iChat Streaming Icon

iChat Streaming Icon delivers what you want. It's a great companion to iChat AV, and brings all the features that people have asked for in the same great style.

Use your camera!
When you're not in the middle of a video conference, your camera sits there unused. Think how boring that is. Put it to use by projecting the video image onto your buddy icon. The icon is pretty small but it's enough to represent you without too much detail (nice if you're not perfectly styled). Now people can actually see when you're away or in a bad mood...

For those without camera
There are two disadvantages with video chat in iChat AV. First, your opponent must have a camera too and second, he/she must have iChat AV. Streaming your buddy icon bypasses this by allowing everyone who can see your buddy icon to see your video. Ok, it's without sound but you can still chat instead.

Type	Suffix
QuickTime Movies	.mov
Animated Gif	.gif
Flash files	.swf
General Movies	.avi
PDF Files	.pdf
Multi-image TIFFs	.tif

No camera? No problem.
So you don't have a camera? Then use any QuickTime readable animation file to make your icon dance. iChat Streaming Icon will loop through them and will replace your buddy icon with every picture. The table on the right shows typical examples. It's as simple as Drag'n&Drop.

Made for MacOS X
Being a native MacOS X application has its benefits. The application is small, fast and uses all the extras you can wish for. E.g. a system wide hot key.

You're in control
Control is good. With iChat Streaming Icon, you can configure your video camera settings (even for an iSight). You can also define which frame range, zoom factor and area you want to use from an animation.


	Do you know that . . .

	... you can drag animations either onto the dock icon or the application icon (or an alias of it). It also works onto the preview area of the main window. ... you can make a QuickTime movie out of a series of images with QuickTime Pro or with GraphicConverter . ... you can select an animation file in the Finder and change its default application using"Get Info". Make it point to iChat Streaming Icon and you can launch that animation with a simple double-click. ... if you have an second camera (like if you bought iSight but still own an old USB cam) you can use one for iChat AV and one for streaming your buddy icon.


	FAQ

	Q: Can I use iChat Streaming Icon to do video chat with my Windows friends? A: No, it is only a companion to iChat AV and not a video conferencing application on its own. Q: Every time I want to do a video chat in iChat AV the camera seems "in use". A: Use the hot key to turn off the icon updates. That will release the camera. Any any given time, only one application can use a video source. Q: I've heard that it quickly fills the Icon Cache of iChat AV. Is this dangerous and what can I do? A: It's not so dangerous. The cache only stores very small files. Also, iChat Streaming Icon clears all cache files older than 5 minutes. Q: Does it fill the cache of those viewing the animated icons too? A: Unfortunately, yes. But there is a small script that clears the cache for download here . Run it once in a while to clear the cache. Q: Why are refresh times lower than 10 seconds not recommended? A: iChat AV communicates through AOL servers. Sometimes they don't like too rapid status updates but your experience might vary.