Memories and Overcoming Live Skype Problems

I was up early this morning hoping to have a Skype link up with some friends in North Wales at a Reunion dinner. Synchronising time after a clock change made some fascinating maths!
I had two Macs running and had tested cameras and microphones a number of times. A test run earlier in the day with my host at the dinner had worked well although there was some latency.

Given the live nature of the event I was keen to have an alternative plan. Once we started testing the link for the live feed it was clear we had a number of problems.

I had not prepared a message in advance but as soon as the difficulties occurred I started looking for alternatives. Given I live in rural New South Wales some of the bandwidth available to me limited the options I had.
1. On one of my computers I had the old iMovie version.
2. I used the iSight camera to record the picture and a USB microphone for sound.
3. I exported the video as a .mov file to CD format for a file size of 5Mb. (A one minute message)
4. I tried to share the file via Skype (the first time I had tried this) but the file share failed.
5. My host recommended YouSendit.com but I was unsure about the sign up requirements.
6. I decided to use my Google video account to share the file and despite the bandwidth problems I have the upload and processing occurred very quickly.
7. I posted the link on our Skype chat and my hosts at the Reunion had the option of playing the video.
I am delighted that I found a way around the difficulties we experienced. The Reunion was very important to me. I have never attended a reunion of any kind but the opportunities to meet friends from 35 years ago made me think about flying from Australia to attend.
My video indicates why this was important.
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=8185366881964703574]
Ironically the game the Reunion was celebrating was the start of my professional involvement in sport and I have spent the last thirty years working with educational technology in sport. It was fascinating that an early morning in Mongarlowe could trigger such memories.