Advice wanted in using iChat and AIM 5.5 for Video Chat

[jrober]

All,

I am shortly going to be moving to Sweden for 6 months wih my family and want to keep in touch via video conference with our family back home in the UK.

I think I want to get an iBook and iSight to use in Sweden and have my Father in Law use AIM 5.5 on his PC back in the UK. Both ends will be on braodband 512k links.

Any experience of trying to do this, advice you can give.

Should I spend my money on an iBook or save my £'s (To buy a Powermac at Christmas) and use my work Thinkpad with AIM 5.5 and a webcam?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Darwin]

Should I spend my money on an iBook or save my £'s (To buy a Powermac at Christmas) and use my work Thinkpad with AIM 5.5 and a webcam?

Thanks in advance.

Well I depends what your doing, if you need the power then you might want a PowerMac but again it depends on what you are going to be doing, if your doing light work that doesn't require much power then the iBook will be fine

And of course it will be cheaper

Also with you being away from home it might be an idea to have an iBook anyway

 

[erik1975]

Begin by crossing your fingers!

I have had some headaches with AIM 5.5 to iChat video conferences. If you search the Apple.com Support-Discussion forums you will find many more also having issues.

The best current way to do a chat, and not have missing audio/video is to use the iChat beta version, with the latest AIM5.5.xyqghgjs version.

My contact in the States has AIM and whenever he starts the program, the camera status window says that there is no camera connected. This is even when he has one connected. With the Beta of iChat, we could have videocons just fine with no issues.

When I upgraded to iChat AV Prod, we could not do video chats anymore. My only thought is that the final version asks the users AIM client if it thinks it has a camera setup. Since the answer is NO, the iChat client will not allow a two-way videoconference to begin. (It will allow one way, with audio for both sides)

Since having the issues, I have downgraded to the Beta, and we can have videocons again.

I realize that this is not a direct answer to your question, but this is something to definitely look out for. And remember, you are connecting to a PC, so every install might have a different random set of problematic issues!

Good luck!

P.S. AIM will not allow full screen and is only a one inch square window. My contact in the States is very jealous of me being able to do full screen!

 

[jrober]

P.S. AIM will not allow full screen and is only a one inch square window. My contact in the States is very jealous of me being able to do full screen!

erik1975 Thanks for the info especially about beta versus full version. Your last note about AIM was interesting do you know of an alternative which gives a larger picture on the PC?