iSight Question!

The software you intend to use is more of an issue than the hardware.

You should be able to chat, but a video chat is another matter. Right now there is no windows client for iChatAV. I don't know if you can use the same AOL videoconferencing software on your iMac as your family uses as I am not familiar with it.

Software

Yeh, it's software not hardware. AIM wont let you sadly - both users have to be using iChat.

iChat is free (with Panther) and allows for much higher quality video conferencing that other programs. Ask them to download Yahoo Messenger (and yourself of course) then you can talk to them using the webcam - and quality is nearly as good.

Hope this has helped

MagiX

No, the iSight is a very nice piece of hardware. It has received very positive reviews. For videoconferencing you need more than just a camera, though. You need software that will send the data back and forth. The Yahoo software that SpaceMagic mentioned will apparently do this, and runs on both Windows and Mac. The quality of the images you send and receive will depend not only on the hardware you use, but also the software and the bandwidth you have available. Get the best available for each in order to get the best experience. For Mac to Mac video chat this would probably be iSight+iChatAV+cable modem or DSL. For Mac to Windows some other combination will be required such as iSight+Yahoo Messenger+cable modem or DSL. I hope this clears up any confusion.