Should I assume that Chat cannot send/receive videos?
Some talk in Aug 2018 about video chat. Anything happen after 6 years? Other discussion ended in June 2020. Another work in progress?
If I install Thunderbird (for example) can it send/receive videos as attachment?
TIA
~s
There are two different questions that you might be asking.
Both are good questions, but they are quite different. The first is a non-interactive scenario (someone just MMSs you a video, just like they might MMS you a still image). The second is an interactive scenario. I believe the earlier discussion that you link to relates to the second question.
I don’t know the answer to either question but I would think the first is more likely to work. However Wikipedia says that MMS video is limited to a 40 second video file, so not particularly useful even if it does work. Individual carriers may apply lower or higher limits.
For the first question, you can test it yourself (as receiver of a video MMS). However I would just use email for transferring video - and I would use the existing Geary email client for that.
(Email doesn’t care at all about the type of the content in the attachment. Email will transport an attachment even when the type of the attachment is completely unrecognised. There is of course a size limit for email that is imposed by the receiving mail service provider but those limits will be much higher than the limit imposed by MMS e.g. gmail.com advertises a limit of 157 MB.)
I can’t say anything about this functionality in Chatty (as the default SMS and Matrix client on the Librem 5). But I’m currently working on live video chats within the GNUnet Messenger application to get it working on the Librem 5 besides other devices.
So from my perspective there’s still a lack of API integration (at least in Byzantium) when it comes to accessing the cameras using pipewire and libportal. I hope this changes with PureOS Crimson, so a lot of apps should be able to capture or stream from the camera, allowing video chats to get working.
It’s also a little tricky on the Librem 5 since it doesn’t support hardware accelerated video encoding. So you either run into CPU limitations or reduce the resolution quite a bit. Don’t expect high quality is all I gonna say but I think that’s usually fine. Decoding video streams is not an issue.
I’d also like to add that sending video files should already be possible using apps like Element, Signal, Telegram and others.
That is not a option when everyone I communicate with doesn’t have to tweak anything that way. I’ve been playing with Samsung S24 and sending text with video is not a problem. It doesn’t need to ask everyone else to use email.
I checked with Koodo and kept getting hijacked to Telus site (parent company) but finally was able to speak to a Telus tech who couldn’t open my account, but said that 180 Gig movie should work. She was reading max storage.
I wish support wouldn’t make things up.
I couldn’t get a straight answer.
Maybe Puri should buy a Samsung and see how they make things work. You’ll need to take a shower afterwards.
Here we ago again. I though someone has tried to send/receive even a eensie weensie video through and to a L5?
Does that require the recipient to also use GNUnet Messenger?
You have my sympathy 
As well, do the recipients also need to use the same apps?
Every week I find out things it can’t do and only know of 2 things that do. Mea culpa emendi.
~s
Has anyone successfully sent and or received a video via Chat or with any other L5 applicable programs?
This is getting very annoying. Spend more time reading, writing, posting, trying, repeating myself, that I do getting any real use out of the L5.
OK. I’ll ask it another way. Has anyone that you know of sent and or received and played video on the L5 unfettered by band name phones and that meets or exceeds the Purism privacy respecting goals?
Too, I don’t know if thejackimonster suggestion [below] is ideal for privacy and protection. I looked at the L5’s PureOS Store > Socialize and they were not listed there.
I looked at Telegram for Linux [you’ll need to scroll down], but need to read a lot since it is listed in the “Apps Reported to Work & Scale Well” forum.
I hoped someone would testify that the L5 sends and receives videos much the same way as the duopolies can without having to get a account with some company like Meta messenger or Googles gmail.
Off now to read more novels. I wonder how much people need to learn to use Android or iOs
~s
For Telegram you simply need to add Flathub as repository, then install the flatpak of the Telegram desktop application. I think for best usage you adjust scaling of the UI once. Otherwise sending or receiving videos works with that as on any other device.
For Signal you need an extra arm64 build of the desktop application (or use a third party client but these were pretty rough in terms of usability from my experience). Sending files with that might not work at times for some reason (it won’t open the required dialog for that) but receiving is not an issue.
Since the GNUnet Messenger is using its own protocol and service, you need some app which is compatible with that. There are currently only two options: A graphical client using GTK and a terminal interface using ncurses.
But currently I wouldn’t recommend to rely on it just working. It’s still very much in development.
The difference here is that if new Librem 5 users have never used GNU/Linux systems before, they would have the additional steps of researching and learning some new things about using Linux packages (or troubleshooting them). At least, that situation applies when an application doesn’t result in “tap-use-succeed,” the way one would expect.
I have received video sent to me by text. I have not been able to send videos ever!