iChat Video Chat Sucks

[southerndoc]

Here's hoping Apple fixes iChat's video chat features with the Snow Leopard release.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Today I couldn't chat with my parents because I was getting the infamous "user did not respond" error message. I've tried setting my QuickTime streaming as well as iChat bandwidth preferences to all sorts of settings. Sometimes it works, often times it doesn't. Can't figure out what exactly makes it work.

 

[jonbravo77]

Bandwidth, it's all about the bandwidth. I've noticed that I may not have enough bandwidth for video but I can get the audio chat to work...

 

[iwuzbord]

Bandwidth, it's all about the bandwidth. I've noticed that I may not have enough bandwidth for video but I can get the audio chat to work...

youre completely right. it also depends on whose hosting the conversation. sometimes, i have friends that have a slower bandwidth than i and they try to host the chat. when this happens, the chat is more prone to failing. and you will get that message more. i suggest, finding out who has the faster network, and having that person host the chats. youll definitely get better results.

 

[jonbravo77]

youre completely right. it also depends on whose hosting the conversation. sometimes, i have friends that have a slower bandwidth than i and they try to host the chat. when this happens, the chat is more prone to failing. and you will get that message more. i suggest, finding out who has the faster network, and having that person host the chats. youll definitely get better results.

I thought that too, but I would be on the road and use my Verizon
card and try to connect to my wife at home with our nice fast bandwidth. I would get that message, so she would try and still nothing. I think the bandwidth has to be pretty decent on both sides.

 

[southerndoc]

I have 16 Mbps down/1.5 Mbps up, and my parents have 8 MBps down/768 Kbps up. So I doubt it's a bandwidth issue.

I changed the QuickTime instant on streaming settings to no delay (it was previously on short delay). I'm wonder if this is interfering with negotiation protocols. It seemed to work - at least temporarily. iChat works sometimes, doesn't work often. I've tried every other setting I can think of (including changing ports).

One post on the Apple discussion forum mentioned that an Apple rep told the poster that it was a problem with 10.5.5 and they are working on it.

 

[ltldrummerboy]

I have about 1/10 of your connection speed, and mine works fine with someone on a 256dl (don't know the ul).

You might post a screenshot showing a typical video chat for us to compare to ours. You may just be really really picky. Fear not, it's a common malady among Mac users.

 

[hazoomeh]

I tried ichat video on my new MB (over google accounts) with a prev gen MB and it worked flawlessly.. huge video. I know we are on the same router network and what not, but we were both connected through ichat so the signal had to travel the distance anyway. Then we tried the same thing on skype and the video quality was HORRIBLE and super choppy. I have yet to try ichat with someone in another location.

 

[southerndoc]

I have about 1/10 of your connection speed, and mine works fine with someone on a 256dl (don't know the ul).

You might post a screenshot showing a typical video chat for us to compare to ours. You may just be really really picky. Fear not, it's a common malady among Mac users.

Really picky? What, expecting it to work at least 80% of the time? If that's picky, then I'll gladly wear the crown. Otherwise, I consider it expecting reliability instead of being picky.

Nonetheless, it seems to be more reliable since I changed the delay to none in the QuickTime settings.

 

[ltldrummerboy]

My apologies. It was only a poor attempt at a joke. I'm glad you found a potential fix. I'll make a note on that one.