[Tristan]

I discovered something interesting last night which I thought I'd share. If you regularly use the webcam facility on MSN Messenger, stop: there's a much better way of doing it.

Rather than clicking the webcam icon in the messenger window, go to the `Actions' and then `Start Video Conference'. This starts up a two-way video and audio conversation using a different (and *much* superior -- WMV?) codec to the regular webcam system.

Note that this only works if both parties are using Windows XP, as it uses the video conference functionality built into Windows Messenger (rather than the messy webcam function grafted into MSN Messenger by Logitech). It also has similar port requirements to the audio facility -- so if audio doesn't work, video conferencing won't (but those with direct connections or UPnP routers will be fine).

The only other drawbacks I can think of are that it automatically starts up both webcams (though it still works if only on party has a cam) and the audio system, although if you mute the microphone then this won't take up any extra bandwidth. Oh, and you can't resize the video -- the other person's picture is permenantely set to abotu the same size as the "large" setting for regular webcam, and your picture to about the size of "medium".

But if you and a friend both have Windows XP, then give this a try -- the difference between the regular webcam and video conference is staggering.