iChat and Webcams

[Spiff]

iChat has been flaking out on me recently. I either lose sound transmission (the other person cannot hear me, but can see me) about 40 minutes into the conversation or I cannot connect with video at all, just audio from my USB web cam.

I've got a MacPro, OS 10.6.most recent. I used to have a working iSight, but it's burned out. When it does work, the picture is a shade of green. I am now using a Logitech quickcam Pro 9000 (Is this related to the SUX 9000? I just put two and two together...) The picture is great! However, it has become real flaky. It's a USB webcam.

When I dig deeper as to the problem, I get a notice that "the webcam is being used by another program". I have found several potential fixes and will try them tonight (Zap PRAM, erase iChat camera preferences). I fear that they will not be a good solution, as this problem has not been successfully fixed from the threads I have read.

If I reboot the computer, or restart iChat, the camera does not work at all and all I can do is make a phone call with iChat. Does this mean that my camera is going bad? Again? It's less than two years old.

So - anyone here still use iChat? If so, and don't have an internal (or external) iSight camera, what do y'all use?

Thanks!

[abevilac]

I use iChat w/ my daughter and we are both using Lion on MBPs. I use FaceTime w/ my mom on her iPad. They both work well for me, but I only use them maybe once a week.

[Spiff]

Yeah, my parents are still using a G5 iMac, so they cannot use Facetime. I'm stuck using iChat for now.