These iChatAV (Version 2) pages are coloured Green and have the iChat 2 icon on them that was in use at the time, so you know where you are. The icon differs from Version 1 by having the camera logo added.

These pages have sat here since 2008 with no update. In that time the AIM servers have been closed down (2017) and iChat has been superseded by Messages. That effectively make this a sort of Historical Document of how it worked.

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iChatAV (Version 2) Pictures

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06 iChat 2 Video Preferences

Oct 2008

6 Video Preferences Picture

This is the iChat 2 Video Preferences. Last pic in this series.

This is where you check your Camera is producing a Picture and set the Input device (Microphone).

On Macs that have a Line-In option and an Internal Mic you will get the Microphone Drop Down choice. Here the choice is because of an external Logitek USB Mic. The device chosen in here must match the choice made in System Preferences > Sound > Input tab. It will show the Line-In option even if you have nothing attached (Edit 2024: If there is nothing in the Line In socket and no other Mic then your Video chats will be soundless on your outgoing side).

The External iSight camera will display in System Preferences > Sound as an Input device and here in iChat as a Microphone choice as it has internal microphones included. This may apply to you if your Camera has a microphone, although it may be listed as a USB device in the System Preferences if it is a USB camera.

My G4 tower has Line-In but no Internal Mic so I use an external USB mic.

The Bandwidth caps any Internet speed if not set at NONE. This can be adjusted on the fly during a chat and the results will be seen in the Connection Doctor if open. If you are on a very fast connection and your Buddy is not - it may pay to reduce your setting here to 500 or even as low as 200 - because with modern internet speeds it is possible to overwhelm a slower Buddy. Bitrate X Framerate equals lots of data sent that your Buddy might not be able to cope with a low download speed.

iChat will tend to use about 80% of what is set and as 100kbps is the practical every day lower limit for a Video chat it is not worth using that setting. You will get a failure message if iChat detects or falls below 50kbps (below Dial-up modem speeds. (Edit 2024: that was 56kbps if you did not know).

If you are still at Quicktime 6 which came with Panther or have even updated to Quicktime 7 - the setting for the Connection speed (Quicktime 6) or Streaming speed (7) in System Preferences > Quicktime > Connection speed/Streaming tab also directly effects iChat as iChat reads the "Automatic" setting as a 0kbps and a similar miss-read of the top "Intranet/LAN" setting so setting it to "1.5Mbps / Intranet / LAN" is best. Don't worry about any Cable or DSL reference as DSL speeds now outstrip these guide comments in Quicktime.

With external cameras that can be set to be On all the time you can set it so iChat will start up if the camera is On. It also works as a method to re-log in to AIM if the connection is lost. This setting remains in iChat 3 and 4 but does not work with Internal cameras although only iChat 4 specifies it works only with External cameras.

Possible Places to go next. > iChat 3 > iChat 4 or > iChat 5

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Information Block

This site is about iChat from Version 1 through to iChat 5.x.x
Mostly this is kept as an Historical Document. Some small tense changes have been made but the content is by and large untouched.

It has a mixture of basic info and problem solving help.

The sections below will change for Specifics about info on the page on view

About This Page

Lights, Camera, Action. Check Microphone choice matches System Preferences > Sound > Input.

Check out Bandwidth settings. There are some ISPs such as Comcast and Road Runner (Was part of Time Warner) who manage their Bandwidth and setting it to 500kbps here can help get around that. (they were trying to curtail Peer-to-Peer File Sharing)

Compatibility

As mentioned above this has had a major Edit/Update in September 2024 meaning that the Browsers listed below are likely to no longer work.

I have tested in Safari 18.1, Firefox 130.x and 131.0, Vivaldi 6.9.3447.48 and iCab 6.2.3 (All Mac Browsers) I don't have access to a PC let alone multiple browsers to test on.

The original pages worked with Win/IE 5.5 and later (should work in 5.0, but not confirmed), Firefox 2, Safari 3, Opera 9, iCab 3.02 and later, Mac/IE 5, Netscape 6 and later

Old browsers (IE version 4 or earlier, Netscape 4 or earlier) would only see a text-based page which, while not the prettiest option, is still entirely usable.