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Here’s what Mast at Skype [had to say](http://blogs.skype.com/sites/et/2006/04/valgustatuse_saabumine.html) about Skype video. (He’s an engineer working with new and upcoming Skype gadgets.) Since probably not too many of you read Estonian, here it is in English

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Although I work for Skype, I never thought too much of this video thing. However, recently I had an enlightening and you could almost say religious experience with this feature.

]]>My sister lives away from me and thus our kids get to meet fairly rarely. However, one night we had a Skype call for the kids, with my sister’s kids also having a camera. By looking at my kids’ reactions, it was obvious why our family needs the video capacity. It had somehow never occurred to me before that a two- and five-year-old could be avid Skype users and especially interested in video calls, as the cost of phone calls to them is a fairly remote problem.

The very next day, I got myself a webcam, so that my sister’s kids could enjoy seeing my guys as much as my guys liked seeing them. And as it happens these days, getting such a gadget is not the same as just going and getting a loaf of bread — you need to figure out which one you need, which one you want and where they are sold (in our country, theory and practice often don’t meet in the latter item, as the local resellers keep fairly small stocks).

A short summary is that a good webcam around where I live costs around 60 €. You can also get one for cheaper, but their sensor is low-quality, small and with poor optics, and they can’t even deliver this poor result fast enough into the computer. Most of the cameras work fine when there is enough light, but in a darker room, the difference becomes much more visible. Logitech and Creative seem to be on top of the list, followed by all those Chronos, Chicony, Trust, Sweex and the other guys. I got a Logitech Quickcam Pro 5000.