[marcowashere]

Hello forumer's; I have a bizarre iChat AV problem which I was hoping I could get some help / feedback on.

We have 3 people (A, B, C) trying to video chat. Each is with a different broadband provider (in Australia) but they're all running the same version of OS X (10.4.9) and iChat.

Here's the problem....
Video chatting with C is only possible if A or B establish a multi-party, 3-way chat first.

Specifically, what happens is this...
- A and B - works fine
- (A or B) and C - C's data rate nosedives, and we only get audio from C
- A, B, and C - works fine, and this continues even if A or B subsequently leaves the chat

I'm sure the problem is a network one because if i bring two machines into the same network they video chat with no problem, but I can't work out what the heck is going wrong once the data starts going through the great cloud.

I suspect iChat uses slightly different ports or protocols for multi-party video chats, as you have to start them in a different way from 2-party video chats, but I don't know what these may be.

One last thing, C is on Telstra broadband (if that helps).

Any ideas?

[pendragon]

Often, but not always works-

Have C...

Launch and then open the QuickTime streaming setting. Go to sys prefs/quicktime/streaming/streaming speed, and set it to 1.5mbps (don’t use automatic).

In iChats prefs, click on video and change bandwidth limit to NONE.

Go to Users/(your account)/Library/Preferences and delete com.apple.ichat.plist and restart iChat.

HTH

[marcowashere]

Didn't work

C did have a low setting in iChat bandwidth, which I had previously fixed. Also, he did have a ridiculous 56K setting in QTStreaming, which we changed to Automatic, then 1.5Mb.

Nothing worked....

[pendragon]

Sorry my help wasn't.

If no clever chap or chappette soon appears, Apple has a special iChat AV forum that you might give a go: Apple - Support - Discussions - iChat AV

[marcowashere]

I'll give that a go....