I wonder if this will work in OS X. Looks pretty nice.
http://gizmodo.com/5339609/coming-soon-microsofts-beefed+up-720p-lifecam-cinema-webcam
http://gizmodo.com/5339609/coming-soon-microsofts-beefed+up-720p-lifecam-cinema-webcam
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Microsoft LifeCam Cinema 720p
- Thread starter BryanLyle
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Heres one for Mac
Try out the new aGent V5. I bought one the other week and it records in FULL HD 1600x1200 (as well as the smaller res of the Lifecam 2180x720) on my Mac. The webcam is from Liquid Digital.
Try out the new aGent V5. I bought one the other week and it records in FULL HD 1600x1200 (as well as the smaller res of the Lifecam 2180x720) on my Mac. The webcam is from Liquid Digital.
LifeCam Cinema
I've been scouring for info on whether the LifeCam Cinema is driverless - UVC compliant - on OSX for my mac webcam site. Still haven't found a definitive answer - short of buying one and trying it. It's a shame web cam manufacturers aren't adopting the UVC standard across the board, would make life easier for Mac mini, Mac Pro tower, Early iMac and Mac mini owners.
Its important to note really hi-res webcams: 1. Need a TON of CPU power to pump out frames that fast. And more importantly; 2. The majority of Mac video capture and video chat/messenger programs (including Photobooth) CAN'T capture or transmit video at higher than 640x480 anyways!
And home DSL and Cable connections can't send true HD video frame-rates either! So a cam like the Cinema HD is overkill for the average user. A sharp 1.3mp webcam will give most folks good frame rates with the majority of chat programs out there.
I've been scouring for info on whether the LifeCam Cinema is driverless - UVC compliant - on OSX for my mac webcam site. Still haven't found a definitive answer - short of buying one and trying it. It's a shame web cam manufacturers aren't adopting the UVC standard across the board, would make life easier for Mac mini, Mac Pro tower, Early iMac and Mac mini owners.
Its important to note really hi-res webcams: 1. Need a TON of CPU power to pump out frames that fast. And more importantly; 2. The majority of Mac video capture and video chat/messenger programs (including Photobooth) CAN'T capture or transmit video at higher than 640x480 anyways!
And home DSL and Cable connections can't send true HD video frame-rates either! So a cam like the Cinema HD is overkill for the average user. A sharp 1.3mp webcam will give most folks good frame rates with the majority of chat programs out there.
I Believe Leo Laport did try it out on TWIT Live and compare it to the Logitech 9000 on both Windows and Mac.
You can see the comparison test video at the following link
http://odtv.me/2009/09/webcam-faceoff/
From what I remember, it was detected correctly on OSX, but some of the advanced options which are only available through the Software did not work.
You can see the comparison test video at the following link
http://odtv.me/2009/09/webcam-faceoff/
From what I remember, it was detected correctly on OSX, but some of the advanced options which are only available through the Software did not work.
Lifecam Works
Just plugged in my Lifecam HD on my OSX86 box I just built running 10.5.7 and it recognizes it with no problem. Tested it in iChat. A little laggy but isn't that because iChat has a framerate limit?
Just plugged in my Lifecam HD on my OSX86 box I just built running 10.5.7 and it recognizes it with no problem. Tested it in iChat. A little laggy but isn't that because iChat has a framerate limit?
I bought one of these to try for my dad, because all the stats looked good on paper, and it was pretty cheap. It physically looks nice and does work, but I ended up returning it.
The Mac (10.6.2) had no trouble recognizing it, and indeed was quite happy to display/record video at the full 1280x720 resolution. However, neither the autofocus nor any brightness adjustment works--those are apparently controlled by a computer-side driver, not automatically by the camera. Since there's no Mac driver (apart from the basic universal camera support), you don't get these features.
I wasn't particularly surprised by this, but it made it nearly unusable--in regular indoor artificial lighting at roughly arm's length or so from the screen it looked acceptable, but if the light was any brighter it gets horribly washed out, to the point it's pretty much unusable if the sun is out and the blinds are open. I've seen the same thing happen on cameras on Windows if you don't install the driver (heck, some older ones can't be adjusted at all, and are pretty much useless in bright light).
I also wasn't particularly impressed by the quality--though it put out a hi-def image, the actual quality was mediocre. Again, not terribly surprising given the price, but I was unimpressed. It also seemed a little laggy at the hi-def resolution, though this may have been the Mac software's fault, not the camera's. It seemed normal at a standard-def resolution.
I suppose if you only ever intended to use the camera at night and didn't care about autofocus it wouldn't be a bad choice, but you could probably get similar quality and (lack of) features for less money were that the case.
Me, I returned it and ended up buying a Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro for Mac--unlike the MS camera (and the cheaper Logitech Pro 9000) it does the brightness adjustment and autofocus automatically in hardware, so it fully supports these features on the Mac and without any additional software. It's not widescreen (or hi-def), and I don't think it's as attractive as the MS camera, but it works very well, and I'd say the image quality is somewhat higher, too, so I'm happy with it. Cost somewhere around $80 after rebate, which isn't all that much more than the MS cam or Logitech 9000.
Gotta say I like the manual that came with the Logitech camera--it essentially says "Plug it in and you're done."
The Mac (10.6.2) had no trouble recognizing it, and indeed was quite happy to display/record video at the full 1280x720 resolution. However, neither the autofocus nor any brightness adjustment works--those are apparently controlled by a computer-side driver, not automatically by the camera. Since there's no Mac driver (apart from the basic universal camera support), you don't get these features.
I wasn't particularly surprised by this, but it made it nearly unusable--in regular indoor artificial lighting at roughly arm's length or so from the screen it looked acceptable, but if the light was any brighter it gets horribly washed out, to the point it's pretty much unusable if the sun is out and the blinds are open. I've seen the same thing happen on cameras on Windows if you don't install the driver (heck, some older ones can't be adjusted at all, and are pretty much useless in bright light).
I also wasn't particularly impressed by the quality--though it put out a hi-def image, the actual quality was mediocre. Again, not terribly surprising given the price, but I was unimpressed. It also seemed a little laggy at the hi-def resolution, though this may have been the Mac software's fault, not the camera's. It seemed normal at a standard-def resolution.
I suppose if you only ever intended to use the camera at night and didn't care about autofocus it wouldn't be a bad choice, but you could probably get similar quality and (lack of) features for less money were that the case.
Me, I returned it and ended up buying a Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro for Mac--unlike the MS camera (and the cheaper Logitech Pro 9000) it does the brightness adjustment and autofocus automatically in hardware, so it fully supports these features on the Mac and without any additional software. It's not widescreen (or hi-def), and I don't think it's as attractive as the MS camera, but it works very well, and I'd say the image quality is somewhat higher, too, so I'm happy with it. Cost somewhere around $80 after rebate, which isn't all that much more than the MS cam or Logitech 9000.
Gotta say I like the manual that came with the Logitech camera--it essentially says "Plug it in and you're done."
I bought the camera. What a big mistake to get a non-4:3-ratio camera! All of Apples applications such as iChat and Photo Booth are hardcoded for 4:3 so everything look stretched. The only application that handled the widescreen ratio was QuickTime X
Got it cheap, though
Got it cheap, though
So I shouldn't bother spending extra money and getting an HD webcam since I plan on using it only for iChat and Skype?