Originally Posted by crowes
I was online last night attempting to talk to my GF via the iSight. She uses a PC with a Logitech webcam (which includes a mic - or so it says on the box anyway) that I purchased for her. Therefore, we have to connect using AOL IM v. 5.5. Both she and I have broadband connections.
We ended up having our conversation via cellphone while watching the picture on the screen. This is not why I purchased this system. Any technical advice? BTW, would a RAM upgrade on her side help? I found out last night she only has 64MB (and she's running Windows XP!). I know she should upgrade anyway, and she will, but the question is, would the RAM upgrade affect the video quality?
My cousin just bought iSight and I'm going to test out my system with him to see if it makes a difference.
Any thoughts?
A couple things to check: make sure your bandwidth speeds match. She may not have any control over this, but you can set yours to match hers under the iChatAV ConnectionDoctor under the Audio/Video Menubar.
Also, please give an exact number (upload/download) for what you mean by "Broadband". To some people who only recently left modem-land, this means anything above 56K
A RAM upgrade should DEFINITELY help. I don't know how she manages to do much of anything with only 64MB
.
I've had no problems doing AV chats from random hotel rooms on a 12" Powerbook w/ 640MB RAM and an 867Mhz CPU. The other side is usually my girlfriend on our 1.1Mbit SDSL connection or work or a client w/ a T1 or better.
There are a whole bunch of other potential problems, like the upload speed on her broadband connection, rate-limiting/traffic shaping her provider does on the connection and whole bunch of other stuff(Don't get me started on the crappy service/connectivity most ISPs provide these days
. Short version: If you want to do anything other than just suck down web pages, you need business-grade DSL or something similar.) you may not have control over.
To wrap up, stick some more RAM in her box(don't hold back, drop at least another 128MB, pref. 512MB in it. It's cheap enough) and see what happens.
Let me know if you're still having problems.