I foresee a possible need to set up an international video conference. I will be at one end, and people who haven't a great knowledge of these things will be at the other, with windows, I must presume. This is a once or twice off event, but there is a lot of significance attached to it.

How would I go about setting that up? I am presuming webcam + 1 microphone at each end, but I'd need a larger pic than you get with skype (in linux, at any rate). What software should I use? I can test it locally and debug the system.

You can try Ekiga, but since you're only having one mic/cam, I'd go with as simple as you can get.

One idea would be to get a BIG monitor, and when you fire up Skype, click the "Double size" button for the video. If you've got a decent webcam on each end, you'll still get a decent picture. The 2.1 Linux client supports the 'high-res' video (640x480 @ 30FPS)...a big monitor with a resolution of 1600x1200 (or less), and you'd be in fairly good shape.

Well there are a lot of possibilities, do you need whiteboard? Share computer screen? Are these 1 on 1 meetings? Is bandwidth an issue?

Many times it is a bit more fluid if you use a traditional telco for audio and stream video / whiteboard and screen to help avoid bandwidth problems.

If you want to setup a server and open source you could try "Open Meeting", ooVo (something similar)

or if it is a one or two off and you don't mind spending a little cash check out, Vidyo - which I think has a monthly hosted option. Of course there is always gotomeeting.com as well.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, I have a ton of information at work, but I am not there at the moment.

Hope this helps,

A couple of decent alternatives to Webex/GoToMeeting:

Yugma

DimDim

In my experience, DimDim works with Linux, whereas Yugma doesn't.

DimDim, I couldn't think of that for the life of me. I had a DimDim server setup a couple of years ago.

Thanks Everybody.

I don't need whiteboard, I need video & audio only. It's a prospective disciplinary process with a foreign witness or two. You will understand why I don't want to say more. Nothing is sorted yet, but if this is going to happen, I'll find out when my life will be crowded enough, so this is the time to sort it. I hate battling software against the clock.

On the strength of the comments I'll go off and look at dim dim