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newmacuser13

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 11, 2006
52
0
I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but,,,


There is now an alternative the the iSight that works on Macs
I was looking for a camera to use with my wife's newer Mini with Skype.

Saw this little camera called an iMage from picoinstruments.com in a magazine blurb. Figured that I couldn't lose for the asking price of $59. Ordered on Friday night direct off their website, had it in hand by Monday, plugged it in, and two seconds later up popped the message that skype video was now good to use. Brings new meaning the the term "plug and play".

Tested it out - works just fine. Image is typical webcam quality. Now we can Skype from US to daughter in Spain with video. THere is a plug in required to use it with iChat, a download available on their site.

This one is worth a try. http://www.picoinstruments.com/picowebcam.htm

(I tried to do a search to see if thie new product had been mentioned before, but that kinda tough with a name like iMage = image = tons of threads about pictures!)
 
I was reading about the iMage last night at school in my new issue of Mac | Life. It didn't seem very impressive from what I read. No built-in mic? I'll pass. Also the biggest con of all: it's USB, not FireWire. Forget using it with iChat or iMovie.

Edit: So there is a plug-in available for iChat? It's still not ready out of the box.
 
I was reading about the iMage last night at school in my new issue of Mac | Life. It didn't seem very impressive from what I read. No built-in mic? I'll pass. Also the biggest con of all: it's USB, not FireWire. Forget using it with iChat or iMovie.

Edit: So there is a plug-in available for iChat? It's still not ready out of the box.

Yeah, but it's nearly $100 cheaper than Apple's iSight, which is now unavailable (and selling for nearly $400 on Amazon.com!). I don't know if you meant to come off as sneering and dismissive as you did, but the iMage looks like an okay alternative for video chatting on the Mac.
 
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Yeah, but it's nearly $100 cheaper than Apple's iSight, which is now unavailable (and selling for nearly $400 on Amazon.com!). I don't know if you meant to come off as sneering and dismissive as you did, but the iMage looks like an okay alternative for video chatting on the Mac.

I wasn't trying to come across as anything. Sorry if I did. I'm just saying, from what I have seen, there is nothing that can live up to the iSight's quality. Yeah it does suck that it's not available from Apple right now, that's true. I just hope Apple brings it back.
 
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Maybe it's a great cam, I don't know, but I wouldn't put a product this hideous on my desk.
 
This is just a regular ugly webcam. There is nothing special and nothing that justifies the pricetag.

You can find Mac drivers for much better PC webcams at a much better price. All this is, is a generic PC webcam with Mac drivers.
 
I was reading about the iMage last night at school in my new issue of Mac | Life. It didn't seem very impressive from what I read. No built-in mic? I'll pass. Also the biggest con of all: it's USB, not FireWire. Forget using it with iChat or iMovie.

Edit: So there is a plug-in available for iChat? It's still not ready out of the box.

Oddly enough, inside the macbook portables, the isight (which i find to be downright incredible) is connected internally over the USB bus.
 
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