Video Chatting Issues!

[kazzely]

So, I'm using my year old, regular MacBook. I'm not very computer savvy but I know the basics and a little bit more. What I can't figure out, though, is why my video chatting has slowly degenerated. It worked fine at first, but over the course of the year it has slowly gotten less and less good quality. I'm in college now and want to video chat all the time, but it hardly ever works.

First of all, it will pretty much never let me actually get into the video chat - sometimes it just says there was an error, sometimes something about bandwith, sometimes it says I didn't respond. Basically a multitude of things.

When it does rarely let me actually connect (usually after a couple tries), it will work for a couple minutes then my voice (on the other computer) will start to get incredibly choppy and barely understandable. My friends say they can hardly see me, barely hear me. Usually I can see them/hear them fine. Every once in a while they will be blurry, but never the choppy voice thing.

I REALLY want to just be able to video chat normally. I am not on wireless, I am connected through an ethernet cable in my dorm room, so it's not that. I really don't understand what's going on, can anyone help?

 

[ingenious]

Did the problem start when you moved in? The school may be throttling bandwidth or may have routers that are not NAT-PMP/UPnP compatible, ports may be blocked, or the problem may be on your friend's side.

 

[kazzely]

I'm not really sure if it started when I came here. The thing is it was alright in the beginning while I was here (it wasn't the best quality at home, either, which makes me think it might be my computer), but it has definitely gotten worse. I don't think it's on my friends' sides because it happens with all of them, not just particular ones. Everyone says my voice gets choppy and drawn out and the view is all pixel-y.

"The school may be throttling bandwidth or may have routers that are not NAT-PMP/UPnP compatible, ports may be blocked"

I'm not really sure what these mean, haha. But is there any way to check if these are the problems? Or any way to fix them? Or do I just have to live with not being able to video chat? :/