iSight Performance w/ Cable Modem?

wayne lau · January 20, 2004 9:18PM

Hi,

My girlfriend and I are in the midst of buying two iSights and we were wondering if someone could give us some input on perhaps the performance of the iSight w/ iChatAV with the following specs,

- 1 Titanium 15.2" Powerbook w/ 1 gig of sdram (133) & 1 GHz G4

- 1 Aluminum 15" Powerbook w/ 256mb of ram (266ddr) & 1 GHz G4

- Broadband Cable Modem connection (from Shaw)

- I think this is a theoretical 1 megabit downlink connection.

- not sure about uplink rate =(

Anyways, any input in regards to the audio\\video performance with this setup would be great. Thanks for all your time.

Wayne

ipodandimac · January 20, 2004 10:04PM

aww how cute.... ok for real...

i think you'll be fine, but that 256mb of ram looks kinda "iffy." other than that, i think youre good to go.

wrong robot · January 20, 2004 10:10PM

Works great for me.

progmac · January 20, 2004 10:34PM

it'll work great! have fun! my fiancee and i need to get these

i love how mac users often come in couples

I don't think i'd marry mine if she was a PC user by choice

chu_bakka · January 20, 2004 11:04PM

I just got the iSight as a gift... and don't have panther installed yet...

How do you get this sucker to work with Yahoo?!?!

I have a cable modem though.. I guess I'll eventually find out how it does performance wise.

machem · January 21, 2004 12:16AM

I have DSL, which is supposed to be slower than cable, but is fast than any Comcast I used to have, or the rest of my family has now.

My delay ranges from 1/2 second to 5 seconds (five seconds is prett awful). That seems to be dependent on sunspots or whatever burps the net is having that day. I have found that using the limiting bandwidth setting seems to help during those times.

iSights are pretty f*cking cool. Anything that will get my wife in front of a camera at any given moment must be.

trichobezoar · January 21, 2004 1:10AM

i set my parents up with ichat/isight on an ibook g4 with 256 ram. they have comcast cable modem with a belkin router. it works really well. no disconnects. my father is disabled and lives in georgia and can't visit us up here in new england, so it really is an amazing thing for them to see us and talk to us.

wayne lau · January 21, 2004 3:56AM

Ah, thanks for all the awesome input - truly appreciate it!

Yeah, I can't wait to pick up these iSights! From all the input, I'm feeling pretty psyched to see how well they work with "normal " broadband (as compared to those very high speed connections that people demo on normally)

It's really nice to hear all the stories of how people are using their iSights and the performances they get. It's pretty exciting to have this kindof thing.

Thanks again everybody.

Wayne

dfiler · January 21, 2004 2:47PM

Even with only 128k upstream DSL... iChat/iSight work flawlessly in full screen on a dual450.

It will make you wonder why other streams are so poor in comparison.

chych · January 21, 2004 5:22PM

I believe it takes about 30 KB/s for fluid motion, up and down, last time I tried video chat anyway. Not sure what would happen on an asymetric line.

midwinter · January 21, 2004 6:30PM

It will look like you are watching television.

mac write · January 21, 2004 7:11PM

I am with Telus and have 2.5mbps down and 1mbps up for $55/month well worth it and way more reliable then Shaw.

i iSight with my mom on SaltSpring daily (yes they have ADSL there now since April 2002).

wayne lau · January 22, 2004 2:42AM

Well, I just picked up the two iSights today.

I've hooked up mine and have been playing around with it and it sure is sweet. The video performance is awesome. However, I haven't been able to test out the sound\\audio quality yet as I have noone to use it with hehe. My girlfriend won't be getting her powerbook until a week and a half from now =(

I see that most people have mentioned how good the video quality is, and from several reviews I've read regarding the iSight, they all mention how amazing the audio side of things are w/ regards to the built-in mic. Is it "almost" like being on the phone (well maybe not that good, but good enough to use long-distance?)

wayne lau · January 22, 2004 4:40PM

Hrm, one of the things i've noticed most in using the iSight is that depending on your display profile it can greatly affect your video brightness results.

I run my own calibrated display profile that makes things a bit sharper, darker (I guess more contrastful) as compared to the original "Color LCD" display profile for my TiBook LCD and it's a huge difference. The Color LCD display profile makes my iSight video quality very bright even in dim lighting, whereas my calibrated profile really darkens everything ... I wish I could use my calibrated profile yet turn up the iSight video output a bit

anyways ... anyone else come across this? I guess it's more or less common sense hehe.

midwinter · January 22, 2004 4:44PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Wayne Lau

Well, I just picked up the two iSights today.

I've hooked up mine and have been playing around with it and it sure is sweet. The video performance is awesome. However, I haven't been able to test out the sound\\audio quality yet as I have noone to use it with hehe. My girlfriend won't be getting her powerbook until a week and a half from now =(

I see that most people have mentioned how good the video quality is, and from several reviews I've read regarding the iSight, they all mention how amazing the audio side of things are w/ regards to the built-in mic. Is it "almost" like being on the phone (well maybe not that good, but good enough to use long-distance?)

I routinely use mine to chat with a friend in Japan and with my father who lives on the other side of the US from me.

No complaints.

If you'd like to test it out, feel free to IM me.

Cheers

Scott

iSight Performance w/ Cable Modem?

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