iSight with G3 500

[thekaiser]

Ok, here is the deal. I am looking into buying a used iBook. I want to get a G3 500 iBook, but I want to use the iSight with it. Apple suggests that you should have a G3 600 or greater. Do you think that it would still work fine with a G3 500. Do any of you use the iSight with anything less than a G3 600?

~Thanks~

 

[DVDSP]

My wife's iBook 500 gave a specific message saying video would not work on her computer when I installed iChat AV. When I tried to do a one-way video with her from my G4 it would not work. She got a message saying her computer did not support video.

 

[thekaiser]

Originally posted by DVDSP
My wife's iBook 500 gave a specific message saying video would not work on her computer when I installed iChat AV. When I tried to do a one-way video with her from my G4 it would not work. She got a message saying her computer did not support video.

Bummer!

Thanks, that is what I thought would happen. At least I know not to get the 500.

 

[thebossisback]

the isight doesnt require a 600mhz g3, but apple only made it work on a 600mhz .I know people who bought a isight for their 500mhz machines and it didnt work. apple just wants you to buy a new computer

 

[Kwyjibo]

Originally posted by thebossisback
the isight doesnt require a 600mhz g3, but apple only made it work on a 600mhz .I know people who bought a isight for their 500mhz machines and it didnt work. apple just wants you to buy a new computer

everyone always has thse conspiracy theories but apple decided that the processor could not handle vidoe streaming with ichat. you can use other programs with the isight if they work so well. Also apple did not exclude any g4's just the g3 600mhz above

 

[Dreamail]

Hey thebossisback! While I agree that Apple wants you to buy new machines (Heck, what did you expect they make their living mostly from hardware sales!), I doubt that you would be very happy with a 500MHz G3 doing video chats. The 600 MHz limit makes sense from my experience.

iChat AV just about works on a 500MHz G4 PowerBook. (As detailed in my post in this thread https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31992).

A 500MHz G3 (without the AltiVec unit) will likely not work satisfactory. Let alone a 500MHz iBook where hard drives and busses are even slower than on a desktop G3.

It would be interesting to hear reports from people using iChat AV on a 600MHz iBook. I wouldn't be surprised if their counterpart reports receiving a somewhat choppy video stream. In any case I wouldn't try it on an even slower machine. Actually I wouldn't even try it on anything slower than a 500MHz G4.

 

[thebossisback]

good point i never realt thought about that

 

[DakotaGuy]

I use an iBot Firewire cam on my iMac DV 400 and it works perfect. You are right the video part of iChat AV does not even work on my iMac, but does on my iBook 600. I use Yahoo Messenger for chatting with video. If the iBot and Yahoo work excellent on the iMac 400, I don't see why Apple could not have offered these features on other models. Probably has something to do with the video quality they were trying to obtain.

 

[Ensoniq]

This new piece of software allows you to use USB cameras with iChat AV. It also removes the limitation requiring a 600 MHz G3 or above.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/20203

 

[Dreamail]

Abercrombieboy, what is your definition of 'works excellent'?

iChat AV with my iSight sends a video stream that is 352x288 pixel and roughly 20 frames per second. This takes quite some processing power to encode.
On top of that each received frame is blended into the next so that dropped received frames don't matter that much. This also takes processing power.

Apple's iChat AV is a very good video conferencing solution IMHO. At least considering that it doesn't require a T1 line to do decent smooth, rather hi-res video. Other video conferencing systems I've seen don't work as well. But they never claimed to. They either do fewer frames per seconds or a lower resolution (often compensated by doubling pixels) and they don't blend between received frames either.
In my book they would offer poor, choppy video but for these applications things would be considered 'working excellent' (as in 'never claimed to be a very good solution').

But perhaps I'm doing your application unjustice. Does it encode true 350x300 video in 20 frames per second, and smooth all received frames to compensate for dropped frames?

 

[DakotaGuy]

Originally posted by Dreamail
Abercrombieboy, what is your definition of 'works excellent'?

But perhaps I'm doing your application unjustice. Does it encode true 350x300 video in 20 frames per second, and smooth all received frames to compensate for dropped frames?

Easy...easy...I am not doubting that the iSight is a good cam or that iChat AV is not a good program. All I was suggesting was alternatives for people like myself who have a Mac that does not meet Apple's requirements. Seems anymore you can't even suggest without getting jumped on.

 

[uhlawboi80]

i can understand people not wanting to have to get a new computer and all...but its Apple. they exist and survive because they make things that WORK. they want their program to work like they claim it can, and that requires more processing power than a g3 500. so they dont let it run on one. they dont want their program underperforming. Just like OSX and even widows XP wont install on a computer with 64mb or ram. its not because the OS wouldnt work to some degree...it would just suck a$$ so much that they dont want to deal with people trying to use it with 64mb.