Microsoft Portrait 3.1 released

[Menneisyys]

It was a half year ago (see review HERE) that Microsoft released the first beta of their VoIP / video phone / SIP program Microsoft Portrait. Microsoft has, in the meantime, released version 3.1.

I was very eager to check it out as 3.0 didn’t support front cameras on any Pocket PC’s, which would be essential for TCP/IP-based video phoning.

To make a long story short, unfortunately, the new version doesn’t support video phoning using front cameras either. It still only lists CAM1: (the rear camera) on all my Pocket PC models with two built-in cameras: the HTC Universal and the HTC Trinity (p3600). This is certainly bad news.

Furthermore, as far as the MS Smartphone compliance is concerned, it didn’t work on either the WM6 QVGA HTC Vox (s710) or the WM5 AKU3 HTC Oxygen (s310). On the former, it just displayed the “Initialize Portrait control failed” and, then, the “Get camera resolutions failed” info messages; on the latter, nothing has happened at all. Both phones are SIM / app unlocked and I’ve tried making Portrait work on them several times (yes, after resetting too).

All in all, it’s still useless for video phoning over traditional TCP/IP. Only get it if you only need it for voice / textual communication on Pocket PC's only (again, it seems it's completely incompatible with MS Smartphones, regardless what the product page states.)

[Menneisyys]

It was a half year ago (see review HERE) that Microsoft released the first beta of their VoIP / video phone / SIP program Microsoft Portrait. Microsoft has, in the meantime, released version 3.1.

I was very eager to check it out as 3.0 didn’t support front cameras on any Pocket PC’s, which would be essential for TCP/IP-based video phoning.

To make a long story short, unfortunately, the new version doesn’t support video phoning using front cameras either. It still only lists CAM1: (the rear camera) on all my Pocket PC models with two built-in cameras: the HTC Universal and the HTC Trinity (p3600). This is certainly bad news.

Furthermore, as far as the MS Smartphone compliance is concerned, it didn’t work on either the WM6 QVGA HTC Vox (s710) or the WM5 AKU3 HTC Oxygen (s310). On the former, it just displayed the “Initialize Portrait control failed” and, then, the “Get camera resolutions failed” info messages; on the latter, nothing has happened at all. Both phones are SIM / app unlocked and I’ve tried making Portrait work on them several times (yes, after resetting too).

All in all, it’s still useless for video phoning over traditional TCP/IP. Only get it if you only need it for voice / textual communication on Pocket PC's only (again, it seems it's completely incompatible with MS Smartphones, regardless what the product page states.)