I just tried using iChat for the first time in SL (I usually use Skype) and experienced something *very* odd.
First, the specs:
Late-2007 MBP
2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo
4 GB RAM
GeForce 8600M GT
The problem:
For the first few seconds of a chat, the video quality was gorgeous. But then my hard drive(?) (could've been the fans, I dunno) would start getting really loud (it sounded like a particularly intense Time Machine backup) and the video got extremely "blocky" until it was basically useless; after a few minutes the audio started to go, too.
We tried this a couple times with the same results. I rebooted my computer & AirPort, but no change.
My chat partner experienced no problems with audio or video (he's also on SL).
According to SpeedTest.net, my connection speeds are 12.31 Mb/s down/1.13 Mb/s up.
Skype and Google Talk video continue to work just fine.
I have a 24" iMac (purchased last spring) and an HP Deskjet 842C inkjet printer. The photo print quality was quite good under Leopard, but is very poor under Snow Leopard (I'm using the latest updated version 10.6.1 with the Gutenprint print driver, 5.2.3). The images have a noticeable bluish cast, and considerable banding. Changing the print quality and paper type does not solve the problem, in fact, the image quality usually suffers. HP has not updated the drivers since 2005.
So just in the past couple days the quality of my outgoing ichat/skype video isn't good according to my friend. but the quality of her incoming video is normal/great. i got a new router yesterday, cause our old one was dying and i kept getting kicked off, but the problem still exists. 2 days ago everything was fine.
i've fiddled with the bandwidth preference in ichat and the streaming thing in system preferences-> quicktime.
So my brother and I just upgraded to SL and we decided to do a video chat to check out the new quality. The quality is nice the only problem is... there is no sound! If I initiate the video chat, he can hear me, but I can't hear him. If he initiates it, the opposite happens. Anyone else try iChat yet between 2 SL computers and have the same problem?
Using a mid-2009 15" MBP, 3.06 GHz. iChat has been using significantly more CPU during a video chat than before the upgrade. Anyone else seeing this? I'm currently using the 9400M and not the 9600GT, but I don't think it would have any effect on this. Specifically, it uses about 100% (out of 200). Screen shot of the activity monitor is attached.
I do notice, however, that during the video chat, it is not using the iChat process AND the vcencoder process that is also used in leopard. It just uses the iChat process. I still don't think it should be using so much CPU to video chat.
Is it just me or does Skype have the superior audio and video quality? Whenever I do some audio or video chatting it seems subjectively better than iChat. (Both on a Mac tried close after one another.
There used to be Conference Recorder by iCamm, but it doesn't support OS X 10.6. I'm looking for some software that enables me to record iChat video, but not necessarily while I'm chatting with someone -- I used to use Conference Recorder to record a video diary for my own purposes. If I’m using iChat and not chatting with anybody the “record video” option is not enabled. Ther has GOT to be some third-party software out there that does the same job as Conference Recorder did. And I’m not talking that ripoff, SnapzPro — who has $69 to spend on shareware? Apple sells an entire OS for less than $30. Besides, I don’t want a screen recorder — I would like one specifically for iChat.
Are there any known issues (and if so, fixes) with the Mac Pro audio output? I have iTunes 7.6.2 on a (late '07) Mac Pro (OS X 10.4.10) with JBL Creature II speakers. Nothing too high-end, but enough to expect consistent sound reproduction in a small office space.
When I play songs on my iMac with iTunes, everything sounds tinny and just sad-quality, but not sure why. iTunes is 10.6.1, iMac is 10.6.8, files from iTunes store--when played with Quicktime or other, sound quality MUCH improved with same computer, and even playback on my iPhone is better.
When I used my Air today, I noticed that the trackpad button seemed raised. It was like you could lightly push down on it and it would "click", but not actually click. If you pushed harder, then it would actually hit the button and click. Hard to describe, in another way, when you put your finger on the left side of the button, while pushing it down, and slide it to the right, it makes a loud clicking noise. Anyone else had this issue? This is my second Air with the same problem. My first was exchanged due to several problems, and now I get one of the same issues. This is a bit disappointing. Now I really wish I took their offer of exchanging for a Macbook Pro.
Just got the 2.53 model coming from the unibody 2.4 MBP. This new screen is not very good IMHO. I have panel LP154WP4-TLA1. The colors look fake and I swear the text is blurry. I am having major eyestrain when reading in the dark. That never happened with my old MBP.
I have a high end stereo and the compression through Itunes is obvious and music quality notifibly inferior to CD's. I'm sure that i heard that Apple recognised this and were going to offer a higher (larger file size) alternative through itunes?
After the install of snow leopard, and a full charge. My battery at 96% showed only 2:45 hours, over the past 30 minutes with little no usage n the laptop (other than letting it sit at the office and periodically checking battery) I am seeing 81% charge and 2:05 on the charge.
The screen is dimmed, display sleep is set to 5 mins, computer sleep to 15....
unable to initiate video Ichat session. 2 1.xx mhz imacs (powerPC), 10.4.11, both imacs cabled, firewall disabled, all updates on both imacs applied. qtime prefs set to intranet/lan and ichat prefs set to 1mb.
I'm a Windows user and I recently bought a Mini C2D 1.83 to plug in to my LCD TV. The Mini is running Leopard and it's connected to the TV via DVI, 1360x768, millions of colors, the works. Everything's set up with QuickTime + Front Row + iTunes + DivX + AC3 (AC52). I dropped aliases for my Lacie NAS drive in the 'Movies' folder so that I can access my movies via Front Row. So far so good. It's a slick setup and I'm loving it.
There's just one headscratcher (and tentative dealbreaker) that bugs me... why does all video look like crap? The same movies that looked gorgeous when played back on the same TV from my retired WinXP media machine, now look like bad YouTube videos on the Mac. All dark areas are blocky as hell -- what's supposed to be black (or thereabouts) looks more like 'Turd Tetris' (a bunch of huge squares in various flavors of brown)..............
Suddenly and randomly with no changes at all, my ichat sound quality has downgraded completely. Everything is totally fuzzy and scratchy and not nearly as clear as before. Ive also noticed i dont pick up on the little things, like the other persons typing either. Im not sure if its hardware or software, but its incredibly frustrating and i want to fix it, but have no idea how
Is there a free app that will transcode a movie without loosing any of the size or quality? I essentially just want to reformat the file from .ogm or .wmv to something more mac friendly.
Info: Mac mini (Early 2009), Mac OS X (10.6.8), 1Tb External Firewire HD
I've always wanted to use Snow Leopard, but as it could never add MSN contacts, I couldn't. Can it now? Or is there a plugin that lets it or something?
Has anyone been experiencing a delay or lag time with videochatting in Snow Leopard? It never manifests itself at first, but after about 4-5 minutes of videochatting, all communication begins to run on about a 3-5 second delay. Essentially, videochat seems broken to me with this problem.
Additionally, whenever I invite people to chat, I am unable to hear the other side and have to attempt to connect multiple times before audio works both ways.
10.6.1 dropped yesterday, but these problems continue to manifest themselves in every videochat that I am having. I tried lowering my bandwidth limit in the "Audio/Video" preference pane for ichat, but it didn't rectify either issue.
I am struggling to reduce the size of some of my PDF , without loosing image quality. I have used Finder and it did reduce size , but the the picture quality was poor.
I've a strange problem with iChat, it closed when i lock my session. Only it with Google Chrome. The others applications still running.
I've checked all the option in system preference. the "Restore Windows..." option is checked. I've, also, looked the logs with the Console when i lock the session and when i unlock it. I see anything.
Just recently my imac began acting weird. It has started to freeze when loading pages on websites and videos now are not playing smoothly. What is up? Can someone give me some suggestions. Please know that I am only know a little about computers. This computer was bought new 2/2009.
Does anyone know how to get rid of all those status messages in iChat? Since installing Snow Leopard, there are a bunch of them. I could care less about people knowing I'm surfing the web, reading email, on the phone, etc. I prefer just "Available" and "Away" as those tell if I can chat or not.
I've tried:
- deleting all the status messages from the buddy list (no longer appear in the status message drop down menu of the buddy list, but still appear when you click the balloon icon in the menu bar)
- deleting all the .plist files to reset iChat (no luck)
as I try to open either one, a small winddow promps me that I need a newer version of either one but as I go to software update, I'm told that my software is up-to-date. What to do now?
I recently upgraded my 1st Gen MBP 2.14Ghz and my legs no longer get cooked while doing basic task. This is a great improvement.My new laptop is the 2.53Ghz w/ 4GB and 9400M Nvidia GPU w/ 256MB shared memory. upgraded w/ EFI 1.7
Aside from the upcoming Snow Leopard, the main reason I upgraded was because I watch alot of online video. Netflix, Hulu, etc...I have read that the new GPU does alot of the decoding which keeps the CPU in single digits.I noticed something was sluggish the first time I started watching videos. Netflix had a vertical sync issue that I never experienced w/ my old MBP.Then today I was watching Hulu and I saw the processing or CPU jump to 112% and the base of my laptop was very hot.
Like I said I purchased the new MBP hoping to avoid cooking the family jewels. Anyone know what's going on and what I can do to stop this?
I have a couple of new users I've added to our directory recently. They are unable to connect to our internal jabber (iChat) server. Users that have connected previously are experiencing no difficulty. A quick overview of the layout of the system: two XServes, one is OD primary (aspen) the other is OD replica and iChat server (vail). I've modded some config files (long ago) to allow user IDs for jabber to be user@ourcompany.office instead of user@vail.ourcompany.office. It works quite nicely.
Excerpt from the logs shows a failed login attempt followed by a successful login attempt. Successful logins are happening from Messages (beta), iChat under Snow Leopard, and Pidgin under windows. Failing logins are all from iChat under Snow Leopard. Please ask questions, I'm happy to add any other pertinent data! May 3 16:21:45 vail jabberd/c2s[99718]: [13] [::ffff:10.255.170.122, port=52584] connectMay 3 16:21:47 vail jabberd/c2s[99718]: [13] [::ffff:10.255.170.122, port=52584] disconnect jid=unbound,
I used my 13.3/1.86/4GB MBA to watch football today and was pretty surprised with the poor battery results. Would this seem normal?
Took off charger at 11:45AM CST, battery 100%Apps open - Mail, Chrome, Parallels with Win XP running, no XP apps open11:45-12:00pm - Simple browsing, no flash running (I use FlashBlock)12:00pm - I start up one window for NFL Sunday Ticket Online, Flash fullscreen video and one window for my Yahoo Fantasy Sports which also uses Flash. For the bulk of the time the NFL game is on fullscreen video with my Fantasy app running in the background1:15pm - I notice my battery is down to 48% with approx 1 hr 10 min remaining. I check my screen brightness and it is at 100% (not sure why), I reduce brightness to 50%1:15 - I use the computer same as at 12:00pm but now at 50% brightness 2:20 - My computer goes into hibernation (there was a low battery warning about 5-10 mins earlier.
So I essentially got 2 1/2 hours of usage with the bulk being heavy usage with flash. For the bulk of the time the computer was using 50-60% of the processor and the exhaust was about 3400rpm (the fan was audible but not loud). Does this usage time seem normal for what I did? I would have expected at least to get 4-5 hours with a 13.3 using flash. Also I was surprised that the battery life didn't improve at all after dropping screen brightness from 100% to 50%.
Hello, I have a 17" Powerbook G4 1.67ghz with the ATI 9700 128mb video card and 1600x1050 screen. I am running Leopard 10.5.8. I love the computer but the video playback on it is terrible. Even youtube videos are choppy. I can watch standard definition video files but not 720p. It there anything I can do or it is just a limitation of the G4 chip and time to upgrade to an intel?
How can I get the best quality video? In the past in different programs I have made the movie into an .avi and then imported that file into a DVD program is this the best thing to do? The quality settings on iMovie and iDVD are a little confusing. Also, is there a way that you can fit the finished DVD to disk, im sure I have seen this in the past, this would in some cases achieve the best it can do depending on the disc size. On my finished product, the menus (made in iDVD) are a little jumpy, would burning the disc at a lower speed make it easier for DVD players to handle the DVD. Also, while we are on the menu.... I set music to it, but it would loop acording do the looping on the menus, is there a way to make the audio play through even though the menu/images are looping? I have also mixed video and images in the movie, the photos don't really look great, I made a Ken Burns type slide show which is separate to the movie and that looks not bad, but the actual images that are within the movie pan quite badly and aren't as sharp as I would have hoped. Is there something I need to do differently on this? Just thought also, when importing on iMovie 09 is the quality not so good, I have heard that the best is iMovie 06. Is there any truth in this?
