© B Y ..S T E V E ..W E L S H
Oregon MacPioneers User Group (Omug)
If you are a big-time iChat AV user, you may think that you have it better than any other online instant message (IM) user on the planet -- and you would be right. But only about 80% right.
You see, even though Apple gave us in OS X another brilliant, clever and beautiful app in iChat AV (we are talking about features and design, of course), they left out a few features that puzzled myself and other veteran Mac users.
But that's where Ecamm Network came to the rescue.
We are going to focus on 2 of the several nifty app enhancing products the clever team at Ecamm Network offer: iChatter and Conference Recorder 2.
iChatter brings back a classic Mac ability
Back in the OS 9 days (shoot, even back to System 7!) I could make PC users drool with envy when I showed them how easy it was to have my IM messages spoken outloud via the Mac's built-in Text-to-Speech technology. That's right, if my cousin -- who lives in another state -- was in an IM with me online, any text message he sent to me would be read outloud in the voice of my choosing (from the Mac's default voices). Before iChat was born, this worked effortlessly with AOL's free IM client software.
But when Apple gave us the Star Trek-like leap in our OS with X, I was jaw-droppingly shocked when iChat did NOT use Text-to-Speech! Huh? This seemed like a step backward, not forward. I was having hard and fast withdrawal pain. "The Sounds of Silence" is a great Simon & Garfunkel song, but not good as the theme for my iChat.
The folks at Ecamm Network must have shared my pain, because they decided to give us iChat lovers back our power of speech with iChatter, a transparent, seamless and inexpensive (only $8) add-on to iChat AV for Panther and Tiger users.
After installing iChatter, my shoulders slumped downward as the tension oozed out of my body and a smile spread across my face that resembles the smile I get after stuffing myself with my Mom's Thanksgiving dinner.
iChatter gave back iChat its vocal chords.
For those of you who have never taken advantage of this vocal feature in your IM conversations (or Text-to-Speech, for that matter), you can simulate it by opening TextEdit, typing a sentence, go to the TextEdit menubar, then choose EDIT-->SPEECH-->START SPEAKING.
So what's the big deal about speech? Well, it's saved my bacon many a time. For example, I often like to tell the story of how, when I was teaching a class of students in a lab, I was all the way across the room from my desk and my Mac helping a student. Suddenly, my Mac could be heard saying outloud ... "Excuse me. The LaserWriter printer is out of paper. Please refill the tray."
Sure enough, I turned to see the red light blinking on our lab's LaserWriter printer.
This is an example of Text-to-Speech that you just turned on (talking alert messages), a feature built-in to the Mac OS, so many years ago.
When I IM, I can be away from my Mac and know when my cousin returns because I now hear his "voice" when he sends his text message to me. Now, iChatter is worth $8 alone for just giving back our voice to iChat, but, amazingly, Ecamm Network wasn't satisfied with just that. Take a look at the EXTRA features iChatter gives you:
Emoticon translator:
Now you have your own United Nations translator built-in. Yes, iChatter will actually speak out the traditional IM emoticons or acronyms for you! For example, if your friend types and sends you "LOL", iChatter speaks "Ha, ha, ha!" instead. Or, if you are sent "IMHO" you hear instead "In my humble opinion" -- much more conversation like, thank you. Way cool. And you can even custom insert your own acronyms. Example: I put in a Ned Flanders greeting of "Howdidly Doodily, Neighbor!" with the acronym of HDN (See screenshot image "Custom Phrases"). Anyone I IM with that also has iChatter installed will now hear my Ned Flanders greeting when I type "HDN". Okely Dokely!
Assign specific voices to different iChat buddies:
I mean, why does everyone have to sound like "Fred"? They shouldn't. In iChatter's Preferences/Settings, you can assign a specific voice to a specific IM buddy. Now I can hear a female friend in "Victoria" or "Vicki" voice, thank you. Even better, if you buy and install ultra-high-quality voices such as those from Cepstral (Omug will be posting its review of Cepstral voices soon), you'll be in reality heaven as these voices are truly the cream of the synthesized speech crop. (See screenshot image "Speak Different" below)
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SPEAK DIFFERENT: Give each buddy in iChat a distinctive voice. Sorry, all the Buddy names and either email or IM screen names are fake. Yeah, like I know Jobs! I have met Woz, though, so go out and buy his just-out autobiography "iWoz."
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Tweak the Tempo or Pitch of each voice:
Let's say you have a lot of buddies, but just the basic set of Mac OS voices. You can achieve a distinctive voice for each buddy by changing the pitch and/or tempo of an individual voice. Yes, my cousin now sounds like Alvin of The Chipmunks. What can I say, he eats nuts.
Separate Volume Control:
Set the volume specific to iChatter only. Or mute it (which is handy when you are in the middle of an audio or ).
Installing iChatter is easy, quick and smooth. Once installed, open iChat, then go to Preferences, where you will see a new icon on the tool bar at the top (See screenshot image "iChatter Settings" below). Or, you can go directly to iChatter Settings by choosing that command from the View menu. Here you can customize all the features mentioned above.
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ICHATTER SETTINGS: Check out the flexibility and features you get for $8. Wow. But prove it to yourself, Ecamm Network offers demos of iChatter and CR2. Seeing and hearing is believing.
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Sight-challenged users or those who want to enhance Apple's excellent Universal Access features, iChatter is a must-have if iChat plays a key role in your communicating.
If you are a Panther or Tiger user and love your iChat, don't go another minute with laryngitis. Rush to the Ecamm Network website, download the iChatter Demo (711k) and see -- excuse me -- hear what you've been missing. And while you are there, download the demo of Conference Recorder 2 (714k), too. Why? Read on, oh-I-thought-I-had-everything-I-needed online conferencing pro that you should be ... it gets even better.
Conference Recorder 2 preserves your AV experience
Now that iChat has its voice back with iChatter, you can easily add recording abilities (audio and video) with Conference Recorder 2.
Conference Recorder 2 (CR2) saves recordings as QuickTime movie files (MPEG-4), so you can easily view them in your QuickTime Player, import them into iMovie or even iTunes. Recordings are titled automatically with the name of the other person in your chat.
Like iChatter, CR2 is almost transparent within iChat, except for the recording drawer that is attached to the bottom of your iChat window (see "What you see is what you get" image below).
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WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET: iChat makes it easy to video conference, and Conference Recorder 2 makes it easy to record those videos. Image courtesy Ecamm Network.
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AUDIO RECORDING: With CR2 installed, a drop-down recording drawer appears below your iChat audio window. Image courtesy Ecamm Network.
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Click the red button in the middle and you are recording (the indicator at the far right of the drawer now glows red). The middle button has now morphed into a Pause button. A Preferences button is on the left, and on the right is a magnifying glass button, which takes you to a "Saved AV Conferences" Folder to view all your archived files (see "Audio Archive" image below).
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AUDIO ARCHIVE: When you stop recording, your audio or video file is automatically saved in a Saved AV Conferences folder.
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As Omug likes to do, we tested CR2 at "the low end" with minimum requirements -- G4 on a dial-up (56k) speed connection -- to provide the average entry-level Mac model user some real-world results, and we also tested CR2 with more horse-power behind it -- G5 iMac on broadband.
You should know that Apple's iChat is quite capable even on a dial-up connection. We've held many audio chats with other dial-up iChat users and it performs remarkably well -- clear, reliable audio quality -- even from coast to coast. And if the audio is good coming in, your CR2 recording will be just as good (see "Audio Recording" image below).
Of course, video increases the processor performance and online connection (DSL, cable/broadband) demands. As we've all seen on the web at one time or another, there are some pretty bad video clips out there due to low-end cameras, low frame rates, bad lighting, etc. Again, the quality that you see in your iChat window during a video conference is the same quality you record in CR2. But you can tweak CR2 settings to improve your video recording -- or at least give you a more realistic capture with the horse-power your Mac and your connection speed gives you (see "CR2 Settings" image below):
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CR2 SETTINGS: Default Movie Options, and custom selected Recording Options via the iChat Preferences window.
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By default, CR2 saves video at “medium” quality and audio at “normal” quality. However, you can customize your video recordings to image sizes of 110 x 134, 176 x 144, or 320 x 262 pixels; and frame rates of 5, 15, or 20 per second. Of course, lower settings result in smaller sized movie files. For example, with the default settings you can expect to have a 3-min. movie file of approximately 10 mb; with all settings set to maximum you will get a 3-min. movie file at about 28 mb.
This scaling pertains to audio-only recordings, too. We conducted a 17-min. audio-only interview with CR2 default settings and came up with a great quality capture and a 32 mb file (see "17-min. Interview" image below):
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17-MIN. INTERVIEW: A seamless, clear, audio interview recorded with no problems, even over a dial-up connection. Yes, that's right, dial-up. The Movie Info window reveals key audio stats and recording specs of the file.
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EASY PLAYBACK: Playback of the recorded audio interview via Apple's QuickTime Player.
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Other CR2 features include to the ability to hide the “picture-in-picture” that appears in s; the ability to display a recording indicator on-screen to let the other person in the chat know they are being recorded (see our final comment on this topic at the end of this review); and the ability to automatically record all AV chats or only with user-selected Buddies (see "Auto record only those you want" image below):
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AUTO RECORD ONLY THOSE YOU WANT: Don't think twice, auto-save those Father-and-Son talks, or those conference staff meetings, if you like, so you won't miss a word or a smile.
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And, yes, you can go solo with CR2 and record only yourself, too. This is quite helpful for recording, let's say, a training video, a "heart-to-heart" clip you can send to someone later, foreign language dictation, or a video podcast.
CR2 also includes a helper utility called "Convert To MP3" for those who have a need to down-mix their audio recordings to that format.
One feature that Ecamm Network might add for CR3 is a date-time stamp, like those you find on most digital cameras, which "notarizes" a document for those documentary or journalism types out there.
Missing key tools?
Now that your heart is pounding and you bought iChatter and Conference Recorder 2, you just realized you don't have an iSight camera for your Mac. But you DO have a USB webcam you got as a gift. No problem. Ecamm Network can make it work for you with their iChatUSBcam software. Don't use or like iChat, but you do use Skype? Grab their Call Recorder (for Skype) software. iSight owners can tweak their lighting and color quality with iGlasses. Or ramp up your multi-person conferencing with PowerBoost.
Other products from Ecamm Network include Drag 'n' tooth (Bluetooth transfers made easy from your Mac to your Palm Pilot or PDA) and DockStar (customize and add icon alerts for Mail).
Remember Ben Parker's famous words ...
"With great power comes great responsibility," said (SpiderMan) Peter Parker's Uncle Ben. You should understand that recording someone, audio or video, other than yourself, requires, in some states, the permission of those being recorded. That's the law. So confirm your state's statutes on this. Be wise, be courteous, be polite.
Overall, we found CR2 and iChatter to be excellent add-ons to iChat and we would find our chat experiences to be short-changed and lacking if we didn't have them. Products like these truly enhance an already good iChat AV experience for Mac users. Products like these -- high quality, seamless integration with the Mac OS and Apple apps, and at a low cost -- could (and should) win an Apple Design Award, in our opinion.
With Ecamm Network products -- as we have experienced -- the user wins, regardless.
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