should I use MSN/Windows Messenger or Netmeeting for video conf?

[Helen Taylor]

Scenario: Windows XP computers on a LAN and WAN (with a
firewall).Want to do video conferencing and whiteboard/collaboration
stuff, ideally more than one on one. Which is best tool or
combination of tools to use. I know some of the differences, eg
Windows messenger is XP only etc for video, but am not clear why
Netmeeting would ever be used WITH Windows messenger.

any advice welcomed.

 

[Jonathan Kay [MVP]]

Greetings Helen,

Either client will work, however keep in mind Netmeeting doesn't require you to connect to
central server (Messenger requires you to connect to the .NET Messenger network) and you can
call users directly via their IP. On the other hand, Messenger is a much easier tool to use,
and (depending on who you ask) has a better audio codec and echo cancellation.

A lot of the Netmeeting "components" are in Windows Messenger, for instance the Whiteboard
and Application Sharing functions are simply Netmeeting features which have been adapted to
work with Messenger. The way the components have been adapted however, doesn't allow them to
allow multiple users to collaborate at once (for instance, using Netmeeting, you can have
multiple people in the Whiteboard, but just starting the Whiteboard from Messenger, you
cannot). Some other reasons Netmeeting is used in conjunction with Windows Messenger is to
get around NATs which do support the H.323 protocol that Netmeeting uses but doesn't support
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) which Messenger uses, as well as video compatibility with
users not using Windows XP (although MSN Messenger 6.x is primarily used for this purpose
now).
____________________________________________
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com