I installed skype-2.0.0.72-suse built in June 2008. I’m using a Logitech Quickcam 3000. Here is what works:
Skype test calls for audio;
Skype test calls for video although with deplorable quality (I guess, this is a camera problem, so it’s irrelevant, here).
Skype calls to ‘real people’ work partially:
No problems with sending and receiving text messages.
Audio communication seems to work, though my correspondents complain about the low quality of the sound they get.
Video communication works partially, i.e. my correspondents can see the images I send, although in poor quality (they sent screen shots to prove this).
However: after establishing communication on both ends skype crashes whenever I try to receive video from the other side.
My questions:
Could this be a firewall problem (I use the 11.1 default settings)?
What format is being used by skype for video? Could it be that skype needs a helper application to render video?
Thanks for answers and comments. I have sent this to the Skype Forum but that seems to be a black hole as far as user queries are concerned.
Firewall: skype works in a way that even if both ends are behind a NAT or firewall, it uses a third node as a relay. One could think about the low band that you get this way but third party nodes are chosen only if they have high bandwidth and especially for the sound you dont really need much bandwidth. So firewall issues wont cause those problems.
It sounds more like a problem with audio and video settings, rather than with skype. What chipset do you have? have you tried recompiling the drivers? In many cases especially with Nvidia chipsets it works so much better if you recompile a driver rather than accepting what you get upon installation
It sounds more like a problem with audio and video settings, rather than with skype. What chipset do you have? have you tried recompiling the drivers?
I did not install any driver as the uvc-driver should be included in the kernel of 11.1. My chipset is Intel G45 on a DG45ID motherboard (graphics X4500HD, sound 7.1 onboard).
The funny thing is that incoming video does not work whereas outgoing video plus both-ways audio does work.
you can test both the audio and the video in skype. Go to Options - Video Devices / Audio Devices. There you can test your camera and for the audio you can make a test call and the message will be played back to you. Sometimes, for the audio (which i suppose is even more important), you can adjust the settings for instance of Kmixer. If you play with the controls you might be able to get much better sound.
Also, I recommend you to test your voice with another application, such as Krecord. It allows you to record your voice. That way you can see if it is a problem just with Skype or with any application.
If it is a general problem and it is not solved by playing with volume controls I strongly suggest you to try compiling ALSA drivers from scratch: search for your sound card here Matrix:Main - AlsaProject and you’ll get the instructions to compile. It is typically very easy and quick and you dont have to unistall the previous version of ALSA.
Even if ALSA drivers are installed with the OS, you may get a completely different behavior - typically a big improvement - recompiling from scratch. I had a laptop that was completely mute with the ALSA that was coming with the installation while the sound was superb after recompiling ALSA drivers from source
you can test both the audio and the video in skype
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I did that before (maybe I didn’t make that clear in my post). Both modes work!
As I had some problems with audio (wrong version of libasound2) solved through this forum and as sound now works well with all my other applications (vlc, kaffeine, etc.), I’m a bit hesitant of installing another driver, but I’ll look at that.
what i would do is posting in the Linux section of Skype forum. Its a very active board and maybe you will even find someone there with exactly your problem.
I would not know what else to suggest, sorry
