Manual

Get a (free) SIP account

Before you start installing Media Center Video Phone for Windows 7/Vista, first get yourself a (free) SIP account.
You can get one at SIPphone.com.
 

Installation

When you install Media Center Video Phone for Windows 7/Vista, you actually install two applications:

  • Video Phone for Media Center
    This application provides video conferencing functionality within the Media Center application.
  • Video Phone for Windows
    This is a stand-alone application for having video conferences outside of the Media Center application.
    This application can be used on any Windows 7/Vista machine. 

Even when your focus is on having video conferences from within Media Center, you're going to need the other application for things like defining your contacts.
So, let's first have a closer look at the Windows version of the application.
 

Using Video Phone for Windows

When you start the Video Phone for Windows application, you'll see an application that looks like this:


The toolbar

The toolbar contains the following buttons:

Press this button to logon to your SIP service.

When you press this button, you'll see the logon screen:

Here you can enter:

  • Your display name, that will be shown to people you're going to call.
  • The username (or in most cases: the SIP phone number) of your SIP account.
  • The password for your SIP account.
  • The name of the (proxy) server of your SIP service.

If required, you can also enter additional settings in the "Advanced" tab:

Here you can enter:

  • The name of the SIP registrar server of your SIP service.for connecting to your SIP server.
     (you probably don't want to change this)
  • The authentication method you want to use when connecting to your SIP server.
     (you probably don't want to change this either)

Note:
The parameters you enter in the login screens will also be used when logging in with the Media Center version of the Video Phone application.

or
 Use these buttons to connect to or disconnect from one of your contacts.
If you want to make a video call, first select the person you want to call in the contact overview, then press the (green) button.

Once the application tries to establish the connection, the button will turn red.
Press the red button to either cancel the process of establishing the connection, or to disconnect an established connection.
Press this button to add a person to your list of contacts.

If you press it, you will see the following window:

Here you can enter:

  • The name of the person.
  • The SIP address of the person.
     (which should be something like "12345@proxy01.sipphone.com")
By pressing this button, the person that is currently selected in the contacts overview will be removed from that overview.
By pressing this button, you will get a screen which you can use to search a certain person in the directory of your SIP service provider.
Since this function does not (yet) work correctly, it is not further described at this moment.
Once a connection is established, you can toggle this button to switch off or on the sending of your audio.
By default audio is sent the moment the connection is established.
Once a connection is established, you can toggle this button to switch on or off the sending of your video.
By default video is not sent until you press this button.

Note:
The latter probably goes for the person you're calling as well. So, at first neither of you might receive video of the other!
Before you try to send audio of video, first use this button to specify which video and audio devices you want to use with the Video Phone application.

The contacts overview

The contacts overview shows the names of the contacts you added.
Each name is accompanied by an image that represents the current status of the contact, i.e. whether the contact is online.

This picture means that the contact is online.
This picture means that the contact is not online.

The contact status information is updated every 5 minutes.

If you want to start a video conversation with one of the contacts, just select him/her in the overview and press this button in the toolbar:

The menu options

Almost all of the items you find in the menu of the Video Phone for Windows application correspond to one of the buttons in the toolbar.

One menu item needs to be mentioned, though: "Manage contacts who monitor my status" from the "View" menu.
If you click this menu item, the following window will appear:

Whenever someone else adds you as a contact in his/her SIP application, you will be asked if you want to allow this person to see your online status.
If you say yes, that person will automatically be added to your contacts overview and he/she will appear in the window shown above with a green image.
If you say no, the person will also be shown in this window, but with a red image.

If you change your mind about allowing someone else to monitor your online status, you can use the buttons in this window:

Allow With this button you can allow a person to monitor your online status.
Deny With this button you can deny a person to monitor your online status.
Remove With this button you can remove the person from this overview.
The next time that person tries to see your online status, you will be asked again if you want to allow that or not.

Note:
A small warning is in place here: if you deny someone the right to monitor your online status, that person will not be able to call you either!

 

Activating Media Center Video Phone

Before you can make use of Media Center Video Phone, you have to activate it.
Please do so the first time you start the application.

More information about activating our Media Center applications can be found here.

 

Using Media Center Video Phone

Once you got used to working with the Video Phone for Windows, you will have no problems using the Media Center version of this application, since it provides a subset of the functionality described above.

To start the Media Center version of the Video Phone, you should:

  • go to the Start page of the Media Center application
  • select the option called "Accessories"
  • and click the option called "Videophone"

This will take you to a page that shows the names of your contacts and their online status:lication will try to establish a connection to the selected contact:

If you select a contact and press the "Ok" button on your remote control, the application will try to establish a connection to the selected contact:

The buttons on this page have similar functionality as in the Windows application:

Once a connection is established, you can toggle this button to switch on or off the sending of your video.
By default video is not sent until you press this button.

Note:
The latter goes for the person you're calling as well. So at first neither of you will see incoming video!
Once a connection is established, you can toggle this button to switch off or on the sending of your audio.
By default audio is sent the moment the connection is established.
Press this button to either cancel the process of establishing the connection, or to disconnect an established connection.
Preview Press these buttons to position the preview of the video you send to any corner.
Camera
control		 If you have a Logitech webcam, you'll see the buttons shown in the lower left part of the page.
You can use these buttons to control your camera.


When somebody else tries to contact you, you'll see a notification within Media Center:

If you accept the incoming call, you'll be taken to the page described above.

 

Important notes

  • Media Center Video Phone for Windows 7/Vista is based upon the Real-time Communications (RTC) library by Microsoft.
    One of the limitations of that library is that it does not support many codecs (codecs are used to encode/decode your audio and video streams before sending them over the internet).
    For encoding video, the RTC library uses the H.263 codec; for audio, it uses the G.711 codec.
    Make sure that the persons you call use a SIP client that at least supports these codecs! Otherwise there is a good chance you will not be able to see or here each other...
  • Also make sure to press the "unblock" button when the firewall software asks you if Media Center should be allowed to pass the firewall.
    (it asks this question the first time you start Media Center Video Phone for Windows 7/Vista)
  • Finally, with "internet phone" software there's always a problem that someone else's PC must be able to connect to your PC, passing routers, firewalls etc. PC, in your PC's firewall and on your (ADSL or cable) modem.