Skype reccomends a minimum upload speed of 1.5mB/s to use the HD video calling feature. You will, of course, also have to have a third-party HD capable webcam or a those built into the newest Macs. We tested out the service and found the video quality to be very good initially, but had difficulty retaining the HD stream, even on solid wired connections. Skype’s automatic quality adjustment kicked in fairly soon after the call began.
You can see that the quality is decent, if not great, in the first shot below, but then degraded significantly over the next few minutes. The upgrade to support Lion is a welcome one, although the much-maligned Mac interface has not recieved any significant changes in 5.3. The HD video calling is also a great upgrade, although the jury is still out on how well Skype is able to maintain an HD stream, even over a solid connection.
If you try out Skype 5.3 for Mac’s HD feature, let us know how it works for you in the comments below.
Hi, With the forthcoming kill switch about to be flicked for v4.3, I finally 'upgraded' to the 5.3 version, hoping that all the show-stopping bugs would've been removed at this stage. Sadly this does not appear to be the case. I removed the old version of skype from my Ubuntu 14.04 desktop and cleared the config files. Then I downloaded the 64 bit deb from the website, and installed using `sudo dpkg -i skypeforlinux-64.deb`. So far, so good.
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The app starts up and allow me to login to see my contacts. It correctly shows online status of those contacts, and instant messaging works fine. However, when attempting to place a call, the it fails, claiming the other party is 'Busy'.
Looking at the log in $HOME/.config/skypeforlinux/logs/skype-startup.log reveals the following entry: 3628:0629/089:ERROR:audiosendstream.cc(90) Failed to set up send codec state. Could I get clarity on the current state of the 'Beta'? Is Ubuntu 14.04 not a supported platform? How can a technical person troubleshoot this problem and get it working? EDIT: The log error seems to be revealing an issue in chromium webrtc, which Microsoft must be using in this Skype client. Line 90 of audiosendstream.cc (as indicated from the log) indicates that it is failing when calling a method ConfigureStream (source code link: The source code indicates that the error in the log is written out with LSERROR verbosity.
Does anyone know if there is a configuration setting in the Skype settings.json (or elsewhere) that can increase this verbosity level? A comment from a Microsoft representative would be appreciated. Hi Peter and thanks for your reply. My elderly parents use Skype for Linux daily in order to keep in touch with their family who are spread around the world.
The switching off of 4.3 will have a huge impact on them. They have used Linux for years now and found the experience very good, and I have peace of mind that they cannot be affected by the rampant virus outbreaks and ransomware that is so ever-present these days. Could you provide a little more detail about your 14.04 install please? The hardware you are running it on, any 'customisations' you may have made or is it very standard? Hi JSV and thankyou for your reply.
I have checked the ubuntu-restricted-extras and it is already installed: $ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras Reading package lists. Done Building dependency tree Reading state information.
Done ubuntu-restricted-extras is already the newest version I would be a little surprised if the deb file either didn't include all of its own required codecs, or didn't declare a dependency on this package, but it was worth checking for sure. Thanks for your input. If you have any other ideas then I'd love to hear them:). Hi Running pretty standard 14.04 here with Gnome Flashback in preference to the resource hog unity interface, on Lenovo X201 with only 4GB RAM, added a few apps like VLC, browsers & clocks, ohh, & Skype. Suspect moving from Unity to Gnome Flashback freed up quite a bit of resource for Ubuntu to run smoothly.
Linux is perfect for the use you describe, safe, and found with Gnome Flashback so easy to use, and runs on budget laptops:). I fear that there are many in this situation that will find themselves in a difficult situation, especially as auto answer and a restricted contact group makes keeping in touch so much easier, and safer in that you can still call if they have had a problem and need you to organise assistance, can take a call without rushing to the computer, or are just asleep & you do not want to wake them. My guess is that these issues may not be resolved for some time based on Microsoft's performance here. So the other option would be to go Apple Mac, the security risk levels are not quite as good as with Linux, you do get the benefit of a full version of Linux, Macs also can automatically restart and return to where they were after a power cut, Macs don't like temperatures over 35C and high humidity (condensing on walls levels) and they do have a higher initial cost new & used. IBM, based on 440 000 employees, & 90 000 Macs reckon each employee that uses a Mac in preference to Windows saves the company between $275 & $530, so it is only the initial cost issue, guess Linux would be somewhere in the middle of Macs & Windows here? Previously used Macs are a much better buy than used Windows computers as Apple MacOS has nothing like the DLL and similar problems, would suggest not older than about 2011 to use the latest version of the OS (but with extra RAM).
Have helped quite a few 'seniors' to get online, those who went for Windows usually gave up as the hassle of running a Windows computer exceeded the benefit of being online, the Linux users stuck with it, & the Mac users enjoyed their computing. I quickly looked this up and both electron and chromium have experienced this issue. There does not seem to be sufficient data to pin a root cause down, but if I were to guess, I would say a newer version of chromium attempted to connect to an older version, and WebRTC failed due to incompatibilities (not backwards compatible). All that to say, is the other person using the latest Skype? It maybe that you are calling an older version, and the underlying technology is incompatible. This seems to not have been an issue with Skype For Linux 4.3, but then again, it was not web-based, and did not use chromium nor electron. Try to connect with another person and see if this is an intermittent issue.
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If it is, then it is poor fault-tolerance on Skype, whereby you can only connect to the latest versions. Based on the current state of the 'Beta', this would not surprise me. Hi JSV and thankyou again for your insightful reply.
I have tried various permutations of versions and managed to discover that the problem centres around connectivity between Skype for Linux 5.3 attempting to either place or receive a call from Skype for Linux 4.3. When using 5.3 to call versions of Skype on Windows machines, the call mostly negotiates and connects successfully after some delay. Call quality leaves something to be desired, but it at least works generally. Whilst this is a far from ideal situation, what it does mean is that 4.3 is the problematic version, and since it is officially obsolete as of this coming weekend that will cease to be a problem.
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Thankyou for taking the time to assist me with your research into the problem and forwarding your ideas on, they were very helpful indeed and I think I can make this work moving forward, albeit with a little frustration. Hi Steve You are fortunate that can make this work. Not the case here, skeleton version, as Skype for web, is a very basic video call app which is great for competing with the target group that the very different Google Hangouts is pursuing, as have said elsewhere, comparing the skeleton version with the desktop version is like comparing a bike with a car, sure they both offer transport, however the bike is not much use for that urgent business meeting 100 miles away today! My communications are based around the connectivity and feature set of the desktop version unique to Skype, have often tried the skeleton version, but it fails to offer more than a tiny fraction of the communication with desktop 4.3 Skype. Done the feedback bit as well but that seems to be ignored. Not in a position here either to get a Mac laptop that would offer the same communication as desktop Skype for Linux, though not in as elegant fashion as Linux Skype.
Skype / Microsoft shafted Mac version of Skype 6 years ago when they started the 5.xx series for Skype for Mac, replacing the elegant and vastly more space efficient v 2.8 leading to so many new Mac forum members complaining about the poor design (up to about a thousand posts per thread by new posters!) that the forum was shut down about the time Microsoft bought Skype. Hi Peter and thankyou for your reply.
Sadly migrating to a Mac is not really a tractable option in this case. It is hard to justify the purchase of additional hardware in order to maintain Skype connectivity - if that were the case I would probably buy them a 2nd hand XBox and get it to work through their TV.
Through some experimentation I have managed to get 5.3 to connect to other Skype versions from a very vanilla install of 14.04 64bit with Gnome Flashback (I see you have good taste!), with the exception of.Skype for Linux 4.3. This probably gets me far enough forward for now to make it a workable option, and hope that Microsoft iterates quite heavily on this Beta version that is in desperate need of some attention. All the best. Well done Steve, hope that continues to work. My guess is that with elderly relatives the auto answer function would be useful, have you found a way to get that working? Lazarus alternatives for mac os x.
The other issues such as screen share are way outside the pay grade of Skype for Web & skeleton Skype for Linux, so have to hope that Microsoft entertain the so often repeated requests and bring it in, however, I think the design basics of the Electron version probably prevents that working? Do keep the post informed of any work arounds you find Thanks.