high speed usb 2.0 vs full speed

I

iguy1

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Hi I am interested in adding a webcam to my desktop Imac (power pc)- Isight is no longer available- an option that I found is the Ecamm Image- but apparently it is USB and not firewire and it will only run with high speed usb- how do I know which type is on my computer? I checked system profiler but quite frankly wasn't sure of the designations.. does anyone have any experience with this camera, by the way? is USB 2.0 by definition "High Speed"?

thanks
happy holidays

Mike
 
iguy1 said:
Hi I am interested in adding a webcam to my desktop Imac (power pc)- Isight is no longer available- an option that I found is the Ecamm Image- but apparently it is USB and not firewire and it will only run with high speed usb- how do I know which type is on my computer? ...
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The Ecamm iMage explicitly supports iChat at 640 x 480, which is VGA resolution. You can't do better in a webcam nor would you want to. The chat networks have bandwidth limits. Do you really expect to transmit 1080/30p HD video over AIM or Skype?
 
Even when USB 2.0 appeared not everything USB 2.0 called could do 480mb, the usb 2.0 speed.

If you specify the kind of mac you have, most likely someone might know what kind of usb ports the system has.

You can send any image over the internet, but remember that a picture of e.g. 100k takes at least a second to be transmitted with a 1 mbit upload speed (forget the download as you are sending it to the internet, not getting it from the internet).

A picture of 640x480 = about 300.000 pixels with color information added will be in general a lot bigger as 100k. Thus such images take several seconds to be transmitted and will appear slugish. So settle for a much lower size and it will look better (and worse).


Good luck, Kees
 
Why use USB at all? Don't you have a MiniDV camcorder? Use it on your firewire connection. It will have far better quality and versaltility then any webcam could ever hope for. You can buy a used on on Ebay for less than $100. What more could you want? :) Less than $100 if it doesn't have a battery and charger. I got one for $50. Works great. Then buy an aftermarket universal AC adapter and you can use it on any camcorder in the future.
 
hi- thanks for the recommendation. How would that work, lets say with ichat or even skype? would those programs recognize the minidv camcorder? I am primarily interested in being able to"see" my family members who are abroad. Thanks

Mike
 
iguy1 said:
hi- thanks for the recommendation. How would that work, lets say with ichat or even skype? would those programs recognize the minidv camcorder? I am primarily interested in being able to"see" my family members who are abroad. Thanks

Works great with iChat and Skype. Firewire just seems more Mac-friendly than USB. Try using a 20x or more optical zoom with an iSight....lol. Not even close in picture quality or flexibility. I wouldn't recommend it except that they are so cheap because so many people buy them on impulse and never use them so the used market is currently quite flooded with them and it keeps the prices rock bottom. You can also record directly on to your hard drive if your machine is fast enough. You can also use it for time lapse photography or surveillance/security with the right software. Be careful to get one with good light sensitivity so you don't have to light up your workspace like the Houston Astrodome for someone to see you online.
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