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Sixteen person versions

This link to Koowy (previously MeBeam and before that WigiWigi) allows sixteen people to join in a video call. Select your own unique room name which will be hard for outsiders to guess and connect; when the window has refreshed with your room ready for calls, send the url which will be something like http://www.mebeam.com/your-room-name to friends by instant messenger (Skype or similar) which they click to join your call.

You all need to click "Allow" in the Adobe Flash Player Settings window and probably need to click the Mic setting to enable audio which will appear at the top left of the your video window when you move your mouse over it. Each person needs a webcam or the program will be disabled for them. It also disables after a short time if no movement is detected.

Type messages in the bottom box and Enter and they will appear with your avatar in the middle box.

Don't use an obvious room name like room-1 as rooms with names like this are public rooms sometimes infested with undesirable people doing distasteful things; usually you will see people already in these rooms and they are used like a public bar or club.

 
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Recent versions of the MeBeam conference program

WigiWigi MeBeam image

Willem, Ashod (the developer of this software) and me on 27th July 2007.

WigiWigi MeBeam image

'Dajavoodoo' (Simon), me and 'eezi me' on 30th August 2007.

 
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An early version of the MeBeam conference program

I tested this successfully with seven other simultaneous connections on 18/05/07 (only five other people as Ben and 'eezi me' seem to have got two connections!) - see the screen print below. Generally my download varied between 40 and 90KBps depending on how many people were sending their videos to me and upload between 10 and 18KBps. It is still beta.

WigiWigi Multi-test image

Rene and Ben (top), Willem, Ben and me (centre) and 'jojomantana' and 'eezi me' (bottom). Later Ashod (the developer of this software) joined us.

WigiWigi Multi-test image

Another screen print taken on 23/05/07. Top row: 'hackR' (Gareth), 'Fortra' (Wesley); second row: 'imon9', Rene and Willem; bottom row: me and 'jojomantana'. We were laughing because imon9's voice was very high-pitched, but still in sync with his video. He thought it was because he was using Linux Ubuntu but later found that it was another problem at his end.

 
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