Man, the concept behind ichatav is great and, being a kid who loves his parents, may be a Godsend for videoconferencing for the masses. Like any good technology it'll take time to catch on...
I can see a great promise in its concept. Imagine if you could've videoconferenced into one of the machines at WWDC and experienced firsthand the excitement! Well, less, due to its still only as "live" as TV, but still the cool factor makes one curious to its utility.
Is anyone else out there actively using iChatAV for videoconferencing over limited broadband connections? Any thoughts to share?
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2003 4:01 pm Post subject:
Well, I've now gotten over my WWDC bitterness at not having gotten swag and gone out and purchased an iSight, mainly to communicate with other Neo/OOo developers. Videoconferencing is much more efficient then e-mail or IM, and I hope it can take off.
If you've got one, and especially if you're a hot chick and want to pole dance for me, try opening a connection by clicking on the AIM icon by my posts! I suspect that in addition to distance collaboration, ameteur porn could be a profitable market for this device...
Joined: Jun 07, 2003 Posts: 234 Location: near Cologne, Germany
Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2003 2:34 am Post subject: iChat AV and "ease of use"
Hi Ed,
I've downloaded iChat AV, too. But I and some other guys have massive problems to make a audio/video-connection. We can invite eacht other, but accepting the invitation leads mostly, not always, to a timeout. It doesn't play a role, if we use a router or hanging directly at our DSL-modems.
But if this issues are solved, I agree with you, iChats easy way of video-conferencing it's a great thing! But I also thing, it's important to make iChat compatible to M$ Netmeeting/GnomeMeeting, because the most of us are "surrounded" by Windows- and Linux-users. At the moment, I'm forced to use ohPhoneX for communicating with this guys.
BTW: I'm using a Logitech Quickcam Express webcam. How is the video with the iSight over broadband? Is it really "fluid"? Would you buy again the iSight or a slower-framerate-USB-cam?
Joined: May 25, 2003 Posts: 4752 Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2003 7:25 pm Post subject:
Update: well, over my broadband, when folks aren't downloading Neo, people I connect to report 15-20 fps. I am thrilled with audio quality and responsiveness, even with continually running servers and other people rummaging about my home office/server room the directional mic in the iSight is quite good. The color balance on the video is quite nice, though I haven't tested its AF capabilities yet. In terms of connections I've had some problems with people behind firewalls/routers, but as I've got many static IPs for myself I haven't seen many problems.
In conclusion: the thing that was done right with the isight was its mounting position. Above the center of the monitor. I'm sure if you can jury rig another camera into that position with some duct tape and cardboard it'd be awesome as well. The compactness of the iSight and ability to quickly swap between my desktop and laptop mounts, however, are something that may be trickier. Does it make it worth its price? Not sure yet...but its style and pocket-sized portability definitely have an "I want it" factor that's hard to beat over the older quickcams with their pizza style podium which, while great for lollygagging on top of CRTs, doesn't cut it with LCDs or portables
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