Hi,
iChat video and Audio only chats use the same Video and Audio codecs as the Original IM application for PCs (AIM 5.5 and it's successor AIM 5.9).
This works with all iChat versions although iChat 2 only does AIM Buddies.
It uses the same codecs no matter which Buddy List you start from.
This is why it will not connect to the Web Based Chats as they use Flash and GoogleTalk on a PC that also uses a different codec set again.
What it will do though is allow Bonjour based Video chats from iChat
(Bonjour is a way your Mac finds and Links to other Macs on your LAN - but they have to have iChat with Bonjour on as well)
As other iChat users could have a Jabber ID (Including a Google Talk one as discussed above) you can get iChat to iChat Video chats (or Audio only).
As hinted at in the first paragraph AIM have changed the codecs uses in AIM 6.5 and 6.8 (which is the Current one)
They can be installed ON XP but AIM 5.9 - which can still be downloaded - cannot be installed on Vista.
Neither version will Video chat to AIM 5.5, 5.9, iChat or a PC application called Trillian
Trillian is a third party app for PCs that can join several IM services at once.
It is different to AdiumX on the Mac in that is can Video chat to Buddies (AIM Name to AIM name or Jabber to Jabber or MSN to MSN Buddies but not mix and match chats)
This can make the process of Video chatting to PC users a bit fraught.
Read this page regarding items 5 through 13 for Alternatives
http://www.ralphjohns.co.uk/page5.html#_other
8:38 PM Monday; April 20, 2009
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