Is the iSight worth it?

torres

torres

unTitled 1
I really want to get the iSight web cam but...

I hear it doesn't really work with any apps other than iChat. I'd like to use it as a cheap(er) temporary alternative to getting a digital camera. I have a TiBook and I thought it would be a cool way to shoot little video clips of the family and what not as well as video for some art projects.

But since I hear I can't just save video from the camera to an mpeg or .mov to edit with another app then it doesn't seem to be worth the cost.

I don't have that many friends using iChat and even fewer with a web cam... actually none using both ;)

So getting to my question... are there any apps that would allow me to save video captured with an iSight cam to a file that I can edit? Should I just wait for some nice developer maybe even apple to come up with something?


What do you guys and gals think?
 
Yeah... I checked them out but none of them seemed to really address my concerns.

I had hope for the thread "pwharff" started but for some reason he never posted details when he got home from work that day.

The last post on that tread was about six days ago so I just wanted to renew the issue.
 
I believe that the reason it won't work in other apps is because iChat controls the auto focus, and other features of the camera. It's not built into the camera itself like basically all other cameras.

Until Apple makes this part of the system, and not iChat, or until another developer makes a program that can control the iSight(hopefully Apple will release details on how to do it), the iSight won't be compatible with anything else.:(
 
Pretty cool app. But, it looks like it's programmed to control the iSight whereas iMovie isn't.
 
I broke down and got the camera tonight. I'm fairly happy with it. I was able to use Quicktime Broadcaster to record video files to my disk. I'm still playing with the setting to find something that's good for me.

So far I've had problems with getting a good frame rate. I set it to record at 15 & 30 fps second but it doesn't look like it did. I don't know if it's a software issue or hardware or bandwidth. I hope it's software because at least then there is hope of a fix.

I've run into another weird problem with it. When I play back the video file the audio and video are out of sync. the audio always ends several seconds before the movie is done. Any ideas?

But like I said overall I'm happy with it I hope that apple or some one else comes up with a way that I can record good quality audio and video through this camera.

I guess the other cool thing about the camera is that there seems to be a lot of people out there buying these things and looking to try it out. So I guess it is a cool way to meet other Mac users around the world.

If any one wants to try it out my screen name is:
torres@mac.com
 
Isn't it just amazing how Apple CREATES demand where there prediously wasn't any? I had never really had much desire for an MP3 player, and then iPod came along... and suddenly I NEEDED one for my car. And... let's be honest... before iChat AV did you really NEED to video-conference? heh.

Good ol' Apple. Makes stuff so cool, you just HAVE to empty your wallet for them.
 
It's actually not very good in low light conditions. The picture starts to get pretty grainy.

Once the sun sets tonight I'll take a picture with it and post it here.
 
Ok here you go... I took three photos after dark in a large room with medium light conditions. I took one picture of the ceiling, one of my computer and one of the floor.



1.
01.jpg


2.
02.jpg


3.
03.jpg


These three pictures were taken a few seconds apart and all in the same room from the same location.


Here's a link to a timelapse move I shot this morning using EvoCam. I would recommend anyone using iSight get it.


Compressed small file (252k)

Uncompressed (17.9mb)


If anyone has any questions let me know.
 
Hey, very nice torres! Thanks a lot. Anyway, looks really nice. I need to turn on my 100W lamp shining directly into my face, so my firewire webcam realizes there is something to record.
btw, nice weather you got there! ;)
 
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