iSight any good?

[Grimace]

Can iSight be used for anything besides iChat?? Is there a setting for recording .mpg or .mov files?

[RBMaraman]

The new version of iMovie (iMovie 4), which is available in the iLife '04 suite, allows video to be captured and imported from the iSight.

[Grimace]

crap. I had a chance to get that today and I passed it up.

Does anyone out there use the iSight for chatting? It seems like a fantastic idea - if everyone you know has one...

[Grimace]

one more question - is the encoding in the new version of iMovie only .mov or will it do .mpg as well?

[artiste]

ISight is fabulous - my identical twin lives in London England - I live in Virginia. We used to have huge phone bills. Now we 'talk' every day and don't even pay for a phone call. Quality is quite good indeed and there is only a slight delay in sound. We should get a commission from Apple for showing all our friends how good it is. I had been skeptical and am an absolute convert.

[virividox]

i sight it great, i have a friend in canada and im in england and we video chat all the time, and when im home in manila i also use it to talk to relatives in cali and philly

[tj2001]

It is wonderful and like everyone says the quality is extremely good! Just wish it was more cross platform compatible... if I'm not mistaken you can only Audio/Video through iChat & Yahoo... iChat is AIM compliant but it won't A/V with the PC side... hopefully this will be available soon :) That is my only compliant the rest is peachy :D

[Dont Hurt Me]

isight only works between macs

[7on]

no, iChat only works between macs (at the moment). Yahoo Messenger between an iSight on a Mac and a Logitech on a PC work just fine (on dialup even!).

Oh and artiste, if he is your identical twin, couldn't you two have just bought a couple of mirrors instead of an iSight and just used iChat's audio feature? :P

[sandman42]

In order to use iChat at all, do you have to have a .Mac account? I don't have any experience with iChat, but would like to try it, but it looks like a .Mac account is required, unless I'm missing something.

[redkore]

You don't need .mac. You can use it with a free AIM account (http://www.aim.com/).

[learthur]

This is the best voice/video over IP I have ever seen.
Works great, audio is VERY good...better than my digital cell phone.
Video is, well, webcam quality but the best webcam quality I have seen. I sight has a built in microphone which picks up a whisper in any room and has autofocus and white balance which work very well.

My phone bill has been reduced since getting this as a friend of mine I call a lot just bought the iSight and a Powerbook 17" (first Mac and he loves it).

I have used MANY different programs for the PC to "call for free" over the internet. None ever worked reliablyenough to relax and have a real conversation. iChat does work.

You don't need a .Mac account, you can get a FREE AIM account without having to sign up for AOL.

[magardener]

Help! I bought an iSight to enable my daughter to chat with her friends on her mac- but they all have pcs - and we cannot figure out how to do this.
I understand that the apple A/V chat programis useless in this situation. And I looked at yahoo - and I can send picture, but what about sound?
Any advice is appreciated!

[learthur]

The latest version of iChat is supposedly able to connect with the latest version of AOL Instant Messenger.
Make sure you are not behind a firewall, both have high speed internet, and both have cameras (iSight for Mac, not sure what to get for windoze).
You both MAY also have to have accounts on the SAME system (either .Mac or in your case both AIM accounts). I havent' been able to get AOL PC folks to see .Mac account folks.
Simply get a free AIM account for both of you at www.aim.com

[Horrortaxi]

I video chat with one of my friends--he uses AIM on a PC and doesn't have an iSight. I'm not sure how this happens since everything is "just working" on my Mac as usual, but it's certainly possible.

[aswitcher]

When iSight get more than 1:1 A/V going, even if only the speaker can be seen or all the face sare small (brady bunch credit style) I think ths device will really take off in SOHO and for home users. Even if it picks up on quicktime streaming or some such, simple and cheap to use 1:Many A/V would be very potent.

[janey]

I LOVE MY iSight
lowers my phone bill, i can see the person...there's nothing to lose by getting one :D

[7on]

I'm sure eventually Apple will have a codec developed or a firmware update that will make multi-stream possible (and quite possibly 1:1 over dialup). How about that new MPEG4 standard? Couldn't that be adapted to the iSight to give better quality?