Best video-chatting app?

[chuchichan2524]

What's the best application out there for video-chatting? Skype? iChat? Adium?

 

[miles01110]

I find iChat to be pretty good- especially if the user at the other end has a Mac also. The picture looks as good as if you were using your camera to look at yourself (did that sound narcissistic?).

 

[GFLPraxis]

Plus, iChat in Leopard looks like it'll blow everything out of the water.

 

[KingYaba]

iChat is the best video chat software for the OS X platform.

 

[clevin]

skype is the best
ichat is not very good when come to the cross-platform video conferencing. sure, if your friend also use a mac, then ichat would be the best.

 

[mkrishnan]

skype is the best
ichat is not very good when come to the cross-platform video conferencing. sure, if your friend also use a mac, then ichat would be the best.

That's what makes it so hard to understand / answer this question. It all depends on what you mean by "best." If you control the hardware and software on both (or all) ends of the chat, I would probably say iChatAV, because it produces high-res images, is good about configuring itself for Apple hardware automatically, and has great features like multi-party conferencing.

The question is what is "best" when you *don't* control the hw/sw on both ends. If you have to accommodate Windows, you need compatibility (and then, yeah, probably Skype is the best). If you have to accommodate a friend who only has an account on service X and isn't computer literate enough to be able to install Skype and get an account ... well, then... *le sigh*