[harrisjamieh]

So when i got my isight iMac i was all excited to actually use the isight. Problem is, is that over in the UK, few people use iChat/AIM, and the people I do know that use AIM do not have macs. I understand that if someone is using the newest version of AIM chat on the PC, then it should allow me to connect to them using iChat? But everytime I try all I can see on my screen is me and a notice saying 'connecting' and all the other person can see is themselves with a similar notice.

Anyone got any ideas why it wont work?

[JKT]

This site and this site are a gold mine of information on iChat and the latter one especially has detailed instructions on how to set-up iChat to PC AIM videochats - IIRC it is from a guy who provides a lot of user support on iChat at Apple Discussions.

From the first link, this is a brief list of things that are needed on the PC side of things:

I do video chat with many PCs, and a few of my regular chat buddies use PCs. In the cases where I have encountered difficulty, the most frequent problems chatting with PCs seem to be:
  -PC's broadband speed too slow, (Check your Broadband Speed)
  -PC needs to use Windows XP and AIM 5.9,
  -PC needs to install the "extra" Windows XP file to support A/V,
  -PC needs to "tune" his camera/mic,
  -PC needs to open his XP software Firewall,
  -PC needs to set router ports IAW AIM FAQ.

Another site you may be interested in that I recently discovered is Mac Messenger Guide which provides information on alternatives to iChat. For instance aMSN and Mercury Messenger both support video-conferencing with MSN on the PC (I haven't had a chance to try either yet so can't comment on the quality). From the description, Mercury Messenger offers feature parity with MSN Messenger 7 on the PC.

HTH.

[JKT]

Another site that is the best I've seen yet on how to use Jabber in iChat for text chats with other messenger services.

[harrisjamieh]

Cheers dude

[cybergoober]

Well, the NEWEST version of AIM for PC (technically a beta, I think - AIM Triton) locks iChat out of A/V chats with it.

[philm]

I have had good success using iChatAV on my Mac videoing with my brother who uses Trillian Pro with Windows. There is a trial version. Trouble is, your mates would need to shell out for this which I guess is OK for a close family member, but your mates might not fancy that.