isight or otherwise? skype?

[taytho]

is it even worth trying to by a webcam for mac other than the isight.... i have heard they are a little rough to get working.

am i right?

is skype video for mac ever going to be released?

My girlfriend is studying in england (i am in the middle of the states) and its a good way for us to keep in touch but she has a webcam and i dont therefore via skype we can never see each other. She is with a host familiy on there xp machine. any way you can get us to see each other (after i buy a webcam or sorts)

thanks in advance.

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

No webcam will work without FireWire, so basically iSights and DV camcorders...

No one knows about skype, there probably coding it as we speak (hopefully).

 

[techound1]

if she's got a mac, ichat with a jabber account is the way to go - totally free (minus the cost of the isights!)

 

[mkrishnan]

No webcam will work without FireWire, so basically iSights and DV camcorders...

FWIW, not entirely accurate.... There are USB cams, but FW is a much better choice on a Mac.

Here are some options, if you get an iSight, a supported FW cam, or a USB cam that comes with drivers or uses iChatUSB or another driver set:

1) You can get her to get an AIM account and use iChatAV on your side. If you can get her AIM working, this is probably going to be the least painful option on your side.

2) Depending on the quality of her cam, you can both get Yahoo's chat service, and if her cam supports the high performance mode (it has a funny name...hypercam or something), then this might be pretty good. The iSight, AFAIK, is supported in this.

3) You might be able to get AV chat working with MSN using either Mercury (http://www.mercury.to) or aMSN (http://amsn.sourceforge.com).

4) Of course, you can also wait for Skype.

I've done AIM / iChatAV with someone in the UK. Well, actually, she was watching and listening to me, and I was just listening to her, because her webcam wasn't available at the moment.... But if it got that far, presumably it'd make it the rest of the way.

I've done webcam without audio in MSN, but I haven't gotten AV working in MSN with anyone quite yet. The biggest problems with 2-3 involve firewall settings. I'm not 100% on Yahoo, but MSN will definitely require you to either put your computers in the DMZ or set up port forwarding.... MSN can do video without port forwarding, but cannot do AV. iChatAV shouldn't require any firewall or router mods, but AIM Triton might need them on her side.

I just now think I have port forwarding set up correctly for MSN, but I need to test it out with someone.