Hmm, that`s interesting. Because I am never able to have a simultanious conversation. How do they do it? Or what am I doing wrong?
Maybe it`s because both of us (my Dad and me) use the webcam`s built in Microphone. I will try and test if it gets better if I use a seperate Mic.

Sandra

Sandra,

I've used several webcams but none have done better than the Logitech PRO 9000 (and it's not expensive). I Skype quite often and have not been displeased at all. I will start playing music shortly with a colleague in another state.....I'll let you know about our experience.

Onward and upward,
cchallum

There is a lag in time with skype.
It is minimal but like latency, will be enough to frustrate.
The reason the audio 'seems' in time is because the video shows up at the same time making it appear real. In conversation a few ms won't make a noticable difference. In music it will.

There is an experimental idea that is being used in a few forums. It is a server software that syncs to the next measure. So you play a lick, and they hear it the next four bars of the click. Interesting, becasue it syncs both ends in the middle and sends it out.
Kara-Moon.com is playing around with it on their forum, and some have had success.
http://www.kara-moon.com/forum/index.php?board=67.0

Also, I think Skype is set to cancel out when certain frequencies start to feed back around. It's weird, sometimes when someone on the other end plays a recorded message for me to hear (by holding a device near the mic, no matter the distance), it will cancel out.
But if he records it into his sytem he can play it for me...
Just a guess on the sound issue.

About the full versus half duplex, perhaps Skype works the same as the plain old telephone company. The phone company will switch to half-duplex if bandwidth is limited or the signal quality is poor. Since there are so many variables in signal routing, one never knows whether you can expect a full-duplex service. Sometimes they will bounce the call off a satellite just to call across town. With packets in a message being routed all over and reassembled, I wouldn't be surprised to find the same thing happening over the Internet.

There's another more basic issue going on as well. Skype will automatically clamp down on incoming audio if it hears you talking on your mic. It's one of the feedforward suppression of feedback schemes that they employ.

Cell phone conversations work the same way in terms of lag. You can run this little experiment yourself: Call someone nearby with a cell phone. Have them start about 20m away, then walk towards each other listening for what their voice sounds like directly and compare it to what is coming through the phone speaker. There will be a noticeable estimated 100 mS or so delay in the speaker (and likewise your speech is delayed by a like amount on the other person's phone). It's not noticeable when you cannot see them and since both ends of the conversation are delayed by a similar amount, it's no issue. Skype is working the same way.

Try out any number of the online music collaboration services for a communication schema that is designed for this. Skype is not.

Put in these search terms in Google for different options: online music collaboration live


-Scott

sandra.
if i remember one program that might do what you want to do is called
ninjam. there are prolly many others.
all the best.

Ninjam is the one I was talking about over at Kara-Moon.com
Couldn't think of the name last night..
thanks manning1