Frequently Asked Questions
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Troubleshooting
- I can see the ShowMacster drawer and can import media.
But when I click on a "Play" button nothing happens. What's wrong?
- Is iGlasses compatible with ShowMacster?
- Is ShowMacster compatible with the 3rd party iChat extension/plugin "XYZ"?
- Why is the live screen capture so blurred / so jumpy?
Functional questions
- Do both ends of iChat have to have ShowMacster?
- Can I use ShowMacster even if I don't have a camera connected?
- Does ShowMacster work with Mac OS 10.2 (or older)?
- Will ShowMacster also work with Rendezvous/Bonjour chats?
- Is it possible to stream my favourite DVD to my buddy?
- How can I add a photo out of iPhoto into the ShowMacster drawer?
- How can I send an original movie/photo in my ShowMacster drawer to my buddy?
- How can I get the best quality movie playback in ShowMacster?
Miscellaneous
- Is ShowMacster compatible with Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard)?
- How can I unnistall the ShowMacster Trial version?
- Why is the streaming media flipped in the iChat preview?
- What is the minimum/recommended speed of my computer?
- Can I use ShowMacster with more than one iChat account?
- Is there a Windows version of ShowMacster?
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| I can see the ShowMacster drawer and can import media. But when I click on a "Play" button nothing happens. What's wrong? |
Please check the following:
- Is iChatUSBCam installed on your computer? Try to remove iChatUSBCam (/Library/InputManagers/Ecamm) temporarily from your system, restart iChat and try ShowMacster.
ShowMacster requires a FireWire webcam (e.g. an iSight) or another FireWire DV video source (e.g. a DV camcorder). iChatUSBCam interfers into the iChat/ShowMacster communication. We try to solve this in a future version of ShowMacster.
- If there are other SIMBL plugins installed on your computer, try to move all plugins except "ShowMacster.bundle" out of the SIMBL plugin folder (/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins) temporarily. Restart iChat and try ShowMacster.
If you have a SIMBL plugin with problems in conjunction with ShowMacster, please let us know:
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| Is iGlasses compatible with ShowMacster? |
Yes, with ShowMacster v1.4 or later. |
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| Is ShowMacster compatible with the 3rd party iChat extension/plugin "XYZ"? |
Currently there is no known issue with 3rd party software.
If you have any problems with ShowMacster in conjunction with another extension/plugin for iChat, please let us know: |
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| Why is the live screen capture so blurred / so jumpy? |
The fuzziness has its origin in the resolution iChat sends its videostream. This resolution is 176x144 pixels. If you select a bigger part of your screen, it will be resized to this (small) resolution, thus it will loose its sharpness.
Your CPU usually has a hard time during the fun of a video chat. To capture (large) parts of your screen, resizing and compressing them to a sendable format doesn't make things better. So, if you want to send your entire 30" desktop through iChat/ShowMacster, you'll better own a big, fat macho G5 Mac, otherwise the transmission will become jumpy. |
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| Do both ends of iChat have to have ShowMacster? |
No. ShowMacster sends the media through the standard video stream of iChat, thus the receiver of the stream just needs iChat AV. |
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| Can I use ShowMacster even if I don't have a camera connected? |
A firewire webcam using the Apple firewire webcam driver (IIDC) (e.g. iSight) or another FireWire DV video source (e.g. a DV camcorder) is obligatory.
Showmacster links itself into the data stream from the camera, so if there is no camera, there is nothing to link to. |
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| Does ShowMacster work with Mac OS 10.2 (or older)? | No. ShowMacster runs only on Mac OS X 10.3 and Mac OS X 10.4. iChat AV and an FireWire webcam are required as well. |
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| Will ShowMacster also work with Rendezvous/Bonjour chats? | Yes, of course. Because of the absence of the Internet's bottleneck, the quality of movies is even better. |
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| Is it possible to stream my favourite DVD to my buddy? |
Generally spoken: Yes, it is possible to playback the 400MB-MP4-Macworld-Keynote.mov with ShowMacster, and you are allowed to define your complete 30" Cinema Display for life screen capture, but be aware that this will give your CPU a hard time. With the present code, capturing a large area of your screen, resize it to the native iChat transmission resolution and compress it into the right format eats up CPU time rapidly. This is also true for the playback of huge QuickTime movies or weird compression formats (e.g. MPEG2 or DivX, through additional codecs).
The idea behind ShowMacster was to playback short (at its best special prepared) movie clips. So, at least in a first step (first major revision), it should be handled this way. |
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| How can I add a photo from iPhoto into the ShowMacster drawer? |
Just drag and drop the photo from iPhoto into the ShowMacster drawer. |
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| How can I send an original movie/photo in my ShowMacster drawer to my buddy? |
Just drag and drop the movie/photo from your ShowMacster drawer onto "the face of your buddy". |
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| How can I get the best quality movie playback in ShowMacster? |
Try to provide "friendly" movie stuff to ShowMacster (and to your CPU):
As a starting point: Movies with a size of max. 320x240, 5-10 fps and a codec like "Motion JPEG" (the AVI files most digital still camaras deliver) should work fine.
Play around with different parameters (codecs, sizes...). Use "QuickTime Player" to export different formats if you have access to QuicktimePro, otherwise it should be possible to recompress movies with iMovie ("Share... > Quicktime > Compress movie for: Expert Settings").
Remember, that iChat will transmit the video stream with a resolution of only 176x144 pixels and something like 5 to 15 frames per second. So providing a movie in 640x480 fullscreen resolution with 30 fps may be possible, but doesn't result in better or more fluid video on the other end of the line. |
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| Is ShowMacster compatible with Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard)? |
Yes, since v1.9! |
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| How can I unistall the ShowMacster Trial version? | To remove ShowMacster from your computer, just trash the following file:
/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/showMacster.bundle
To remove SIMBL, trash the following files/folders:
/Library/Application Support/SIMBL
/Library/InputManagers/SIMBL
(Check if there are other SIMBL plugins installed in the
/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins folder before you remove SIMBL!)
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| Why is the streaming media flipped in the iChat preview? | This is a "feature" of iChat. ShowMacster uses the iChat infrastructure to send its media. Thus, the preview of the streamed media is mirrored as the own webcam preview is mirrored. Your opponent receives the normal (unflipped) version of the media! |
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| What is the minimum/recommended speed of my computer? | ShowMacster runs fine on an iMac G4 800Mhz. As always: The faster, the better. For fluent playback of big movies or large live screen captures a G4 CPU with 1.5GHz or more is recommened.
For stills, any Mac which is able to handle a video chat with iChat AV should be fine. |
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| Can I use ShowMacster with more than one iChat account? | Yes. The licence model of ShowMacster is "pay per account". For purchasing more than one licence we will provide volume discount prices.
If you want to use one ShowMacster installation with more than one iChat account, simply switch to another account in the iChat preferences. If the new account isn't registered in ShowMacster yet, the registration dialog will pop up automatically as soon as you're connecting AIM with the new account which enables you to add the new account/licence key to the list of registered accounts. |
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| Is there a Windows version of ShowMacster? |
No way! |
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