21.9. Video Chats

21.9. Video Chats If you and your partner both have broadband Internet connections, even more impressive feats await. You can conduct a free video chat with up to four people
Nội dung trích xuất từ tài liệu:
21.9. Video Chats21.9. Video ChatsIf you and your partner both have broadband Internet connections, even more impressivefeats await. You can conduct a free video chat with up to four people, who show up onthree vertical panels, gorgeously reflected on a shiny black table surface. This isnt thejerky, out-of-audio-sync, Triscuit-sized video of Windows videoconferencing. If youvegot the Mac muscle and bandwidth, your partners are as crisp, clear, bright and smooth astelevision—and as big as your screen, if you like.People can come and go; as they enter and leave the videosphere, iChat slides theirglistening screens aside, enlarging or shrinking them as necessary to fit on your screen.Apple offers this luxurious experience, however, only if you have luxurious gear: • A video camera. It can be the tiny iSight camera thats embedded above the screens of iMacs and laptops; an external FireWire iSight camera; an ordinary digital camcorder (as long as your Mac has at least a G5 chip inside); or a golf-ball Webcam that connects via FireWire instead of USB. Tip: You and your buddy dont both need the same gear. If only you have a camera, for example, you can choose Buddies Invite to One-Way Video Chat (or Audio Chat). Your less-equipped buddy can see you, but has to speak (audio only) or type in response. • A fast processor. This is miserably picky information, but confronting it now will save you many headaches down the road: If your Mac has a 867-megahertz G4 processor or anything faster, you can have one-on-one video chats. To pull off a multiperson video chat, the Mac that initiates the call—invites everyone else to join—must contain a G5 processor or dual G4s running at 1 gigahertz or faster. If you want to join a multiperson video chat, you need an Intel G5 chip, a 1-gigahertz G4 chip, or dual 800-megahertz G4s. • Bandwidth. You need Internet upload/download speeds of at least 100 kilobits per second for basic, tiny video chats with one other person, and a minimum of 384 Kbps for four-way video chats. And those are for the smallest video windows. Starting a video chat at the highest video quality requires 1,800 Kbps—speeds that residential DSL packages may not be able to muster.Tip: As youre beginning to appreciate, iChats system requirements are all over the map.Some features require very little horsepower; others require tons.To find out exactlywhich features your Mac can handle, choose Video Connection Doctor; from theShow pop-up menu, choose Capabilities. Theres a little chart of all iChat features,showing checkmarks for the ones your Mac can manage.If you see a camcorder icon next to a buddys name, you can have a full-screen, high-quality video chat with that person, because they, like you, have a suitable camera and ahigh-speed Internet connection. If you see a stacked camcorder icon, then that person hasa G5 or a faster Mac thats capable of joining a four-way video chat.To begin a video chat, click the camera icon next to a buddys name, or highlightsomeone in the Buddy List and then click the camcorder icon at the bottom of the list. Or,if youre already in a text chat, choose Buddies Invite to Video Chat. Figure 21-8. Thats you in the smaller window. To move your own mini-window, click a different corner, or drag yourself to a different corner. If you need to blow your nose or do something else unseemly, Option-click the microphone button to freeze the video and mute the audio. Click again to resume.A window opens, showing you. This Preview mode is intended to show what your buddywill see. (Youll probably discover that you need some kind of light in front of you toavoid being too shadowy.) As your buddies join you, they appear in their own windows(Figure 21-8).And now, some video-chat notes: • If your conversation partners seem unwilling to make eye contact, its not because theyre shifty. Theyre just looking at you, on the screen, rather than at the camera—and chances are you arent looking into your camera, either. • Dont miss the Video Full Screen command! Wild. • You can have video chats with Windows computers, too, as long as theyre using a recent version of AOL Instant Messenger. Be prepared for disappointment, though; the video is generally jerky, small, and slightly out of sync. Thats partly due to the cheap USB Webcams most PCs have, and partly due to the poor video codec (compression scheme) thats built into AOL Instant Messenger. • If you use iChat with a camcorder, you can set the camera to VTR (playback) mode and play a tape right over the Internet to whoever is on the other end! (The video appears flipped horizontally on your screen, but looks right to the other person.) • You can capture a still photoofa video chat by -dragging the image to your desktop, or by choosing Video Take Snapshot (Option- -S). • Dont want to see yourself in the picture-in-picture window during your video chat? Choose Video Hide Local Video. (Thats new in 10.5.) • This cutting-edge technology can occasionally present cutting-edge glitches. The video quality deteriorates, the transmission aborts suddenly, the audio has an annoying echo, and so on. When problems strike, iChat Help offers a number of tips; the Video Connection Doctor can identify your network speed. (iChat video likes lots of network speed.) • Just as you can save your typed transcripts of instant message conversations, you can record your audio and video chats. Once you start a chat, choose Video Record Chat. Your buddy is asked if its OK for you to proceed with th ...