iChat Problems- all help much appreciated!

[rockinroll19]

Hey,

I'm new to these forums and was wondering if anyone could help me with a problem I have been having with my iChat. I have a 24 inch. iMac that I received about two - three weeks ago. Whenever I try to video chat with someone they appear on my screen all pixelated, and there is a delay of motion and sound. With some people it is worse than others. I have another mac in the house (for different use) and the picture when i chat with that one comes up wuite clear. Any suggestions?

All help is greatly appreciated!

 

[soccersquirt82]

This happens to me when I'm downloading a big file or doing lots of things at once. Check your CPU usage and see if it's really high.

 

[aross99]

This is caused by low bandwidth. iChat automatically adjusts the resolution of your image based on the available bandwidth.

Check your iChat preferences, in the Audio/Video tab, and see what your Bandwidth Limit is set to. You can try different settings, but there is no point in setting it higher than your UPLOAD speed.

WHen you are chatting, use the "Connection Doctor" (on the iChat Video menu) and see what you bitrate is (local), as well as the other person's bitrate. If you can get the bit rate up to 200K or so, you should see a good image. If it drops below 100, say down to 50, then it is going to get pixelated.

Depending on your ISP and the ISP of the person you are connecting to, your bitrate can be much less than it should be. Some ISP's (mostly Cable companies), do something that causes the bandwidth to drop when used for long connections like a chat.

Your chats with the other computer in the house are at full network speed, so they are going to be better than anything you will get over the internet. The other ones vary because of the upload speed of the person you are chatting with.