Generic camera for video chat using skype

[wickedking94]

I wanted to use my camcorder for Skype video calling. Its just a cheap jazz HDV-182. My Macbook does have iSight, but I would rather use my camcorder because its HD, I set it to "PC camera" mode and plug it in through USB, but it isn't recognized by my Mac.

Macbook specs:
Mid-2010 model with
4GB DDR3 ram
250GB HDD
Geforce 320M
Mac os 10.6.6

 

[bmcgonag]

If you go today check out http://www.woot.com, mac / pc compatible webcam / mic for 19.99

 

[wickedking94]

I'm not really looking to buy a new camera right now, but i will keep that one in mind for the future.

 

[bmcgonag]

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood your post. I thought you were looking for one since your video camera wasn't working for Skype.

With your video camera setup the way you stated, can you record or feed live video on any of the applications? iMovie, Quicktime, Photobooth, etc?

 

[wickedking94]

None of those work. oh well, i guess i will just stick with iSight for now.

Sometimes it can be a bit inconvenient that mac doesn't use drivers.

 

[bmcgonag]

The Mac does use drivers, it's just that many times there is no mac development of drivers.

Often there is Windows hardware that has drivers, but no Mac drivers.

 

[cdcastillo]

As a general rule, OS X didn't used to receive video feed trough USB, only trough firewire, no matter what kind of camera you had, if it connected trough usb, it wouldn't feed video to any application.

The only way to circumvent this problem WAS (a few years ago) with the USB-cam-OSX driver sold trough ecamm, I think it was like 10 USD. I once bought it and it worked great with my iBook and later with a powerbook that had no camera.

Now, when talking about videochating, the most important factor is the internet connection speed, since with a slow connection the computer will compress the video feed, no matter what camera you use (isight or HD external camera). So for getting a better video quality trough Skype it would be far more important (and even easier) to get a faster connection and use the iSight than to use a crappy internet connection with a super HD camera.