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Anyone seen the Dell SP2208WFP in the wild?

dell webcam/monitor

I just spoke with a Dell salesperson on the phone about this monitor. The webcam is output via a USB port. From what I understand, Macs will only accept external webcams via Firewire.

So, short of some software hack/convertor, it sounds like it won't work. Bummer.
 
talkingtojoey said:
I just spoke with a Dell salesperson on the phone about this monitor. The webcam is output via a USB port. From what I understand, Macs will only accept external webcams via Firewire.

So, short of some software hack/convertor, it sounds like it won't work. Bummer.
Click to expand...

The Xbox 360 video camera is USB and it works fine on OS X. No drivers required.
 
I have the Dell SP2008WFP which appears to be the 20" version of this monitor. It uses a TN panel and has a glossy screen. The built-in camera works fine in Tiger and in Leopard, no drivers were needed.
 
Hrm, so would this TN panel be any improvement over the uber-cheap hanns-g LCD I bought, or would it just be bigger? The color reproduction on this thing is awful (but what do you want for $100). The webcam working and the colors going along so well really are tempting
 
Well. I just got this. WEbcam works as advertised, true plug and play. No complains about the screen. Great!

UPDATE: The camera works perfectly, but I can't seem to get the mic to pick up sound. It might just be me doing something wrong and I'm in the midst of finals and don't really have time to screw with it
 
Webcam?

How did you get the built-in webcam to work??
I've got it hooked up to my MacBook.
Thanks!

*It was the lack of the USB cable.
 
I have a mac mini (1.7GHz Intel Core Duo) with OSX 10.4.11.

I have the new Dell SP2008WFP and can report that the digital video (DVI), webcam and mic all work fine.

To get the webcam to work, I had to install the macam usb webcam driver (0.9.1).
 
I havent' even gotten to the webcam part yet.

I've got a mac mini and after my mac cinema display died after just a year,:mad: basically, just after the warranty ran out, I decided to try this same Dell 20' SP2008WFP with the webcam - which is warranted for three years - standard.:D

Works with the analog connector but worked only about 2 or 3 minutes connected with the dvi. I had staticcy(sp?) lined streaks going across the screen and then it blacked out. Hooked back up the analog and it's working fine.

The drivers are for windows only. Could this be the problem? If so, is there anything I can do about it? The mac recognizes the monitor with both connections, so I don't understand why it won't wotk for the dvi. I'd really like to use the digital connection. Much better clarity.


songs
 
Mine came last night :)

Mine came last night (would have been here on Monday...stupid DHL)

I've got an old 20" ultrasharp widescreen (the 2006 model) sitting next to it, and the quality of the panel is nowhere near as nice, but the contrast ratio is incredible. The blacks actually look black.

Still can't get the Web cam drivers to work in Vista, but I'm guessing Leopard will know what to do with them. I've also got a dead pixel already, which is a super bummer, but got this thing for $260 shipped w/tax which ain't bad.

2231521635_7afe3b5fa1.jpg


More here.
 
Make sure to use good USB cables

I've just received one of these monitors, and the webcam *does* work (as does the microphone). This is with OS X 10.5.1, on an Intel Mac Mini. The monitor's connected via DVI - looks great, though colour profile needs to be tweaked.

My initial experience was that the cam didn't work - but I was using a dodgy USB cable (no EMI shields, the cylindrical blobs at each end). Replacing this with the Dell-supplied cable fixed it up a treat. The camera quality seems quite good.

For the record, here's my monitor's System Profiler output for the webcam:

Monitor Integrated Webcam:

Version: 1.00
Bus Power (mA): 500
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: OmniVision Technologies, Inc.-S2640-07.05.28.1
Product ID: 0x2641
Vendor ID: 0x05a9
 
Hi, I have the same Screen (Dell SP2208 with the Webcam) but don't work with my Macbook Pro and Leopard.

and what do you change on the color profile, for the best resolution color?

thanks for your answer
 
Which mac mini and video card do you have?

47songs said:
I've got a mac mini and after my mac cinema display died after just a year,:mad: basically, just after the warranty ran out, I decided to try this same Dell 20' SP2008WFP with the webcam - which is warranted for three years - standard.:D

Works with the analog connector but worked only about 2 or 3 minutes connected with the dvi. I had staticcy(sp?) lined streaks going across the screen and then it blacked out. Hooked back up the analog and it's working fine.

The drivers are for windows only. Could this be the problem? If so, is there anything I can do about it? The mac recognizes the monitor with both connections, so I don't understand why it won't wotk for the dvi. I'd really like to use the digital connection. Much better clarity.


songs
Click to expand...
 
mac mini

Which mac mini and video card do you have?
Click to expand...

rbrum5, I've got the first original least expensive one-1.25GHz, but with added ram of 1gb. Video card is ATI radeon 9200, 32mb.

My next mini will be loaded with as much as I can get into it!;)
 
I dont see why a Webcam wouldnt work.

Tiger and Leopard support all sorts of USB cameras.

Hell, even the iSight in both the MBPs, MBs, and iMacs is run through the USB bus IIRC.
 
47songs said:
rbrum5, I've got the first original least expensive one-1.25GHz, but with added ram of 1gb. Video card is ATI radeon 9200, 32mb.

My next mini will be loaded with as much as I can get into it!;)
Click to expand...

My mini is the intel core duo and the video is integrated on the mother board, not a separate video card. I think it uses the main cpu. The DVI connection worked straight away.
 
myfri said:
Hi, I have the same Screen (Dell SP2208 with the Webcam) but don't work with my Macbook Pro and Leopard.

and what do you change on the color profile, for the best resolution color?
Click to expand...

If the screen isn't working, well I don't know what would be causing that. I briefly tried a Macbook Pro on the screen and it looked fine.

If the webcam isn't working for you I strongly suggest trying a good quality USB cable (i.e. the one that came with the monitor) directly to the computer, not via any other hub.

I changed the colour profile by using the "Display Calibrator Assistant" built into OS X (both 10.4 and 10.5). Open the Displays System Preference, select the "Color" tab for the monitor you want to calibrate, and click the "Calibrate..." button. Note that manually tweaking the colour this way is prone to less than optimal results (e.g. I never seem to be able to get two identical configs from multiple calibrations), I soon hope to buy a hardware calibration device (e.g. a Spyder2Express).


Now that I've had the monitor for a little longer I'm still happy with it, though I have noticed that the contrast changes quite significantly depending on the vertical viewing angle - i.e. one of my kids must have tilted the monitor down slightly, which left me pondering why the colours seemed a little washed out... Not a big deal though.
 
Hi hookem12387 and af3556, I am looking at this monitor and have a couple of questions if you guys don't mind. I registered here just for the occasion. :)

Are you running leopard? And if so does it work with both Photo Booth and iChat in Leopard? My friend has a Viewsonic vx2255wmb with a cam that did work with both Photo Booth and iChat in Tiger, but only works with iChat in Leopard.

As far as I know this is a glossy screen, do you find this to be a problem when/if doing work in photoshop?

Also according to a guy in here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6545856 the mic is able to work with a change in settings (the 41 to 48 thing), let me know if it works for you.
 
Captain Nemo said:
Are you running leopard? And if so does it work with both Photo Booth and iChat in Leopard?
Click to expand...

Yep - originally 10.5.1, now 10.5.2.

The cam and mic work both in Photo Booth and iChat.

NOTE: I originally had a problem with the camera that only the top few lines were visible and the rest of the image is green (this is in Photo Booth and iChat). I thought the problem was wholly due to a dodgy USB cable as it began working properly when I replaced the cable. However I have had two recurrences of this issue even with the good cable. These problems occurred when I had my USB 1.1 keyboard and mouse plugged into the monitor's hub, I have now moved those back directly to the Mac and will see if that fixes things for good.

For kicks I plugged in a USB 2.0 flash drive into the monitor's USB hub, and the camera chugged along fine when transferring files to/from the drive. (I thought it had hung at first until I realised Photo Booth pauses the image when it's not the active app).

In short, when the camera isn't working properly: a) the first few lines of the image are good, the rest is green, and b) it seems very sensitive to cable quality and certain other (slow?) devices sharing the bus. But when it works, the image and sound quality is good (for a webcam).

Note that the monitor itself has always performed flawlessly.


Captain Nemo said:
As far as I know this is a glossy screen, do you find this to be a problem when/if doing work in photoshop?
Click to expand...

I'm not a fan of glossy screens, the SP2008WFP's much the same as any other in this regard. I don't know you'll have much choice these days - everyone seems to want a shiny screen.

Captain Nemo said:
Also according to a guy in here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6545856 the mic is able to work with a change in settings (the 41 to 48 thing), let me know if it works for you.
Click to expand...

The mic has always worked for me, even when the camera acted up.
 
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