Video chat US/China?

October 21, 2011 9:51 PM

What is the best US/China video chat option?

There are a few relevant older questions, but things change so fast that I thought to get the latest word. This is for personal, not business, use. Thank you!

posted by skbw to technology (9 answers total)

My family uses Skype - it works fine and it's free! Quality depends on the internet speed on each end, obviously, but that's a factor in all video chatting.
posted by estlin at 10:08 PM on October 21, 2011

My family also uses Skype.
posted by mollymayhem at 10:38 PM on October 21, 2011

Skype works well now. Microsoft just bought Skype, and Microsoft seems to have fairly good relations with the PRC, so it will probably continue to work.
posted by b1tr0t at 11:12 PM on October 21, 2011

I've successfully used FaceTime in India and china, fwiw, and greatly prefer it to Skype. I've also used cisco's teleconferencing tools, but they're not really oriented toward consumer uses.
posted by TheNewWazoo at 11:17 PM on October 21, 2011

I'm in China and Skype often has very slow connection speeds for me (the US version at least). I prefer using Gmail video chat or Google+ hangouts.
posted by elisse at 11:17 PM on October 21, 2011

Google services are often blocked in China, so you wouldn't want to depend on them. Skype works almost all the time, though call quality suffers occasionally.
posted by b1tr0t at 11:23 PM on October 21, 2011

Skype works for us from China to US, UK, Canada and Norway.
posted by arcticseal at 1:25 AM on October 22, 2011

Thanks, everyone. I will report back in the name of science. My friends in China thank you as well!
posted by skbw at 12:27 PM on October 22, 2011

You could also try QQ. It's An IM client, but has a video option. I use the IM part but haven't done video.

Chances are, someone living in China already has and/or is familiar with QQ.
posted by ctmf at 6:41 PM on October 22, 2011