[JSO]

I want to be able to use my plasma ( 50" mounted over a fireplace to see and talk with my daughter - on her mac laptop. I am using Vista media center with a dedicated PC. The standard web cams dont appear to meet my particular needs.

Since I am seated about 10 feet away from the nonitor, I doubt the picture quality and audio would be up very good.

Is there a wireless web cam that might work? Or perhaps just a wireless microphone to use when on the video instant messenger thing..

Any suggestions appreciated.

Scott

[Oren]

The problem I see is that you're on a PC while she is on a Mac. If her Mac is relatively new, then it probably has a built in camera. I don't think there are any cross-platform messaging clients that also transmit video. (But I could be wrong.)

One possibility you might explore is bypassing the instant messaging client for the video portion. That is, you would each use the camera to merely publish the video, on the web (with a password). So, you would then chat with her on the instant messaging client while accessing her published webcam separately, and vice versa. Clumsy, but it might work.

She would install software to publish the camera's view (hopefully that wouldn't be prevented by running the iChat). On your end, you'd get a wireless camera with it's own server, like this one: http://www.trendnet.com/products/TV-IP400W.htm.

Then, since I assume you're on separate networks, you can have the fun of figuring out port forwarding, so the camera's view is accessible outside your network.

Or, get a Mac!

[Andrew Pratt]

There's plenty of cross platform software options for both Mac and PC. Skype's the most obvious but there are others as well. I've chatted with my sister on her PC with my Mac dozens of times.

I'm not sure what true web cam options you have that might work that far away but you could try connecting a camcorder and using that as your webcam. Most that have a USB option will work that way if you can find a driver...which may be an issue with you being on Vista.

Another option is to simply mount your webcam in a location that's much closer then the plasma so it doesn't have to be so specialized.