Audio problems with MacBook and iChat

[Karvel]

Does anyone else have any audio problems when video-chatting on their MacBook in iChat? I've been using my MacBook to chat to my mum from Uni last year and she was telling me how the sound seemed so awful, and it was only recently that she showed me in the house with the iMac and the MacBook close together. Basically, the sound is totally echoed (I can say "hello" and it will get repeated on the iMac three times) and there seems to be a low, monotonous tone that sometimes occurs on audio from my MacBook on my mum's chat (which I can only hear on my MacBook when I'm video-chatting!). I don't have ANY problem with recording a movie in iMovie using the iSight camera on MacBook - crystal clear quality.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

I found this on the interwebs..

The echoing part isn't a connection problem, but rather a volume to speaker problem. The iSight has a dual element microphone to cut down background sound. Though if they're using the iBook's included speakers, those could be too close to the iSight (on top of the monitor) for the echo to not happen. It normally isn't too much of a problem unless the echo starts some actual feedback or it is very distracting (its loud). Again if it is just a one on one conversation, encouraging them to use headphones should alleviate the problem, but isn't ideal for more then one person.

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The 'echo' you're hearing could in effect, be an electronic delay in the feedback of your own signal.

Most likely it is coming from theirs computer, as the internet connection will cause a short delay as it processes the signals from you... to them... and then back to you.

This is only a guess, but it probably means your signal is coming out of their speakers... picked up by their microphone(s)... and then fed back to you over the internet, but after a short delay. Thus the "echo" effect or result.

If it was coming from your setup, you would, most likely, be hearing the dreaded "squeal' until you turned your microphone sensitivity or master volume down.

You could ask them to use a headset to determine if this is the problem.

Hmm. My "Connection Doctor" stats in iChat on my MacBook are;

Local

Framerate - 15
Bitrate - varies between 100 to 150

<user>

Framerate - 15
Bitrate - varies between 750 to 830
Audio Quality - 100% (?!)
Video wuality - 100%

Any ideas?? I've turned on the "Use ambiance noise reduction" on the Sound control panel on my MacBook and my iMac, and tried muting both just the internal iMac microphone output sound and the input sound separately to no avail; the problem only solved when I muted both (i.e. talking to myself )