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.

Similar Messages

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

CCME : how to improve the video quality on VideoOverIP

Hi,
I'm testing Video OVer IP between a CCM and a CCME.
Whe the call is on, the video quality are different :
from the CCM, it is very good
but from the CCME, the quality is less good.
So how can I do to improve this quality.
Best regards

You can improve the video quality on VideoOverIP with QoS. The primary goal of Quality of Service (QoS) is to make network service better and more predictable by providing dedicated bandwidth, controlled jitter and latency, and improved loss characteristics. QoS achieves these goals by providing tools for managing network congestion, shaping network traffic, using expensive wide-area links more efficiently, and setting traffic policies across the network.
Troubleshooting Quality of Service for VoIP:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/12_3/vvf_c/voice_troubleshooting/old/vts_qos.html

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.

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.

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

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

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

How to improve poor video quality in iMovie?

I have a movie in iTunes (version 10.6.3). When I play the video, the quality is good on my Mac, on my iPad 3 and on my Apple TV. The Apple TV is hooked to a 42-inch LCD TV.
Next, I open the video file (MP4) using QuickTime Player. I use the Edit and Trim commands to create a 1-minute segment from the video. I save the segment from Quick Time Player. The saved segment is a MOV file. I drag and drop the MOV file back into iTunes. When I play it from iTunes, the quality still is good on all my Apple devices - no noticeable difference from the original.
Now, I import the MOV segment into iMovie 11 (version 9.0.8). At import, I tick the Optimize Video check box and I select the Full - Original Size setting. Once imported, I select Share > Publish To iTunes. I do not make any changes to the video clip in iMovie. I publish to iTunes using all five size settings: Mobile, Medium, Large, HD 720p and HD 1080p. Once in iTunes, I play the video again. Now the quality is poor, lots of pixelation in all five size settings.
iMovie appears to be doing something to the video to degrade its quality. Maybe I have a setting wrong somewhere. Anyone have any suggestions on how to prevent the degradation in video quality? Thx

Hey Brad, the MP4 movie in iTunes is 806 MB. The segment I trimmed in QuickTime Player and saved as an MOV file is 18 MB.
When I export the MOV segment from QuickTime Player to my desktop, the export format options that appear are: Movie; 480p; 720p; and iPad, iPhone 4 & Apple TV. Which do you recommend?
When I do Share > Export Using Quicktime in iMovie, there are a bunch of Export and Use options. Which do you recomend?
Thx

Improving Ichat Video? incoming Video not clear (CHUNCKY)

I've used the Ichat and found the video to video chat poor, but I Think its Just me. Looking further into these discussion groups I have learned how to improve if not fix it. Quicktime streaming seems to controll Ichat (?) so I turned that up.
I tested up upload and download speed
upload 10355kbs
download 364kbs
The download seems to be a good speed(?) I'm not sure on the upload speed?
Is that I good speed to give an identical Imac good CLEAR video. If not How can I improve the upload speed.
(Imac 2.16 GHz - Core 2 DUo - 1 GB 667 MHZ
Thanks for any imput

Hi Jon,
That upload is fast enough to host according to the specs as you are probably rated faster in the service you actually buy.
The download is fine. You could set the Quicktime Streaming to 1Mbps or 1.5Mbps and see if there is any difference. It used to be a little more crucial in iChat 2 to match your download speed.
If you shut down iChat and paste this bold text in to Terminal
/Applications/iChat.app/Contents/MacOS/iChat -errorLogLevel 7
Then hit enter this will start up iChat and create a log.
The first thing it does is check the hardware rules for your processor and tell you the Max frames a sec.
(You can quit iChat in the normal way and then quit Terminal)
You may not always reach this figure as shown ion the Connection Doctor (from iChat's Video menu) as the "Local" .
Much of the picture quality you see, depends on your Buddy's ability.
9:52 PM Sunday; February 11, 2007

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.

HOW TO IMPROVE TEXT VIDEO QUALITY.

HI, I have a video I am making to explain mathematical calculation which I produced using keynote; This video was made by exporting the keynote document using quicktime; then edited with iMovie and exported using quicktime with the following option:
compression DVCPRO50 - PAL,
compressor: high
Scan mode : Progressive
Aspect ratio : 16:9
Size Dimension : PAL 720 X 576 16:9
Audio 48000
On toast, the video was imported to the DVD-Video window and using the following encoding optios the video was burn on the dvd.
Video Format : MPEG-2
Average Bitrate: 7.5
Maximum Bitrate: 8.5
Motion Estimate: Best and the Half-PEL was ticked
Other available optins in the window is Automatic.
the video I finally obtained on dvd was blur/not sharpe and fade in colour compare to the original videos.
Any help on what I can do to inprove the quality of my video on dvd?
Thanks.
Skimy Kinyot.

Hello Tom,
Let me clarify: Typically, I am viewing the material on a flat screen TV.
But it was also projected on a big screen in a movie theater for a film festival. (DVD player plugged to a projector)
For the TV screen, I would say the quality is not great but acceptable.
But on a large movie theater screen the artefacts are very visible.
What can I do to improve the quality for a projection?
Cheers.

How to improve mp4 video quality in adobe premiere CS6????????

please help me,, i want to improve my mp4 video qualitty in adobe premiere CS6 how can I?

What are your source clips exactly (container and codec).
Post a screenshot of your export settings.

IChat video quality problem

hi guys. ive been using ichat recently. and its great. audio is good. No lag. video looks smooth... But that comes with a price. Whenever my friend makes a sudden movement. the video starts to distort for a few seconds. I've been reading that me and my friend should set our bandwidth at the same speed. However, this doesnt help. Im running on Leopard Aluminum Macbook 2009 model. Shes running on Snow Leopard Macbook Pro 2010 model.
anyone else experiencing this?
Message was edited by: batmandarkknight

Hi,
At the Leopard end have you also set System Preferences > Quicktime > Streaming to 1.5Mbps
In Leopard iChat reads the Quicktime Streaming speed and sets this as the Bandwidth.
It does not read the Automatic Setting that well and iChat 4 makes iChat see this as only 384kbps
If you have to change this restart iChat so it "Sees" the new speed.
1.5Mbps may still cap some of your Internet Speed.
However it is more than enough for iChat to Host 4 way Video chats.
This can be seen in two ways:-
1) At a basic level it gets the most out of your Connection that can be managed for iChat.
2) With modern internet speeds, it caps everyone to with a narrow band of speed.
What this then does it stops or rather smooths out variances in your connection speed which in turn helps the iChat Buffering.
In iChat you can see you variances (and that of your Buddy) in the Connection Doctor (Video menu) during a chat.
If your Upload speed is greater than 1.5Mbps then the Quicktime setting will be a limit.
However a 5% variance of your speed of a max of 1.5Mbps in iChat 4 is likely to be significantly less than someone in iChat 5 with a 20Mbps Upload and download speed. iChat's buffering seems to cope with the variances of the 1.5Mbps setting.
iChat 5 can only be capped within iChat itself, which is why I have suggested it.
(it does not have the Quicktime setting). It gives a better chance for the iChat Buffering to cope.
I mostly use use my G4 running OS 10.5.8 to do iChat.
I have one Buddy with Mac Pro (therefore OS 10.6.4) and I must admit this iChat 4 to iChat 5 connection is the most unstable of all the cross version chat I have tried.
One more thing that may help is more Light.
The less light there is the less chance the camera has of producing a stable Video Stream even on an Intel.
Window to one side or behind the person can make the face and hand difficult to pick out as the camera is trying to balance out the brightness behind the person.
Night-time with low levels of front on light can be a problem as well.
10:12 PM Wednesday; September 15, 2010
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

Improving iChat Video Quality

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