a room facing opposite directions. No, indeed. You either sat side by side or across from one another as you watched each other’s hand gestures and facial expressions, and perhaps drew on a piece of paper or a whiteboard. When we collaborate online, it’s usually "walkie-talkie-style." That is, one person types and sends, and the other person types and sends, one at a time. Over and over and over. But neither person gets the benefit of visual movement or vocal inflection to derive the subtleties of expression that we take for granted in our everyday collaborations.
Although it’s not a perfect substitute for working alongside someone, there’s a way you can use your Internet connection to establish visual contact–and it doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. Web video connections, and, for groups, web conferencing can make a big difference in your long-distance (and even room to room) communications.
The bare essentials. Luckily, if you have a computer, chances are good that you’ve made most of the investment that you’ll need to make. To find out how to get off the launching pad with this video-via-web stuff, I consulted Steve Leonardi, who, in addition to being the Manager of Network Operations for LogicTier, a company that manages large Internet sites, is well-versed in a multitude of things audio and video for the web. He says, "You need a small camera such as a Connectix QuickCam. You can get cameras with USB or parallel/printer port connections. The average cost for a color camera ranges from $40.00 to $150.00, including a built-in microphone, in most cases. The advantages of the higher-priced cameras are included software and some features such as a glass lens, instead of plastic, and the ability to make snapshots, or a remote control, or an adjustable lens. You can get software for doing web conferencing for free, or for less than $100.00, depending on the features and support you want."
According to Leonardi, the most common software packages are White Pine’s CU-SeeMe (Windows and Mac, http://www.netsales.net/pk.wcgi/cuseeme/) and NetMeeting from Microsoft (Windows only, http://www.microsoft.com/windows/netmeeting/). CU-SeeMe isn’t free, but NetMeeting is. "You can also set up NetMeeting for direct point-to-point communication," he says, "so you don’t have to go through a special server. So you set it up to go to someone’s IP address, and it works directly. It won’t let you do conferencing [with more than two users simultaneously]. There are other packages that allow you to do conferencing, but you have to buy them. CU-SeeMe lets you connect with multiple people, but you do have to go through their [CU-SeeMe’s] server." You can get up to 10 people on a conference with CU-SeeMe, a real boon if your bandmates or other collaborators are scattered far and wide.
As you might expect, you’ll get better results with a better (faster, newer) computer. Although each of the software packages has different requirements, a good rule of thumb is to have at least a Pentium-class machine–preferably a Pentium III running faster than 233MHz. You should also have a good sound card, such as one of the new SoundBlaster Live cards. (Mac users: You’re set if you have a fast PowerPC or G3/G4.) Steve offers this performance tip: "Video over the web is very input/output-intensive, so you don’t want to be running a lot of things in background. At the same time, you’re not really capturing and storing the video or audio, so you’re not using much CPU or disk space." However, should you decide that you want to save your sessions, then you’ll not only have to cough up another hundred bucks for additional software, but you’ll need a lot of hard drive space. In addition, the hard drive must be of the "audio-video," or "AV," variety, or you’ll experience frame dropouts or clicking and popping in the audio.
Online speed matters. What’s the best quality you can expect over the web? Figure on 20 to 30 frames per second, depending on the speed of your Internet connection. The software often lets you optimize for a certain speed, too. Steve elaborates, "You need to look at what they’re using to receive–is it a 56k modem or a 33k modem–and that’s what’s pretty much going to define what you’ll want to transmit at. The given now is typically 56k. Most of the software allows you to set the rate based on whether you’ll be using a 56k modem, a T1 line, DSL, ISDN, etc."
A smoother future. NetMeeting has some other features for collaborating, all of which you can expect to see on most similar software in the years to come: A virtual whiteboard is integrated into it, as is a chat window. You can even set it up to allow a trusted individual to grab stuff from one partition on your hard drive, and vice versa.
Bet on faster connections, better compression schemes, and faster frame rates, which add up to smoother-looking video. But even with a little jitter and a small image, web video is hot, and it will get hotter. Band meetings, songwriting, mixing sessions, recording, and musical instruction will all change as a result of this visual bonanza. Experiment now, and don’t be put off by the less-than-TV quality. We’re just getting started in this, after all, and it will improve. Try a little video and see what creative doors it opens.