Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

wolfen · Apr 25, 2005, 09:55 PM

Well....is it? The marketing literature on the new iChat is fairly vague -- and that usually doesn't bode well. Anyone have any inSight on the Tiger's iSight / AIM compatibility?

MF

Appleman · Jun 14, 2005, 04:37 AM

Originally Posted by wolfen

Well....is it? The marketing literature on the new iChat is fairly vague -- and that usually doesn't bode well. Anyone have any inSight on the Tiger's iSight / AIM compatibility?

MF

A friend has windoze, I can see her in AIM with a camera next to her name. We do not seem to get it work. If I invite it goes canceled by friend, although friend doesn't.
Otherway around says I canceled, which I don't.

Turned off Firewall on both sides, doesn't help.

krove · Jun 14, 2005, 11:32 AM

In the Panther version, I've been able to communicate with a Windows AIM user, but I have not tried it with the new Tiger version. But I'll let you know, as I am buying a cheap WebCam for my gf to use with her, GASP, Dell laptop.

krove · Jun 16, 2005, 12:32 PM

Well...reporting back. We decided on the snazzy Logitech QuickCam Orbit. After installing the drivers, I attempted using AIM (both the latest version and the beta. After witnessing the nightmares of UI that both AIM and AIM beta have, I gave up entirely on AIM. Both AIMs are extremely buggy, but do work with iChat for video conferencing. The problem is: AIM does not let you resize the video window!!! It is stuck at this puny size next to the text-chatting box. Ugh. In addition, those stupid AIM developers lack any sophistication or innovation because the two videos (i.e. my video and the other person's video) are displayed on separate tabs: you are only allowed to view one at a time. What kind of conference is that?!?!

Well, after much frustration with the UI, ads, and bugs, I investigated 3rd-party AIM clients for Windows and came across Trillian. I was fearful that none of the 3rd-party AIM clients would have video integration because no Mac-compatible 3rd-party AIM clients (I'm looking in your direction, Adium) have AV conferencing. Trillian does do video, however!!! It specifically mentions compatibility with iChat.

We downloaded it and it worked perfectly. Way better interface, no ads, suitable video quality, resizable video window, picture-in-picture video conferencing à la iChat. Sweetness. Trillian does require the Pro version ($25) to do video conferencing, but it is worth it considering the crap that AIM makes you put up with.

Oisín · Jun 16, 2005, 01:17 PM

Trillian

Only problem I've come across with it is that (at least in the past), it had very shoddy Unicode support, so talking to Chinese friends was pretty much impossible...

philm · Jun 19, 2005, 01:49 PM

Another

for Trillian-to-iChatAV from me also, although everything is rather flakier under Tiger than under Panther.

pat++ · Jun 19, 2005, 04:45 PM

Originally Posted by wolfen

Well....is it? The marketing literature on the new iChat is fairly vague -- and that usually doesn't bode well. Anyone have any inSight on the Tiger's iSight / AIM compatibility?

MF

It works pretty well. I'm using it very often. I use Tiger's iChat + iSight and on the other side the latest AIM for windows.

krove · Jun 20, 2005, 01:24 PM

I'm a bit disappointed with the video quality from Trillian, though. Is there any way to boost it? The encoder they use sucks even though the video quality slider is maxed out in the preferences.

I hope they fix this in the next version to use H.264 or at least increase the video quality/resolution.