This Chirstmas I was not able to make the trek back to Texas from California to visit with my family for the Holidays and I was really dissapointed that I wouldn't be able to be there for the food, family, and festivities.  However, thanks to the Xbox Live Vision Cam I was able to be part of everything still. 

About a week before Xmas, I found out that all of my family was going to be at my Aunt and Uncle's house for Christmas dinner and gift exchange.  I gave them a call and told them about the idea that I had to still be a part of the Holiday festivities over Xbox Live and they both thought that it was a great idea and were really excited that we'd still all be together on Xmas. 

We tested it out and got out the camera angle and focus right a couple of days before and were very pleased with how clear and smooth both video streams were.  The only problem that we were having was with the audio.  While we got the voice input coming out of the speakers it was difficult to get ambient noise or more than two people talking back and forth to each other.  Our fix was to just pass the headsets around when ever anyone wanted to talk to someone, which turned out just fine.

Xmas came and everyone showed up at my Aunt and Uncle's house for Christmas Lunch and for the present exchange which would be live over the Live VisionCam.  We started a chat just before lunch to say hello to everyone and after about 15 min of the microphone being passed around they left and went to go eat.  About an hour and a half later they called and said that they were ready for the presents and so we started another Video Chat and watched everyone rip into thier gifts and we took our turn in the rototation.  I got a chance to talk to my Great-Grandmother and she thought that the Video Chat was a good idea and it was like some thing out of Star Trek. (My Great-Grandma loves Star Trek: TNG)  So all-in-all the Video Chat was a huge sucess all around, everyone loved it and it was really nice being able to still be a part of the family celebration even though there was 1,500 miles between us.