# The iChatAV Startlers' Community



## toast (Jul 1, 2003)

I don't know how you iChat AV users feel, but for my own, I'm experiencing a new, incredible phenomenon.

I am part of the iChatAV Startlers' Community.

Idea est: I spend at least 15 minutes everyday startling my PC friends with iChatAV's audio feature (I don't have a cam, but the audio is enough for me).

It's a four-step process:
1) Invite a PC friend at home.
2) Invite one of your iChat buddies to audio-chat while he's not looking.
3) Start speaking with your most natural voice to some unknown Mac geek located 10,000 miles from your place.
4) Look at your PC friend's face.

I feel I'm part of a new movement. A few years ago, PC users bragged all day, telling us how restrained was the game choice on Mac and how slow they were. Today, I am the one showing them I can phone anyone on the planet for not a single extra ¢ 

Other experiences ? 
(PS: Mr. Florida, please post here, I unfortunately forgot your forum nickname; I have written down your AIM nickname, though).


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## Lycander (Jul 1, 2003)

*sighs*

http://www.teamspeak.org
For Windows and I think Linux.

NetMeeting is built into Windows, voice and video communications. Even ICQ had peer to peer voice chat. I'm not here to put down the Mac, I like it too and I'm an owner of an iMac flat panel and iBook. My point I'm trying to make is the technology has been around a LONG time now. It's just that not many people take notice or bother to find it.

I can only applaud Apple for making a BIG deal about something so simple and make it appear "revolutionary." And Mac users eat it up.

Before anyone gets mad at me and cuss me out, just think for a moment: do you really know other computer platforms well enough to understand what is and what is not available or possible to do? With all due respect to your friends, if they didn't know that voice and video over IP was possible for the PC then it's not really worth your effort to try to impress them...


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## Captain Code (Jul 1, 2003)

That software requires a server and a client to work.  All the other VoIP and video conferencing software requires you to do port forwarding.  That limits you to using it on only one computer on your LAN.  

The thing about iChat is that you don't need to do port forwarding on a router.  If you have a firewall it must have ports open, but most people behind a NAT router don't run another firewall on their computer.   

iChat makes it very easy, and that's what makes it so much better than anything else out there.  You click one button and you are chatting with someone.


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## Lycander (Jul 1, 2003)

With iChat is it possible for more than 2 people to connect and talk like a group meeting of sorts? I mean that as just a question because it would be nice to have in iChat. What attracted me to TeamSpeak is this very fact. It was designed for game players. I don't use it for games but I have a special group of friends and we get together and talk via Teamspeak. So client/server setup isn't so bad, only one person has to do the extra work of setting it up.

I don't see how port forwarding is a problem because I've used numerous apps that talk on a specific port and I never had to do port forwarding for them. Only when I'm running a server like FTP/WWW/webcam.


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## joshuajestelle (Jul 1, 2003)

Its true that video conferencing and voice over IP are not new revolutionary technologies, there are plenty of solutions out there on many different platforms.

I agree that Apple does have a tendency to make everything they do seem revolutionary, but I applaud them for that.  Their marketing is terriffic and they get people excited about things.

But most of all, with iChat AV they've brough audio and video conferencing to the masses.  Anyone with a Mac now can *extremley* easilly set this up and use it.

Josh


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## Captain Code (Jul 1, 2003)

iChat isn't really video conferencing because it's only between 2 people.  It's more of a video chat.

Port forwarding isn't hard, but if I have 2 or more computers I want to use the same software on at different times, or the same time, it wouldn't work.  A port has to be pointed at a single machine on the LAN, and not more than one.


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## kendall (Jul 1, 2003)

iChat AV is amazing.  I'm sure PC users will be thrilled to see that Mac users using iChat now have the same functionality that they had with Netmeeting 5 years ago.


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## Captain Code (Jul 1, 2003)

Have you ever used netmeeting?  Complete POS.


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## toast (Jul 1, 2003)

Indeed ! Audio/Video conferencing has always rhymed with impossible config and problems before iChat AV, AFAIK.


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## fbp_ (Jul 1, 2003)

aim had voice chat in 1999...


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## buggerit (Jul 1, 2003)

kendall! buddy!! [insert flame-bait here]


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## adambyte (Jul 1, 2003)

Sure, of course there have been other voice-chat features in other products, and video-conferencing isn't anything new.... but iChat AV is the first app that, (for ME, anyway) has actually WORKED and not skipped a beat over a MODEM connection. MODEM! 

So.... it's no first for anybody else, but it's a first for me.


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## MacFreak (Jul 1, 2003)

Did you know that you can use Ohphonex for MacOS X will work with netmeeting video conference?!


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## Anim8r (Jul 1, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Lycander _
> **sighs*
> 
> http://www.teamspeak.org
> ...



I have tried just about everything with the exception of teamspeak. They all pretty much sucked.

I am constantly amazed at the quality and ease of connecting with iChat AV. It aint that it is new that is revolutionary, it's that it just works.

Oh, and Toast... it's me! The florida guy. Bon Soir mon ami!

And to all the PC trolls, I will add this in keeping with the french... Bon Chance, le petom du chavalle! 

Apologies to the french speakers, as I told Toast, my french sucks as bad as NetMeeting.


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## Lycander (Jul 2, 2003)

Ok I'll give the people what they want.

Hello I'm a PC user for hmm... 6 or 7 years? Yeah I used NetMeeting to talk to a friend on the other side of the world. It worked once then never again. Dunno why? Hmm... but then I hear iChat works all the time! And it's so easy! This is great!

Ok I admit that paragraph was half in jest. What can I say, I'm a geek, I play around with different OSes and different hardware and I can be too critical of details a sane person wouldn't care about. Apple brings technology to the masses, that's one statement I'll agree with. The technology has always been there except not many companies know how to exploit it and "bring it to the masses" like Apple.


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## toast (Jul 2, 2003)

Is iChat standards, BTW ? Is it supposed to work with MSN, for example ?


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## Captain Code (Jul 2, 2003)

It's based on standards, which probably means it uses MPEG4 for the video and audio(AAC).
It uses AOL's protocol for messaging over the internet but I'm not sure what it uses for rendezvous chat. 

MSN uses their own proprietary protocol for their chat, video & audio.  If they wanted, it wouldn't be hard to make it compatible with iChat's A/V, but I don't see that happening.  MS prove me wrong!


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## DualG4X (Jul 2, 2003)

Did you say something about Micro$oft using proprietary protocols for their software?? no not micro$oft, it cant be, why would they do that.
HAHAHAHA


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## Captain Code (Jul 2, 2003)

Yep.  AOL's is proprietary(AFAIK) as well, but they opened it up to Apple so they could make iChat.


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## toast (Jul 2, 2003)

Wasn't it said MSN and AIM may get compatible one day (was in the CNEt newsletter a month ago) ?


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## Lycander (Jul 2, 2003)

AOL's isn't proprietary at all, otherwise we wouldn't have AIM chat clients in Linux


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## Captain Code (Jul 2, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Lycander _
> *AOL's isn't proprietary at all, otherwise we wouldn't have AIM chat clients in Linux  *



Maybe.  I thought they just reverse engineered the protocol, like some developers have done with MSN to make 3rd party clients.


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## Lycander (Jul 2, 2003)

I don't recall if the 3rd party clients supported contact lists stored on AOL servers, so you might be right that the developers just reverse engineered the protocol.

ICQ inc. releases the specs to older ICQ protocols, but they're kinda hard to find.


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## boult (Jul 2, 2003)

> _Originally posted by MacFreak _
> *Did you know that you can use Ohphonex for MacOS X will work with netmeeting video conference?! *



Yeah that's right  Ohphonex is netmeeting compatible which can be grabbed from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=74721

be sure you get the "b" one... 

or you can compile... 
http://xmeeting.sourceforge.net/
http://www.openh323.org/


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## garymum4d (Jul 3, 2003)

iChat AV brings video conf to the masses!!.................Providing they have a Mac faster than 600Mhz. Anyone with an older/slower mac....Tough!!!


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## SoulCollector (Jul 3, 2003)

Hmm just curious though..like Ichat you can have alot of buddy IMS on one screen ... can you have that with Video ..or Audio that would be sooo crazzyyyyy... like you have all these windows open of peoples head at one time....you can only hear them when you click on it??? who knows.. like they said this is only BETA...WOHOOOOOOOOOO


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## j79 (Jul 5, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Captain Code _
> *Maybe.  I thought they just reverse engineered the protocol, like some developers have done with MSN to make 3rd party clients. *



Actually, AOL uses two different protocols for their instant messaging service. One is OSCAR (which AIM is based on) and the other is TOC (which is used by third party developers)

The main difference between the two are the functionality of each. Users running AIM will have functions which Trillians (a third party app) users will not. 


Lycander - I agree with your post. As a PC user for most of my life, I wasn't THAT impressed with iChatAV. I love the camera from Apple (iSight) - very nice. Very sleek. But chatting via Video and Audio isn't something new for me.

The ease and simplicity looked nice - I have ran into problems connecting with users in the past. (I've audio chatted with users for the past 3 or 4 years with apps like AIM and other apps.. - never a problem. Video though.....)

I'm determine to purchase a G5 when I get the chance, so, maybe I'll change my mind when I actually shell out the extra bucks for the iSight and call a Mac user up ^_^


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