Ichat Video Quality pixelated and very delayed with friend on a Dell

I am on a Imac and have Airport express, but when I chat with my friend on a Dell, my video is pixelated and delayed. I talk with other friends on PC's and the quality is fine.

Add me to this problem. My powerbook G4 (10.4.10) can initiate with a mini G4 with isight (10.5.2) and be perfect in sync with video and audio. But if the mini initiates the chat a very long delay happens between voice and video. I also have an Ibook with 10.4.11 and when chatting with PB G4 are perfect, this applies to an intel imac with 10.5 only, ichat works fine. I think Ichat got affected with 10.5.1 or 10.5.2. I did noticed that if I open QT pro and make a recording(on mini), the actual caption is delayed but play back is ok. I have been playing with the QT preferences but does not seem to work. I saw there is a new update 10.5.3, and it includes so ichats update. Will keep posting. Pedro PS this is all in my home network. TWCNYC with 9600 kbps download and 488 kbps upload.

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IChat Video Quality vs. Bandwidth FAQ?

I have done some searching and have come across some video quality threads.
Most of my Video Conferencing is done between my Macbook or iMac 24 across Time Warner cable to another iMac 20. All running OSX 10.4.9.
It appears that the video quality will vary based on the upstream bandwidth availability. In my case I have 600-700kbps pretty consistently. This is pretty decent for a 1 person video conference. Not quite up to the standard I was hoping for but usable.
What is not even usable is doing a multi-person Video conference. In this case two local machines on the same wireless network and one machine across Time Warner cable (we use the same provider). When I bring the second local machine, the conference splits out properly but the video in each widow (other than my preview) is so blurry that it is completely useless.
I would be very curious as to the experience of others attempting to connect across the same service providers network. In this case we are connecting across Time Warner between Florida and Ohio. The performance should be rocking with at least 1MB upstream (I will have to check but I think I have 5MB up).
The other thing that I was wondering is if there is some way to tweak the iChat Video settings to force it into a specific video quality mode (and possible deal with some dropouts).
Sorry for the long post but I am hoping we can begin to compile information on bandwidth requirements and perfomance experienced with various service providers.
Thanks!
Jim

Thanks, I did both tweaks and the really improved the 3 way conference.
My speedtest is below and is on Bright House in Tampa. Note that the best that I achieve watching Connection doctor is in the 700 territors. I do tend to be able to deliver 20fps pretty consistently. But my bandwidth bounces around a lot. I am not a big fan of cable for quality and consistency.
[IMG]http://www.speedtest.net/result/145047165.png[/IMG]
Verizon FIOS is moving into my area and I believe they will offer much better speed than Bright House and certainly more consistency. RF is simply a nightmare to maintain.

IChat Video Quality Low - Stumped

Hi all,
The basics of my problem is my Ichat video quality is very low.
I have a 10mb connection and im in Tennessee, USA, the person im trying to reach has a 8mb connection and is in California, USA.
When I chat with this person my connection doctor always says im getting a 150 to 300 bit rate. The video quality seems very low to me. Which I would think is super low for such a fast connection between our computers. It never goes above 300.
I've read over many posts here on the forum and we have done the Set Quicktime to 1.5mb & Set my Ichat Video Prefs Limit to "None" and restarted, on both ends. Still limits at 300.
I've also checked the connection speeds on both ends, via pings to various places around the net & across the country and hold down a decent to good 3.5 to 8.5mbs connection.
A little system info:
My Side:
- G5 Dual 2.5GHZ
- Isight (external Camera via Firewire port)
- Airport Wireless Card
- Airport Extreme (with DHCP on to route my multi machines wirelessly on the network)
- Cable Modem - Plugs into Airport - up to 10mbs connection
- iChat 3
- OS X 10.4.8
Other side:
- Intel Imac (brand new)
- Isight (built in)
- Cable Modem direct - up to 8mbs connection
- iChat 3
- OS X 10.4.8
It seems like there is something im overlooking.
Please help as im a bit stumped on this one! :P
- Guru Kismet

I have 3 machines on the Airport network (though none of the others where being used during the testing).
I connected my Cable modem directly to my G5 via Ethernet my speeds jumped! Then I discovered it was being caused by my Airport Extreme. Which loves to knock me off the network from time to time.
In my Airport Extreme "wireless options" I changed the Multicast Rate and then clicked on "Enable interference robustness" my chat speeds jumped from 200k to 800k+. The quality of my video improved dramatically.
After further testing with just one machine and then later restoring all machines back on the Airport Network, I found that there was some sort of interference from other wireless devices around the house, even the ones downstairs.
I would suggest this for anyone having trouble with your Airport Extreme knocking you off the internet or network from time to time or if your Ichat speeds & quality are really low.
Problem solved!
Best wishes to all,
Guru Kismet

My mac mini only shows a steady power light and fan noise when powered up. No video or sound and no commumication with wired keyboard or optical mouse. Tried replacing internal battery and resetting PMU/SMC but nothing seemed to happen. Any suggestions?

My mac mini only shows a steady power light and fan noise when powered up. No video or sound and no commumication with wired keyboard or optical mouse. Tried replacing internal battery and resetting PMU/SMC but nothing seemed to happen. Any suggestions? Many thanks! Richard

You've already done the two things I would have suggested.
If your Mini has an internal battery then I assume it's a G4. That means you've gotten a lot of good years of service from it, and it's old enough that it's certainly not covered by AppleCare anymore, and it's probably not worth spending money trying to repair it.
You should be able to tear it apart using instructions from ifixit.com to get the hard drive out, and then put the hard drive into a nice USB or FireWire enclosure (I like the ones from Other World Computing, macsales.com) so you can transfer your data to a replacement Mac.
I hope someone has another suggestion for you.

HT1725 Why can I all of a sudden not purchase on Cand Crush and on Words With Friends?? The credit card company has NOT stopped anything. I have no problems with other iTunes purchases!

Why can I all of a sudden not purchase on Cand Crush and on Words With Friends?? The credit card company has NOT stopped anything. I have no problems with other iTunes purchases!

Contact iTune Support
https://ssl.apple.com/emea/support/itunes/contact.html

IChat video quality better with .Mac subscriber than with AIM?

The quality of my video chats with one brother who also has a .Mac account is noticeably better than my chats with another brother, who uses iChat with an AIM account. I'm in the US, they are both in UK. All of us have almost identical iMacs. The one with the AIM account supposedly has a faster Internet connection. My question: is the video quality of iChat better if both users have .Mac accounts than if one has an AIM account?

The Screen names make no difference.
It is about a combination of Proccessor, Video card in iChat 4, internet Connection and settings and the amount of Bandwidth you get out of that connection.
As Defcom (UK) has said start with those basic Settings.
In iChat 3 and 2 the Quicktime setting when on Automatic is read as a 0 (zero) and this effectively Caps iChat.
In iChat 4 the Automatic setting is seen as 384k which is the MINIMUM for a 4 way chat.
As far as an Internet Connection goes this should be at Least 100k in both Up and Downloads.
Due to some data stream management to cut down on Peer-to-Peer file Sharing it pays to limit iChat in the Video Section Bandwidth Limit section to slip under the Radar as it were. There are two main ISP doing this Comcast and Road Runner in the States.
Verizon offer a FioS fibre service that is not that stable in speeds and jumps all over the place which is then too fast for iChat to keep up and that should use the cap in iChat Preferences as well.
8:08 PM Friday; June 20, 2008

Poor video quality, pixelation, flickering on moving subjects in frame

I made a quicktime movie using File>Export>Quicktime Conversion... in FCP using H.264 compression codec with best video quality and 16-bit audio. video was originally captured in miniDV. Self contianed movie was made and looked pretty good in Quicktime, though the edges of moving subjects in frame did have small wavy lines (I assume from interpolation of DV?). Anyway it was acceptable to me (but if there is a fix please advise as I figured this was endemic to miniDV itself.)
Then I created a DVD in iDVD 6.0.3 with several slide shows and two relatively short movies (12-14 minutes in length each). The edges of moving subjects in frame (i.e. persons walking into the frame) now have large square pixelations sort of like this --->( |-|_|-|). At anyrate, the fine wavy lines from the QT movie have become much worse when there is movement, and I'm not talking speed, just any movement like a hand moving in the frame, etc. Otherwise the quality of the video is comparible to the exported movie from FCP.
Does anyone have suggestions for how to eliminate this problem?
thanks!
imac intel core duo 2.16GHz, Superdrive 8x Mac OS X (10.4.9) 3 GB ram

the edges of moving subjects in frame did have small wavy lines
That's normal interlacing. You usually want to preserve those comb lines if your target is TV display which will hide them and use them to make smoother motion.
http://www.sjoki.uta.fi/~shmhav/SVCDon_aMacintosh.html#interlacing
But if your target is a computer display, then you usually want to deinterlace them off because they look ugly on a PC monitor.
originally captured in miniDV ... H.264 ... Then I created a DVD in iDVD 6.0.3
No! You should not convert the original DV to H.264 if your final target is a video-DVD!
Just keep it as DV. And take care that your FCP export to DV is bottom field first field dominance because otherwise you get terrible zigzag movement artifacts! ...I don't have FCP so I can't give you more advice on that (mini-DV ->iMovie ->iDVD handle all this automatically).

Multi-Person iChat Video Quality

Hi,
I am using iChat with 2 other person (so a total of 3 people in the video conferencing). What we noticed is that the audio quality remains great. But as soon as the third person joins the video chat, the video quality decrease dramatically.
Any one experience this problem?
Thanks.

Thanks for the reply.
Have you set the Quicktime setting, goto sys
prefs/quicktime/streaming/streaming speed set what
you get from your ISP go no higher then 1.5mbps(dont
use automatic)
I didn't know that Quicktime has anything to do with iChat. I will check that tonight.
In ichats prefs click on video and change bandwidth
limit to NONE.
Alread set to NONE so this shouldn't be a problem.
Also all of you do a speed test
http://www.speedtest.net/ and tell us the up and
download speeds are.
I have done many similar tests and it is consistently rated as "excellent". I will need to do the test to find out the exact rate tonight when I am home.
So, out of the 3 things, sound like the Quicktime setting is the only one that I have not done.
Thanks.

Terrible iChat video quality. What gives?

My brother and I are trying to use iChat video. We both have an iMac, his is newer than mine, but we both have the same OS. On both ends the video quality is very poor and the audio is bad (hearing every other word). We both have high speed internet, I have cable he has DSL. We tried limiting the bandwidth to no avail. Any suggestions?
Thanks!

Also both of you should open the Connection Doctor (iChat Video menu) during a chat and tell us what Speeds (Frame and Bit Rate) you see.
You should get at least 15fps and have a speed in Bit rate of well over 100kbps (up to somewhere over 500kbps depending on your Internet speeds at both ends).
200-300 is common. 500+ is not unusual.
8:24 PM Tuesday; April 28, 2009

Improving iChat Video Quality

Is there anything one can do to improve the video quality on iChat. The image looks great on Yahoo Messenger and Skype but it's really fuzzy, blurry, distorted, pixelated when using iChat.

Hi
First have you set the Quicktime streaming setting, goto sys prefs/quicktime/streaming/streaming speed, set to 1.5mbps
In ichats prefs click on video and change bandwidth limit to 500.
Restart iChat.

IChat video quality inherantly suffers when over wireless EVDO aircard?

I am just guessing. Is this true? Or just in our case? Our being myself and my girlfriend, who is the one with a cam. I am new to iChat but I am not receiving that 'full screen, perfect quality' image that I thought iChat was supposed to have. You see, my girlfriend has a Macbook with its own built-in camera, so I am sure that camera is up to iChat specifications. But, her internet connection is through Sprint's EVDO USB modem. For the techs here, she is using the pretty new Sierra 595U, and she gets EVDO speed where she is.
Are there any iChat options she could tweak that would give her a higher bandwith output to me? SHe is not too technically inclined to discover this herself. Thanks!

My experience with using Sprint EVDO Revision A is that, while up and down tested speeds may seem more than adequate, the quality of iChat video connections and Slingbox slinging isn't as good as with similar tested connection speeds generated via DSL or cable.
I suspect this is due to greater latency and other factors associated with EVDO, including wild fluctuations in connection speeds. I assume your friend is making EVDO Rev A connections and not EVDO Rev 0 connections, which are inadequate for decent video connections.

Poor one-sided ichat video quality

The video picture that I see when ichatting with my mom is awful (around 50%). It only happens when I ichat with her, and she sees me fine. Our audio is also fine. My connection doctor indicated that: her video quality was 50%,her bitrate was 300 & mine was 600. Her connection doctor indicated that her bitrate was 700 & mine was 600. (I think both frame rates in both of our panels ranged between 11-17.) We both have MacBook Airs. Any thoughts as to what's happening and how to remedy it would be greatly appreciated. She bought the MacBook Air just so that we could ichat.
Thanks.

Hi
On your mum's mac go to ichats prefs click on video and change bandwidth limit to 500, if still happens try 200.
Restart iChat.
Tony

Msi video card n240gt and n9800gt problems with output HDMI

Hello to all
I have a problem I just bought a new Video card because I needed HDMI output. The previous card I have is a BFG Ge Force 8800GT 512 DDR2 running @ 1920x1080p 60Hz which works perfectly the only downside is it does not have HDMI out with 5.1. Now i installed the n240GT 512 DDR5 and tried watching BD ripped to the HDD and playing them back all i get now it jerking lagging bad also and have horizontal red and green lines scattered across the screen.Which i did not have with my 8800GT card thinking its a bad card so i bought another card from another dealer this time its a MSI N9800GT 1gig DDR3 and still the same problem.I Checked the resolution and its set to 1920x1080P refresh at 60Hz,i also changed the Hz to 24Hz and it cleaned up the lines but not all and picture still jerky picture. I have a MSI K9N NEO V3 Motherboard and all drivers updated current Bios. l used a DVI cable 40ft long with my Ge Force 8800GT and every thing worked fine, once I installed the new MSI Video cards N240gt and N9800GT I have the above problems and using a 50FT HDMI cable. I have a Samsung PN50A550 with 3 HDMI inputs 1 has my BluRay player hooked up with HDMI running at 1920x1080P at 60Hz and crystal clear picture no problems, input 2 has my HD Bell receiver running at same specs as input 1 no problems I tried the other HDMI inputs from the Samsung TV from the HDMI out from the card same thing. It has to be the cards that can`t support the TV what else can it be if not the MSI cards. Please respond ASAP Thanks Thumpalong

http://www.overclock.net/t/936561/psu-rating
You may want to borrow and test with another PSU.
We always recommend Corsair and Seasonic
I can't find anything on Topower other than that opinion piece of linked... getting frustrated. Most of the time I can find detailed info on most psu's not this time, so best to borrow and test.
Assuming of course that the older VGA's worked fine.

I have just got my iPad2 and very pleased with it. I have a question regarding the monthly (recommended) battery full charge. Should I let the battery completely die down to nothing at all or would this be bad for my iPad?

I have just got my iPad2 and am very pleased with it. I have a question regarding the monthly (recommended) battery full charge. Should I let the battery completely die down to nothing at all before I plug in to recharge or would this complete drain be bad for my iPad?

It's not bad for it - on this page www.apple.com/batteries/ipad.html it says :
For proper reporting of the battery’s state of charge, be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).

Dear apple community, now I have some problem with iPad(The New iPad 4G). 1st, start from I got it, it really difficult charge. 2nd, very and very hot with 3G or Internet using. And more, some problem with wifi.

From Me, THE MAHACHAK to Apple Company
I think, the apple company are producing and sell only their own country or their ownself, not over the world. And in the other hand, I want to ask Apple Company about their market policy as marketing strategy or size of marketing. How about it? How did you think? Only your own or for world. I like one word as MARKETING IS WATER. Where can't water go? Such as my small country have a lot of people are using apple products a lot as iPhone, iPad, iPod and apple laptop. Cambodia is my small country with much rich families. They can use a good product or high class product, high tenology. Most of products is Apple. But they always have many bad comments and bad problem with Apple products. WHY? The problems such as Lock code, cann't conected with other, hard to find or buy, no Safety, no warranty world wide, wifi, charger, hot during 3G conected, ...etc. hope, these my own idea is looked for all the Apple customers around the world. Please, text me back. Waiting back.
Thanks and Regard

Apple Discussions is a user to user forum, so your post is not read by any Apple employee.
 Cheers, Tom

Ichat Video Quality pixelated and very delayed with friend on a Dell

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