[jamesharmeling]

I'm getting my kids Playbooks for X-mas and was wondering about the native Video Chat. How well does it work? I'd like to hear from some of you who use/have used this to chat with loved ones.

[Darrweng]

There's nothing fancy about it. solid and clear. as you have mentioned "kids", you can install Reel Portal and video chat with your kids (max. 4) at the same time. So if you'll be giving them a sermon, you only have to do it once!!! enjoy!

[robtanz]

Works fine. I do it all the time with my wife and kids.

[BlackStormRising]

I have a young niece in Sick Children's hospital in Toronto this week and she got a nice video call on her playbook from the grandparents today. They are 2 hours away so it was a very convenient way for them to pay a visit without the hassle of driving a total of 4 hours and paying for parking, lunch etc. Another of her uncles picked up a playbook on thursday and he'll be making a video call this evening since he's 5 hours away. Even after "visiting" hours are over you still have a chance to see them.

[snowindec9]

yea but rim doesn't have those video chat commercials for example in hospital like apple did.but the video chat works fine for rim.don't prefer form of communication from a tablet.thats what a smartphone is for.

[guerllamo7]

Hey,
I got one for myself and one for my wife. Then promptly got one for my mother in law (we have kids and she lives in Idaho), it worked great. Then I got one for my Brother and one for my dad. I still love seeing my smiley boys faces on the screen.

It seems like I'm single handedly suiting up my entire family. But, to answer your question, I love it.

Now, if I may make a suggestion. My family is not techie, I'm not either but relatively speaking I'm the Einstein of tech in my family so what I did is ship it to myself and set it up for them. That way, if they hear it ring they just touch the answer and viola. We are video chatting.
Also, I downloaded a bunch of video from my kids and pictures as well. I also hooked up her dropbox/bluebox and she can see anything we drop in the pics folder.

When they opened their BlackBerry Playbook box, it was already in a convertible case, charged-up, video chat was set-up, etc. Now, the one thing to consider with this is that you will have to create a BB user ID for them. If there is one think I've seen people are ready to kill themselves over when starting with BB is the access codes. I just set it up for them and keep it simple. Be mindful that the only way you can change the ID on the Playbook is to wipe it clean. I mean wipe it blank. It is a security measure that I believe is still in place. So, make sure you know they will like the user name and password.

Enjoy it.

[juliankueh]

Does video chat work while bridged?

[Deathcommand]

You're an awesome dad.

Mine only likes iPads. D:

But use Reel portal. and it probably works while bridged, Just might look horrible.

[peter9477]

I've found video chat as high quality as you could ask, provided your wifi connection is pretty decent. It seems to prioritize audio, dropping video frames if needed to keep things stable.

Twice in the last week I was on calls where one end had pretty overloaded wifi (too many other users, too little bandwidth) and in one case we had to switch to audio only, while in the other we simply had some video freezes and one dropped call.

The PlayBook's video chat is a sleeper "killer app" for this thing!

[reelportal]

You're an awesome dad.

Mine only likes iPads. D:

But use Reel portal. and it probably works while bridged, Just might look horrible.

Some users reported it worked with bridge, while others couldn't do it. I think it's mostly due to the carrier. Obviously, 3G is no WiFi quality. What you can do is manually change the webcam settings to suit your need, via Button 1 --> Webcam Settings.

For example, if you want high quality picture, then lower the frame rate (FPS) to 1. If its still unacceptable, then change the resolution to 320x240. Of course, everyone you connected to may need to do the same, since the 3G bottleneck affects all.

[myplaybook2011]

I bought two PBs - one for my folks and one for me for the video chat feature. While I was visiting them (connected to the same wifi just in different rooms of the house), the video chat always worked. When I went back to my place a couple of thousand kms away, we have been able to use the video successfully only once.

I've gotten all sorts of errors:
- the user is currently busy ...
- unable to connect to server ...
- (another that I can't remember right now)

About an hour ago, we tried again. I couldn't call them but my parents can call me. So that was okay. However, we couldn't hear each other. So we were talking on the phone while watching each other on the playbook. So funny.

I have another five days before my 14 days of return policy is up with Future shop. Please help solve my video chat problems so my family can keep the units.

TIA.

P.S. I have done the port forwarding on my router last night. Anything else that I should do?

[Megacharge]

Native video chat is great, I do video chats with my girlfriend while she is at home, it's very nice works well.

[peter9477]

About an hour ago, we tried again. I couldn't call them but my parents can call me. ....

P.S. I have done the port forwarding on my router last night. Anything else that I should do?

Sounds like one side or the other, or both, doesn't have UPnP enabled on the router. I believe that's the main thing you could do to improve things.