Video has arrived – If you’re brave!
Finally Video has arrived on Skype for Mac! The video preview of Skype for Mac was released today. Download the video preview now. We know that you’ve been waiting… and waiting… and waiting… so we’ve decided to release video early as a preview version.
Now Mac users can make free video calls to anyone else on Skype, no matter where they are in the world, or what kind of computer they’re on, Windows or Mac. So you can see your loved ones when you can’t be together, ask your fashionista friend for advice on your latest outfit or pull funny faces to make a friend smile when they’re having a bad day.
Skype for Mac with Video is currently a preview version. ‘Preview’ means that we’re still working on it and have only tested it under specific conditions, therefore we can’t guarantee the quality users on different hardware or operating systems will experience. The full systems requirements for video and suggested webcams can be found on the download page and the known issues with this video preview are listed here.
The Video Preview is exactly the same release as Skype for Mac 1.5 beta, except with video of course. So you can try all the other new features we’ve added for Mac users too.
Download the preview and test video so you can give us your feedback to help make the final release of Skype for Mac with Video the best it can possibly be.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!
Great thank to the Mac team
Thank you! It’s wonderful!
wonderful. But how does skype recognize my iSight? When I plug in the green light show shortly on top of the camera. Then it turns off. I tried to restart skype, but… nothing. Any help appreciated.
Do you have iChat running at the same time? If yes, try quitting it before running Skype video.
Thanks very much. I’ve been using the early unofficial beta. even that worked wonderfully at times. can’t wait to test this out with my other friends.
In response to “henningharms”, you should open up the preferences and go to the video panel to see if your camera is working. (if you don’t see a video panel under the preferences, you probably have downloaded the videoless beta 1.5.0.48, instead of 1.5.0.47. i happened to have made that dumb mistake.)
this also brings up a suggestion i have for the GUI. a little video icon like the ones next to the contacts with video capabilities could be added next to the current user’s icon if his/her machine does have video capability.
How do I make free calls within Canada/US without having SkypeOut credit with the new beta?
Thank God! It’s finally arrived, and none to late. I was just getting used to using Wengo.
BrianDelicata all you need to do is look near and you’ll see where you type in a phone number make sure you have + infront of the number. So if you want to call for free within Canada/United States don’t click the “Call Ordinary Phone”, just type it.
Hope that helps!
… iSight is still not recognized by skype (iChat or any other program which might use the camera is turned off). Yes I downloaded skype beta 1.5.0.48. Where is the version 1.5.0.47 if that is the one which supports video? I couldn’t find it on the website… confusing isn’t it? Thanks for any hints!
Please follow the download links linked in this post to download 1.5.0.47 which contains Video.
You can find the download here
http://www.skype.com/download/skype/macosx/videopreview.html
Is the video stream encrypted? (like text and voice chat?)
wow! great interface, great program! some echoing with sound, but still, very effective. i tested with another isight user, works fantastic. now i want to try with a windoze user and see if any problems…
Yes! Finally! Thanks Skype guys!
Briandelicata,
Well spotted, this is a bug. The dialler should allow you to place free SkypeOut calls promoted by Skype. We are aware of this issue and we’ll fix it soon, so stay tuned. Until then, use the quickfilter search area at the top of the main window for entering the country code and the number you want to call. Sorry about that, bugs can happen to any software developer.
It works!! http://stfg.org/skype.png screenshot
We all love you skype…. U r the best
Wow! Looks very nice. Video seems to work well and the interface changes are much better than I’d expected.
Thanks for this release, but it doesn’t display any video on my 500Mhz G4, perhaps this release is requesting more CPU speed than the buggy one that was working (buggy but displaying video)… Still waiting.
Thank you guys! I’m very happy. For the first time I can do video chat with my pc-friends. It works very well on my MacBook Pro, video and sound is very good.
Looks great overall. Tried a MacBookPro to MacBook chat over the internet and although a little buggy and incredibly CPU hungry, it was nice. The main bug was that I couldn’t get out of full screen mode on my MBP; I tried clicking the minimize button and hitting Escape key. Neither worked. Cmd-Apple-Escape was my only savior, and it killed Skype.
Also, there is a very strange behavior when you have a video open and you drag the contact list window. The video window drags with it. Strange, and seems to violate every UI norm I’ve ever seen.
My friend and I switched over to iChat to see how they compared, and this is what we found:
1. Skype’s voice quality was noticably better.
2. Skype’s video had a noticably better quality image (less obvious compression), but iChat was noticably less jerky. Seems like iChat is trading picture quality for motion quality.
3. Skype’s UI isn’t quite as nice as iChat. iChat animates your webcam when someone else starts talking to you and allows you to move and resize your self view.
4. Skype’s video was brighter than iChat. My friend was in a darkish room. I could see him very well in Skype but only partially in iChat.
5. Skype used 140% of my MBP CPU, whereas iChat used 20%.
If you can get the CPU load under control and stamp out the reliability bugs, Skype will be the video conferencing choice for Mac.
HMMM
Have been using the internal release 1.5.0.17 –> the offical beta does indeed load up cpu more, & I find the video a little less fluid
BUT – the small window for the user – ie video within video is a plus
Using an iSight / G4 iBook with 10.4.7 plss iGlasses software. Had some initially dificulties in getting iSight to be recognised — but once sorted no worries
guys this is awesome. it is a very cool feeling to help somebody to get in touch and enchance communication. i posted the skype video preview link on one well known german mac forum and it has been seen around 1000 times by now. but hey, best example so far: my friend’s girlfriend lives in puerto rico and they guys have been waiting for skype video like for ages. so i suppose they are very very happy right now and will be chatting till morning
a lot of people are too lazy to read the blog post (“video preview”). i see a lot of people puzzled to find the video preview download link. looks like you are intentionally not providing a direct link to the video version from macosx download page? http://www.skype.com/download/skype/macosx/
THANK YOU SKYPE!!
1.5 is amazing, and the fact that we can finally use video is fantastic. I really think I might go and buy some Skype Credit just as a way to thank you properly.
Thank you so much!
Now all we need is video & web presence for Linux and PocketPC.
Thanks Guys, the video is great.
We switched from windows to mac about a month ago and have been waiting eagerly for the video mac version. It works great on a 20″ imac, the video and audio quality is excellent. We find that using the built in microphone and speakers results in the other party hearing their own voices about 0.5 sec after they speak, using a headset fixes that problem.
Otherwise, no problems or bugs.
Audiosetting in Skype for Mac is always lost! =(
There is still one irritating bug in Skype, which has been an issue for me in the latest versions:
Whenever I try to change the output settings on my iBook G4 to “internal speakers” instead of “headphones”, Skype seems to change this setting back to headphones. Howcome the setting won’t stay on my selected output?
I want to be able to use skype with both the internal microphone on the iBook (which works great), but I will also be able to use the speakers.
I thought the option to use either the speakers or headphones, was an option to turn on or off the echo cancellation in Skype, where the cancellation is turned ON while using the speakers.
I have reportet this problem for Skype, but I have heard nothing from them. Neither does the bug seemed to be fixed. =/
Any other users with iBooks (or other portable Mac) that also has a problem with this?
Regars,
Fredrik, Sweden
WOOO HOOOO! Skype + Video + MacBook with inbuilt iSight =
I have the same reversion of internal speakers to headphones with my G4 iBook(Fredrik,Sweden) in addition to no ringing tones with incoming calls. Michael Shirley
Thank you Skype! I love you more and more each day )
Well it all souns so wonderfull:
Skype+video+macbook!
I got that combination, but it still doesn’t work. is it strange or do i miss something?
video is shown and turned on in the preferences but in a chat nothing happens when i push the video button, and i got no “start video conversation”-option anyware.
can someone help me aout on this?
thanks!
Ok, I got a powerbook, a logitech quickcam pro 4000 and I got Skype. I downloaded the driver for my camera at maccam.com and everything works great! …Two issues though, resolution was just OK (I know I’m not complaining) and am getting really bad backfeeding from the mic hearing the speakers. I used headphones to fix it, but that looks dumb on a video chat. Any solutions for this besides moving the mic away from the speakers? It’s great otherwise so thankyou very much guys!!!
I am having the same feedback, but both of us are on headphones. I am not sure where the computer is getting the mic input from and still feeding it back to me, and after about 50 min of talking their is a horrible schreeching feedback and I can’t talk to that person for the rest of the day usually. Any ideas?
Thanks so much for the program though!
just signed up for skype. I have a mac mini and no camera yt. went to the mac store and found out that they are no longer producing the isight!! they affered to sell me a new moniter with built in cam. No thanks! my question is this; does anyone know if it is possible to use my sony handycam as a webcam? thx!
I have MacOS 10.5, Skype 2.7, and a built in iSight camera that works fine in iChat and other applications. But Skype can’t find the iSight camera. All other applications that use the camera are off. Skype doesn’t seem able to activate the camera. What do I need to do.