http://mail.google.com/videochat
[http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/say-hello-to-gmail-voice-and-video-chat.html]

Damn, you beat me! anyways, yay!

Gmail blog direct link) http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/say-hello-to-gmail-voice-and-video-chat.html
official google blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/talk-face-to-face-right-from-within.html

Not yet for GNU/Linux! GRRRRR

Does the plugin work in Google Chrome?

DPic: Grrrrr as well :-(
But I'd say we should try with a different user agent. It must be flashed based so we shouldn't have any problem.
Plus I hope they're using an open standard so that we can have jabber video, audio and text chat to kill MSN once and for all

So I've got to download yet another client for Google Talk? I've already downloaded two! Seriously, when are they going to roll all these features into one desktop client?

why a plugin?

imo.im has a plain flash gtalk emulator.

and all my systems run linux...

I've installed the client on my Mac. But I do not see that "Video and More" link. Was anybody able to use it so far ??

Plugin based ? Awww that sucks... A flash applet would have made more sense. Plus use the new video element once the new Firefox is released.

Disappointed. Hope they'll make the plugin opensource.

Tony & PierreS

At least Empathy already supports voice and video!

It's not just a "Windows plugin", just installed it on my Mac OS X.

At Google Developer Day in London, a friend of mine talked with a Googler and said there will be video for google talk*. But I thought it was for the good old software, not the stupid and annoying Gmail Chat... :-/

(*) http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Talk/thread?tid=705cbff0b3a08bb1

(just restarted the browser and it really works for me)

Hey Ludwik Trammer... which browser r u using ...

Firefox 3 on Mac OS X

This is odd – when I visit the plug-in page it says "System requirements: Windows XP or later". If that is a system-dependent message (checking if the user is running Windows) it would be confusing for Google to do that. If I visit from a Mac with Browserpool, the message is that this voice and video chat is not available for "PowerPC Macs".

When I visit the page I got the the following requirements: "System requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 or later"

Luwdik:
I have Firefox 3 on Mac OS X 10.5 (Intel). I have installed the plug-in, but it does not show up. Do I have to any tweaking in settings or somewhere to activate it ?

No. It just worked. I also just verified that it also works in my Safari.

BTW, is this feature compatible with Google Talk VoIP feature?

I'm under the impression that along with installing the plug-in, google has to turn on the video feature on your account. I read this is happening in a roll-out fashion today.

Google for ever.. :)

I think Matt is right, it work for some (Ludwik) and not for the other chatters :-/

It's good idea, but the plugin thing sucks!
Why don't they just use adobe flash?

Here is a screenshot from "Voice and video chat" section in Gmail's settings (click on image for full resolution):

http://www.ludwik.trammer.pl/screens/gmailvideo.png

There is a "Report quality statistics to help improve Gmail voice and video chat." and the plugin is called "Google Talk plugin" here. The default audio device was wrong for my MacBook, but it was easy to change.

Flash alone can't do p2p transfer with nat piercing (which is required when doing video/audio conferences)

Some more screens:

Cam-shaped status icon in Gmail Chat:
http://www.ludwik.trammer.pl/screens/gmailvideo2.png

...and conversation:
http://www.ludwik.trammer.pl/screens/gmailvideo3.png

"Video chat is not yet available for user's system.":
http://www.ludwik.trammer.pl/screens/gmailvideo4.png

Just wondering... Is the video conversation recorded in your chat history ?

I suspect it's peer to peer, so I would say "no"...

For what it's worth, I can confirm what Ludwik said, it definitely works under Mac OS X, here['s the screen I saw when I was downloading:
http://bayimg.com/image/halaiaabo.jpg
Note the System Requirements.
Ludwik used Firefox, I believe. It also works under Safari for me

Also, google are giving discounts to people who don't have webcams
http://www.google.com/mail/help/videochat/learnmore.html
This page also has a widescreen YouTube video.

Pheew. It's standard based. Is Empathy already compatible ? I guess not, but that should hopefully be fairly trivial to add.

James, yeah, so Google shows a different "system requirement" info depending on your system... this type of personalization makes the help text shorter but that's just asking for confusion when people want to share that page with friends, talk about it, know if it works on their other computer, know if it might work for their friend, etc...

Why didn't they make this a feature of gears and use this as a key feature to roll gears out with?

I didn't have it on my gmail so I hit CTRL+F5 and it worked.

Try it.

Let me know what happens.

Now that it works, I went to try it out (although I don't have a webcam or mic at my desktop). But I figured I'd try it anyways.

So I went to chat with James. But there was on;y a green dot next to him – so I clicked on his name and it showed me this

http://aefreedy.googlepages.com/sysrequirements.jpg

So I asked him what he's using and he said a mac. So I asked if he installed the plugin (even though he said he did in the forums). He told me he had installed the plugin but he's using adium, through GTalk that's why I got that message.

I thought it was interesting.

<<he's using adium, through GTalk that's why I got that message.

I thought it was interesting. >>

Well adium doesn't support voice/video, so would you expect anything else?

I'd like to test to see if this works with one user in gmail and the other in Empathy.

No support for Linux?! I don't understand why Google boasts of using open communications standards for closed operating systems. If you are committed to "openess" support Linux.

> I didn't have it on my gmail so I hit CTRL+F5 and it worked.

I didn't have it last night but I have it this morning.

I installed the plugin on my Mac and it works in Safari and Fluid.

no powerPC??? Such a shame!!!!

"xam

Having mac support of any kind is good enough :D

I never understand why people have been hanging on to their PowerPCs for so long though :D

I have a similar problem. I have installed the new videochat plug-ins
in IE7, Firefox 3 and latest Safari and a friend of mine also
installed
succesfully the new videochat plugin in Safari and latest Firefox for
OS X.
We could both see "Video & more..." in our chat boxes. But when
either one of us initiates a call, the popup that shows the button
ANSWER appears so brief (less that 1 second) and one has no chance to
click the ANSWER button. When one initiates a call, we get these
similar chat messages: "[email address] is not available. You
missed a voice chat from [email address] at HH:MM AM.". several
times like in an endless loop.
Seems like a bug to me. Confirmed correct plugins are in the browsers'
plugin directories.

Google could record everything and interpret your facial expressions to detect whether you find the other person attractive or not (combined with chat history). Then they could make ads with 3D-models based on those persons you find attractive.
OK, this is far from reality. Just some idea that came up.

I found this article very interesting, posted by Ionut Chitu.

http://almaer.com/blog/gmail-video-lands-what-if-it-was-a-gear

Yes,from yesterday, gmai has begun to support video chat.

Sam ZHAO
<<Yes,from yesterday, gmai has begun to support video chat>>
Are you sure? What are your sources? How can I try Gmai?

Can you save your video/voice chats? Does google create script for voice conversation?

huh. vzochat is more better! www.vzochat.com

[itforex.info/2008/gmail-is-the-real-webim/]
Gmail video chat seems not very perfect at this moment. It crashes sometime on my laptop.

Ok, here's something weird:

All languages (i think) has this picture when you want install the plug-in. (notice that the person's name is Josh.

http://mail.google.com/tools/dlpage/res/videochat/en/screenshot.png
mail.google.com/tools/dlpage/res/videochat/en-GB/screenshot.png
mail.google.com/tools/dlpage/res/videochat/pl/screenshot.png

etc'..

But when i wanted to check how does the Hebrew and the Arabic look like i noticed Josh has turned into a hikingfan ;

http://mail.google.com/tools/dlpage/res/videochat/iw/screenshot.png
mail.google.com/tools/dlpage/res/videochat/ar/screenshot.png

Pretty weird.. :/

(BTW, the Arabic image is in Hebrew for those who wonder..)

A comment by a Googler about future developpements:
http://blog.senko.net/2008/11/12/gmail-videochat-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/#comment-88008

I like it. No lag with my video chat experiment. I hope Google keeps this feature.