This is a revised version of an earlier post about the Dell Video Chat application for the Macintosh. Because of a problem during the installation, the user interface displayed by the software on my Mac was different from the one actually used by the Dell Video Chat service. This post now covers the proper UI.
With a little help from their friends at SightSpeed, Dell have launched their own video chat service, aptly named: "Dell Video Chat." It's a nice touch that a Macintosh client for this service is available. But is there a compelling reason to use Dell Video Chat on a Mac?
First, the facts
Besides plain-text and streaming audio/video chat, the Dell Video Chat package also offers recording and emailing 30-second video messages as well as a Skype-like call-out feature to connect to regular phone lines.
New Dell PCs ship with the Dell Video Chat client pre-installed and pre-configured, and their users get to enjoy advanced features --- four-channel video chat, extended-length video messages (3mins max.), and unlimited storage of these video messages -- for free, plus five minutes of free talk time to get started with the call-out feature.
For those who don't plan on purchasing a new Dell machine anytime soon, the client is also available for download in both Windows and Macintosh flavors. When using the downloadable client, activating the advanced features listed above will set you back $9.95 a month or $99.95 a year.
Doesn't sound too bad, really, but what is it like to use Dell Video Chat on a Mac?
Installation hiccups
The Dell Video Chat client for the Macintosh is distributed on a 16.7MB disk image. Download it, open it, and just click the DellVideoChatInstall.pkg file to start the installation process. If you need any help with this, though, you're out of luck: the disk image does not contain any documentation files, so the naked installer package is all you get. Which is a bit odd, as the installer only contains the very application. Distributing it as an application bundle to drag-and-drop onto the Applications folder would have been more Mac-like, but maybe this is an indication of the Windows roots and related attitude of the developers. The installation itself goes smoothly, though.
There is something special about the way the Dell Video Chat client software works, and the fact that the system requirements expressly list "Safari 3" indicates what this is: this is a piece of hybrid software that pretends to be a full-blown native application while its main window is based on a Web view that is loaded live from the 'Net. While this has certain benefits for the development and distribution processes, it can have some nasty side effects if something goes wrong.
E.g., if you are not connected to the Internet when launching Dell Video Chat, the main window just remains empty and there is no error message telling you why that is. In the case of my test installation, this went even a bit further astray.
After the very first launch, the black registration screen appeared, but I closed the app without registering an account. Next time I launched it, the main window was almost empty, so I re-installed the app, because, unlike a regular web browser, there is no way to force the software to reload the "page." Which brought up the (non-functional) window shown on the right. After a few more re-starts, the client eventually presented a user interface that was completely different from the one shown on the download website. Very strange.
Yet another clean install brought back the proper, glassy black theme, but "re-installing" the blue'ish UI is as simple as exchanging the old and new preferences files. Should you experienced the same problem, just close the Dell Video Chat application, trash the file 'com.sightspeed.Dell Video Chat.plist' from the Preferences folder, and relaunch the app. (The engineers at SightSpeed are looking into this, and I can't wait to find out what, exactly, went wrong here.)
Update 2008-07-18 Unfortunately, deleting only the preferences file will not fix the problem, after all. You need to re-install the Dell Video Chat application in addition to trashing the preferences.
Chats in black satin
Assuming that the installation was successful, Dell Video Chat is launched automatically for the first time, showing a sign-up screen. Register for an account, sign in, and you'll be taken to the main dialog screen, listing your contacts on the right and what I'd call a "media view" on the left whose contents you choose by clicking on one of the three tabs at the top.
Next to each entry in the contacts list, you can see which capabilities that contact's computer provides, and you initiate any type of chat by clicking on the respective button.
The overall experience with this user interface is a bit peculiar, as the software stands out due to its main window not resembling any standard OS X software in the least. Also, part of the functionality of the dialog boxes is even partially buggy.
The dialog box that is shown when adding a new contact is just an overlay over the actual contacts list, as shown below, and the layout of its widgets shows, shall we say, creativity on the designer's part, where conforming to standard guidelines would have been a better choice.
Some text boxes -- specifically the subject and message fields for sending a video message -- would not even accept more than a single letter, as if the text fields were just one character wide: type in a longer text string, and each character would replace the previous one. In the resulting message I sent, both subject and text message did contain just a single, lonesome letter.
For text chats, the software resorts to using standard dialog boxes which, compared to the slick, polished look of the main window, have a painfully bland appearance.
Beyond skin-deep
All criticism of the user interface aside, Dell Video Chat provides solid performance. Logging into the service goes smoothly, maintaining your contacts is a no-brainer, and the video quality is excellent. But how does it compare to the native competition on the Mac?
With the exception of the call-out features, Dell Video Chat doesn't offer anything you won't find on a Mac equipped with OS X 10.5 already: iChat provides on-par text and multi-user A/V chat, supports the AIM and Jabber instant messaging services, as well as ad-hoc connections via Bonjour, and also provides tight integration with the OS, e.g., for drag-and-drop file transfers. And for sending video messages, look no further than PhotoBooth.
Both iChat and PhotoBooth are fine specimens of Mac(-only) applications and, in my humble opinion, their (mostly) true Macintosh look-and-feel clearly beats the user experience with Dell Video Chat. Oh, and they won't cost you a dime in service fees, either.
So, unless you have friends or family who have opted for this service and you need a compatible Mac-client to stay in touch with them, I don't see a compelling reason why Mac users should need to run this software on their machines or even prefer it over what's shipping with their Macs already.
If you do want to give Dell Video Chat a spin, here's the download page.
Categories
Mac
Read More Entries by Jochen Wolters.
