Windows Messenger 5.1 Video Quality

[Guest]

Hi there!

I'm trying to test out some windows messenger video conferencing between two
boxes running windows messenger 5.1 on my LAN. It works alright, but the
quality is awful.

Both messengers outputs streams which are about 12-16kbs, much to low for
any serious quality.

Reading your messenger FAQ it seems this is the expected behaviour when
communicating over a dialup. Of course this isn't a dialup. How does
Messenger determine the speed to send data with? Can I "fool" it to use more
bandwidth some way? Are there any other possible reasons for this behaviour?

By the way, the reason for using messenger 5.1 is that I'm trying it out
with my own SIP-server which unfortunatly (to my knowledge) MSN Messenger
hasn't got support for.

Regards,
Erik

 

[Jonathan Kay [MVP]]

Greetings Erik,

You're right, MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger doesn't have SIP support sadly which is a
shame because the video support has been completely redone. Additionally, Office
Communicator (which does use SIP, but needs a Live Communications Server) has improved video
as well.

There is a registry key for RTC bandwidth, but it's only intended to limit the bandwidth used
for voice/video, however you might find it worth testing:
http://windowssdk.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms775312.aspx

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Messenger/MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/
Messenger Resources - http://messenger.jonathankay.com
All posts unless otherwise specified are (c) 2006 Jonathan Kay.
You *must* contact me for redistribution rights.