iChatAV -- Cool, but useless

Thats pretty cool. Strange how that works though. You'd think it'd connect to the Firewire port to get the video. Does the ioxpert driver make it look like a Firewire camera?
 
the ioxpert driver makes it a usb camera, nothing firewire about it.... i know this should be in some development news group, but i just hope apple fixes it.

sukram
 
I've been looking forward to this program for quite a while, too, since my fiance is in Germany right now, and she'll be in Austria next year. She's got an iBot firewire cam, and we've had success (sometimes) using the latest iVisit alpha for X. But I knew that Apple's solution would be 100 times better. Only problem is, she's got a 500 mHz iBook, just below the spec for video. I went ahead and picked up an iSignt yesterday, just for the hell of it. If she can't run iChat AV with video, I hope that another chat program builds in support for the iSight soon. I also hope that Apple adds support for other apps, like iMovie, or, they could even put in some biometric ID system that used it.

Rat
 
I use audio chats to talk to my
Wife when I'm at work. It works great and is not as useless as I first thought.
 
Originally posted by sukram
the ioxpert driver makes it a usb camera, nothing firewire about it.... i know this should be in some development news group, but i just hope apple fixes it.

sukram
Click to expand...

I don't think Apple has any intention of fixing it... if anything, they might make it so it doesn't even work like that. Deliberate crippling of features, just so you'll go out and buy an iSight is shady, and simply not good business practice. Well, it is good in the sense that it makes you money, but not good to build support from your customers.
 
Originally posted by bobw
I've been using ISPQ for video conferencing, and that works very well and is cross platform.
Click to expand...

I never managed to run iSpQ continuously for more than 5 minutes after engaging in a video chat. It crashes and the connection must be done again. Thank God it dosn't bring OSX down. But it is simply awkward because you must then log in the same chat room as before if you want to resume the conversation with the same person of before. But sometimes you even can't enter the same chat room because it gets full and you must find someway to tell the person you were talking to enter another room, so you have to have AIM or icq turned on at the same time to keep communication, et al... man, iSpQ SUCKS.... I used for 6 months, bought 2 licenses, but it was a waste of money...
Not to mention that if you are behind a NAT router you must open the ports manually (sucks) and so other machines in the same LAN can't use it (sucks). AND the image quality is very low (sucks).
On the other hand, I tested iChatAV in talking with my brother in Brazil (I'm in Japan!), and it was SOOOOO amazingly easy to set up and start using, and the image AND sound quality was so superior to iSpQ, that I got very pissed off that I actually had spent money on iSpQ and that iChatAV was for free. AND it is a BETA! I now start to see reason when people say that Apple's BETA apps are better than the competition's FINISHED apps.
Here's the setup:
In Japan:
Quicksilver PMG4Dual800 OS10.2.6
ADSL 12MBdown/1.5MBup
Sony DCR-PC3

In Brazil:
Tsunami PM9600/300-Sonnet G4/400 OS10.2.6
ADSL 384KBdown/124KBup
Canon XL-1

The Tsunami in Brazil was brought on its knees - my brother said he couldn't even move the windows, the system was almost entire paralyzed - with EXCEPTION that the image in the iChatAV windows was clear and smooth, and the frame rate was very good. Now, you have to consider that my bro was using a very ancient system, and even the Firewire interface isn't built-in (he is using a Rex Firewire PCI-card). AND his ADSL connection isn't what we can call BROADBAND in the real sense of the word (not to mention that brazilian network backbones are freaked out and unreliable.

But iChatAV worked and it was good and fine. Something to think about usability of a Mac.;)

Note: I used iSpQ in the same situation as above, when I went from Japan to Brazil and spent 3 months there, and used to talk to my wife with it. At that time I was using (in Brazil) a PowerBook Pismo 500 with 512MB of RAM, and the ADSL at that time was 512KBdown/256KBup + the Canon XL-1. My wife was using the same setup of the Quicksilver. It proves that iChat needs LESS bandwidth than iSpQ to work BETTER.
 
Sooo, out of curiosity...how many video chats can you have going at once? We have 5 folks in our group...could I have them all going at the same time? Or does iChat AV have a group video chat function, where everyone's pictures are up at the same time in one window?

Thanks,

Rustus
 
I've been using ISPQ for quite some time and have never had it crash. Must be something on your end. And, right now iChatAV is free, but the final version won't be. This beta version will expire 12./03.

iChat doesn't have a group video/conference option. ISPQ does, you can have up to 5 people at the same time. The new iChat is definitely better than ISPQ, no lag at all with it like with ISPQ, but it's Mac only.

ISPQ has messaging, so it's easy to tell someone to go to another room if you can't get in a room where they are.

Opening ports for ISPQ, simple and a one time thing. Apple also recommends opening certain ports for iChatAV.

The video quality in ISPQ, for me at least, is better than iChatAV, not much.
 
So Bob, even though it doesn't have a group video chat option, could one have multiple video chat windows open at once? And how would the quality be if it is possible at all?

Rustus
 
Rustus

Haven't tried multiple vidoe chats with iChat. I'll do that when I see a couple people on with a camera and post back.
 
bobw or anybody had any experience with multiple video chat streams yet? If so, how many could you have running at one time before it choked? And what configuration are you running?

Rustus
 
Only one video chat session at a time. iChat gives you a "You already have a video chat session open" message when you try to start a second one.
 
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