Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Rubens · Jun 28, 2003, 06:10 AM

Has anyone tried the above ?

sideus · Jun 28, 2003, 06:26 AM

Won't work with iChat A/V. Pismo = G3.

niji · Jun 28, 2003, 07:30 AM

i believe the official specs are it does work with anything greater than a 600/g3.
is this not correct?

SOLIDAge · Jun 28, 2003, 11:07 AM

i have a feeling it would work easily or with a simple hack

Mastrap · Jun 28, 2003, 11:19 AM

There is no simple hack. Every second poster seems to be thinking that Apple has released the minimum specs out of spite or ignorance. Or to annoy them personally.

Encoding video on the fly takes processing power. Lots of it. Yes, USB cams do work with other apps but the quality just isn't there.

icruise · Jun 28, 2003, 12:02 PM

But it is true that often things will work more or less ok on systems that don't meet the minimum specs. I'm interested to hear if anyone has actually tried this.

Rubens · Jun 28, 2003, 02:03 PM

Originally posted by Icruise:
But it is true that often things will work more or less ok on systems that don't meet the minimum specs. I'm interested to hear if anyone has actually tried this.

exactly, I have a 17inch pb and my overseas mother has my old pismo.... I would just like to know if anyone has tried it before I ask her to spend her cash on an iSight....

tikki · Jun 28, 2003, 03:00 PM

Even if it does take a lot of processing power, I would still like the chance to determine if its usable myself rather than Apple telling me its not.

iMovie specs say a 700Mhz g3 minimum, but I can still use it on my 500MHz g3.

Mastrap · Jun 28, 2003, 04:37 PM

Originally posted by tikki:
Even if it does take a lot of processing power, I would still like the chance to determine if its usable myself rather than Apple telling me its not.

iMovie specs say a 700Mhz g3 minimum, but I can still use it on my 500MHz g3.

Thats not the way things work�. Imagine the rabid press Apple would get if it allowed people to have a sub standard user experience?

icruise · Jun 28, 2003, 07:30 PM

It's fine for Apple to set minimum recommended requirements, and to say that they won't support using something on a system that doesn't meet the requirements. But that doesn't mean that people can't try and use it. It may work just fine for what they want, even if some feature may not work, or may be a little slow.

As long as Apple makes it clear what the minimum recommended system is, so people can't complain, I don't see any problem with people trying to use it.

gralem · Jun 29, 2003, 12:01 AM

Originally posted by Rubens:
Has anyone tried the above ?

I thought it was funny that it didn't even let me try. When I start up iChat AV it comes back at says video is not supported on this equipment. And then I can't do anything with video. I thought this rather unfortunate. Any way to tweak this?

---gralem

Rubens · Jun 29, 2003, 05:47 AM

Originally posted by gralem:
I thought it was funny that it didn't even let me try. When I start up iChat AV it comes back at says video is not supported on this equipment. And then I can't do anything with video. I thought this rather unfortunate. Any way to tweak this?

---gralem

Did you actually try pluggin in a firewire cam ?

Safari · Jun 29, 2003, 02:20 PM

I too have a Pismo 500 and have pluged in a firewire camera. I get the same message,

"This computer does not support video conferencing."

I beliveve a lot of people like myself would be interested in a hack around this.
Anyone have an idea?

Rubens · Jun 29, 2003, 02:40 PM

Originally posted by Safari:
I too have a Pismo 500 and have pluged in a firewire camera. I get the same message,

"This computer does not support video conferencing."

I beliveve a lot of people like myself would be interested in a hack around this.
Anyone have an idea?

man that sucks I don't care if it's a little choppy on a pismo! ! !

tikki · Jun 29, 2003, 03:24 PM

Does the box of an iSight clearly mark that only 600Mhz or higher G3's are supported? I haven't seen one. I do know that it wasn't easy to find on the iChat AV download page. It's way towards the bottom.

icruise · Jun 29, 2003, 03:40 PM

This is too bad since my parents' have two 500mhz imacs that they probably won't be replacing any time soon, and I wanted to get them an iSight to chat with me.

Oh, and happy 1000th post, Tikki.

Rubens · Jun 29, 2003, 03:48 PM

Originally posted by Icruise:
This is too bad since my parents' have two 500mhz imacs that they probably won't be replacing any time soon, and I wanted to get them an iSight to chat with me.

Oh, and happy 1000th post, Tikki.

Yes the same here, I can't believe it won't run at all on a pismo....

Safari · Jun 29, 2003, 03:58 PM

BTW: I am also going off to college out of state and would have loved chatting back with friends and family back home. (Who also have 500MHz Mac's.)

Is a hack possible?

The Ginger Rat · Jun 29, 2003, 05:46 PM

Give it a bit of time, if a hack is possible it will show up soon.

DaedalusDX · Jun 29, 2003, 06:13 PM

Anyone try iChat AV with a camcorder or iSight on a Mac under Apple's requirements stock, but with a processor upgrade?

I understand that there are some upgrades for the Pismo to get it to either a 500 mhz G4 or an 800 mhz G3 out there.

iChat simply doesn't recognize that there's a camcorder there on unsupported systems. I'm curious how iChat figures out that the system is not enough.

sideus · Jun 29, 2003, 06:34 PM

The 600MHz minimum is disheartening. My father has a 500MHz iBook and can't use iChat for video.

tooki · Jun 30, 2003, 03:59 PM

On my Pismo, I of course get the "your computer does not support video chat" message. Most amazing is that that not only applies to sending video, but to receiving it, too!

Someone tried to open a one-way video chat with me (they had the camera) and it told me that my computer doesn't support video chat. Argh!

tooki

MickS · Jul 2, 2003, 03:46 AM

I don't understand some of the anti-Apple sentiment here. Apple have looked at the requirements for video in terms of available bandwidth and the amount of CPU power needed to encode/decode the video stream in real time. They have published these requirements for the iChat AV beta.

If enough people provide feedback saying that they would accept lower quality, frame dropping, video for slower systems it may be that this is changed for the full release. At the moment it's a beta, Apple want people to see what good quality video conferencing can be like. If they hadn't published, and enforced, the requirements people would be complaining that the quality wasn't very good on their original iMac etc.

Raman · Jul 2, 2003, 10:23 PM

Maybe everybody doesn't want or need to have video conferencing at 30 FPS. Why not 5 or 15 FPS? That's certainly useable? $hit - 1 FPS (just seeing who you're talking to) is better than 0.

What the software should do is tell you that it has to drop the framerate to keep the higher quality.

Also I would think its absurd to NEED a 600G3 to send/receive a small, low res video stream. Maybe they just haven't optimized the app yet.

What ever happened to the Megahertz Myth and Megahertz doesn't matter? I would think a Pismo running no apps other than iChat AV is just as able to use iSight compared to a iBook 600 with a few apps open and running. Funny thing is iChat AV won't tell you "umm you're running too many apps - shut them down."

Stupid if you ask me. Methinks Apple is trying to get users to upgrade (again).

icruise · Jul 2, 2003, 11:58 PM

Apparently a 500mhz G4 upgraded Pismo will work, but the 900mhz G3 upgrade won't. This isn't because the 900mhz is slower than the G4, but because it doesn't get correctly reported in the Apple system profiler.

Paco500 · Jul 3, 2003, 01:31 AM

Remember that iChatAV is not the only video conferencing solution for the mac. You can easily use Yahoo messenger with older machines- I think I have read it can even be used with the iSight and older machines. I have used it for a while, and while I will readily admit iChat is a much better experience, Yahoo ain't bad. Kind of like the difference between AIM client and iChat. Not as polished but works just fine.

Griggsy · Jul 3, 2003, 11:17 AM

Originally posted by Raman:
Maybe everybody doesn't want or need to have video conferencing at 30 FPS. Why not 5 or 15 FPS? That's certainly useable? $hit - 1 FPS (just seeing who you're talking to) is better than 0.

What the software should do is tell you that it has to drop the framerate to keep the higher quality.

I agree cos this would then be useful for hicks like me who live in a narrow band hole

Rubens · Jul 5, 2003, 11:01 AM

come on guys, there has to be a way to hack this. There has to be hundreds of mac users with family etc using there cast of macs and want to use the full functionality of iChatAV, who cares if it's a bit choppy !