Problem with video, My upload video is zero when I initiate ???

Question

I recently upgraded my cable to 8megs download, 1 full meg upload.
Now in some two way and most three way video chats my upload starts as
zero or goes to zero shortly.
When it does work intermittently, it is very high. Connection doctor shows up and downloads as high as 900 framerate 20.
I have roadrunner time warner cable, no router, no firewalls, QT streaming set at 1.5 as Ralph and other say, NONE as limite in ichat. I have tried altering the AIM port from 5190 to 443 no help.
Could it be a bad modem? Is there a problem with ichat being able to match the higher upload and download I have now with the premium service/ Prior to this I had no problem with two way ichats. I only went to premium service because the prior service was just not quite enough to initiate three way videos, the upload was only 340 at best.
Thanks everyone,
Evan
My computer is imac intel core duo, 2.16 2 gb memory

Answer 1

Hi Evanshaw,
Ok on the Uninstall.
I would Repair Permissions and run the Cron scripts at this point just to get it as Clean a system as it can be.
See here for Why and Links.
1) The Instant On setting seems to make no difference.
Changing the Streaming setting to match your download or to 1.5Mbps is the real key of the Quicktime adjustment.
2) Newer modems seem to offer forwarding not only ports but list the Protocols as well.
Now in earlier devices it was impossible to forward the same port to two computers (IP addresses) on most of them.
As port 5190 needs to be forwarded for TCP and UDP it as if the modem thinks it is being forwarded twice.
For this reason we suggest that as a test at least that the Login port is dropped to port 443. This does two things:
a) drops it below the 1024 threshold and avoids NAT being done on it.
b) Leaves just 5190 on UDP to be forwarded in the Modem.
Just changing the port in iChat seems to do it, as then no data is on the 5190 TCP port.
3) As for the lower spec machine.
The lowest spec Mac can be a G3/600 with at least 100kbps up and down to Video chat.
A G4/1Ghz single processor is in fact at the lowest point of Multichats IF the connection is at least 384Kbps both up and down. (I used to have 1Mb down and only 256K up and Host multichats [on a Dual 1Ghz G4) so there is a sort of tolerance in these figures).
iChat works out a compromise that works in most cases so I would not worry too much.
4) Yes it is fair to say that pushing the envelope on the Specs does have an Effect.
My G4/Dual 1Ghz is fast enough and my previous internet speeds had a too low Uplink but did allow me to multichat. (there seems to be some sort of balancing out/averaging going on). However adding a second and a third Buddy to make a Four way did cause some blurriness of the pictures.
Also If I was invited to a Chat as a non host My slowness could effect the chat as well but to a lesser extent.
Get the fastest Computer with the best internet connection to Host.
5) With new modems it is sometimes difficult to judge whether they are good or not.
Sometimes they come loaded with "extra" features that can impact on something like iChat.
For Instance:
a) Denial of Service Attack protection (DoS) This is supposed to stop your computer being swamped with requests if you were running a web page server. It judges if too much data is coming to your machine and closes the connection if it thinks this is happening. Sometimes this is too restrictive for Video Chats at the Quality that iChat can produce. As to whether a particular device can alter this in a setting tends to vary. (my Netgear is an On or Off setting)
b) SPI (Stateful Packet Inspection) is Similar but devices that have this can normally adjust it.
c) QoS (Quality of Service) is similar again but more restrictive than SPI and more like DoS
d) As I have mentioned Protocols on Port Forwarding.
e) There is a setting on most devices called the MTU. It is about packet size. The default is always 1500 and changing it to 1492 can help.
f) The way the device may do NAT (Network Address Translation) may not be liked by the device at the other end. It has about 6 main popular ways this is done by Manufacturers and can be a problem. (Hence the push towards UPnP if you have it as UPnP does not use NAT).
5:42 PM Sunday; December 24, 2006