What is the video quality loss going Mac to PC vs Mac to Mac?

Here's the deal, my wife is in the hospital and forced to miss her daughters wedding. I'm trying to sort out an iChat from Louisiana to Texas so she can watch the wedding live and ideally let her daughter see her mom during the ceremony. I've not been able to establish an ichat link into the hospital due to the 'does not reply' demon. So I know its a port issue but this huge hospital is PC only, totally mac ignorant but super willing to put a hot shot PC in my wifes room. My question is what am I giving up by not going mac to mac and giving in on a PC at the receiving end? Are the benefits of the h264 codec only available on the mac to mac solution? Will the video received on the PC be smooth or choppy? What about in a full screen mode? (I guess AIM Trillion is the only option for that)
I'll be transmitting using a G4 Powerbook, 10.4.6, 256mgb ram. iChat 3. I'll be shooting with a digital video camera with firewire output. I've tested that, it all works fine in recent chats with other macs. I'll be sending over Earthlink DSL line, 256kbps up/3mgbs download. The Hospitals bandwidth is T-1 huge so not a problem. I'm just afraid I'm not going to get them to sort out the issues for a mac and will have to give in to a PC.
Appreciate your thoughts. j
G5 PowerPC Mac OS X (10.4.6) 1.6 GHz

Hi octoguy,
iChat makes hardware and connection speed checks as it starts up.
This gives you the framerate and bit rate duirng a call.
Lets say that your processor gives your iChat 15 fps
This will be the rate that you will then see to a another Mac.
The same computer is likely to get 10 frames per sec to a PC.
This is some part due to the PC putting a fair amout of effort into producing a clear detailed pic.
On some PCs this setting for the video pic is so high that the audio will drop out completely.
The cure is to bring the PC preview to the front (tabs)
Then click on the small icon that appears to the right and adjusting the slider that appears to the left.
This will incease the frame rate and bit rate from the PC. It makes the video look smoother although the actual quality has gone down (you may not be able to judge this quality difference by eye)
As general rule you will get about 2/3rds of the normal Mac to Mac framerate shown in the Connection Doctor. It also seems to take about 50% more Connection speed to get the same quality video.
So Mac to Mac min is 100Kbps where as Mac to PC will need about 150kbps.
The quality drop from 15 frames a sec to 10 frames a sec does make the video generally more blocky but does also depend a fair bit on the processor power of the PC and the camera used.
I know that sounds a little vague but there are really many variables that can be a factor.
11:23 PM Monday; April 24, 2006

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