New baby, how to setup a QT webcast...

I believe you need both Quicktime Broadcaster and Streaming Server for what you're trying to do.

AFAIK, you can have both on the same machine (Mac or PC); but do you have a static IP address?

 

The first thing you need to do is ensure that the various firewalls and routers are set up correctly - a real pain when the grandparents are so far away (believe me, I know: my parents live in IL too). You might glean some info from here. Not only do those ports need to be open on the routers and modems, but they need to be open on the PCs as well - and the routers need to forward the traffic to the PCs. It is a real joy to set up... not.

Another option is to simply take QT movies and put those on your website - not realtime, but vastly easier to set up.

And, as another poster mentioned, I'm pretty sure you need OS X Server to stream QT to multiple sites. The dynamic IP isn't an issue - just go to DynDNS.org to set up a dynamic address so you can get something like myaddress.homeip.net and your folks can always use that to get to your Mac, regardless of how often the IP changes.

And PS: congratulations!

 

If you think there's any hope of getting QT Broadcaster to work, I highly recommend trying to get your eMac and PB to work within your local network - it's doable, and, once you get it to work, it seems trivial, but it takes a bit of work. It's been months since I messed with it, or else I'd offer something more helpful. I remember a few things:

1. You need to "Show Details" or nothing will be set up correctly.
2. In the Network tab, choose Manual Unicast, and set the IP to that of the receiving computer, which means two things: (a) you can only do one at a time; and (b) the grandparents have to have a known IP - at least at that moment - and open up a couple of ports (54xx, where xx = I don't remember)
3. when it's set up, export the SDP file, send that to the parents, have them open it in QT, and they should - in theory - be able to connect. Maybe.

It's much easier to try to debug iChat!

 

I'll let you know once I figure it out.

I have no problem talking to my brother when he uses AIM. Audio and video work fine.

With my parents, I cannot get audio to work. Period. No matter what I do with ports. When I was there last summer, I installed a new router for them with external secure access so I can muck with it. I also have RealVNC running on their PC so I can mess with it. Even with complete control over their system, I cannot get audio to work. And, interestingly, this is on the same PC that used to belong to my brother (BTW, he lives in AZ, so he can't just run over and fix theirs). It would be ironic if VNC was to blame....

The video seems to work fine. The ports on that initial link in my first post above were opened on both of our routers and sent to the correct computers, and we "see" each other fine.

If I find a better way to describe the setup process, I'll let you know.

If it gets too bad, older minis are under $500. Might be worth it to send them each one. (just kidding )

 

We've had great success using our Canon Optura 30 digital video camera as a webcam.

Grandparents have AIM on a PC, sister has iChat, both can be invited to one-way video (two-way audio) chats.

Works like a charm.

 

Been following this thread with interest. Congratulations on the new baby! I have thought about getting one of those network cams that have their own built-in web server so that they can be controlled via a web interface (platform agnostic). I know that PC-to-Mac AIM video chat is possible, but the setup is less than intuitive. The last time I tried I could get video but no audio...and the video was VERY blocky and jumpy.

I found it easier to set my parents up with my hand-me-down iMacs...gave me plenty of excuses to upgrade! Now we use iChat exclusively and it is great....great video, great audio, and there is some privacy control as well.

As far as anytime sharing of my baby's progress, I've been having a lot of fun using iWeb and setting up a blog-type of website. It's perfect for milestones and daily photos and videos. A website also lets visitors see the baby "on demand" as opposed to arranging or imposing via iChats.

Keep this thread updated as you figure out how to do the AIM thing. In the meantime, you are welcome to check out my baby's blog. There is a commenting system as well as a Google guestmap that are free for you to add to...

http://www.dirtdoog.com/

Hope you enjoy....babies are great!