iSight Revision Soon?

[Applespider]

The other question is 'how many people WANT to video chat?'

Having to be perfectly groomed while chilling out on the sofa just in case someone wants to chat? I can understand those with SOs or kids but for others? My mother lives 400 miles away and she's horrified by the prospect of webcams.

The other joy of messaging is that you can have multiple chats open to different people (who don't know each other). You can do other stuff in between and still talk to your friend. A 30 second gap in replies isn't a conversation killer. With AV, you kinda have to talk all the time to one another otherwise they can hear your music, see you typing and it's odd.

 

[ct77]

Whatever they release I hope it'll include a firmware update that allows older iSights to play nice with other firewire devices.

Hear, hear. My only gripe about my iSight. Can't use it when my Firewire hard drive is on. Not unless I want to make Swiss cheese out of my data. 🙄

 

[brooklyn]

Apple should use a Different selling approach!

It’s defiantly a fact that iSights are hardly used for video chatting, but it is for web monitoring.

Out of the 12 Mac/iSight owners I know, 6 use it for monitoring their home or pets using Evocam. Two of them use it for video chatting (and they’re related) and the rest wasted their money on it (hardly use it).

Apple should include remote monitoring with it if they really want to justify charging $149. I’m sure there are more people willing to use it to check up on their dog or see if their landlord is peeing in their juice than video chatting!

 

[Eniregnat]

The other question is 'how many people WANT to video chat?'

iSight is, for now, mostly a toy. Video chat isn't a necessity, at least for me, but then again, I send snail mail to my friends. My girlfriend, (likely fiancé), and I have determined that seeing each other over the internet while she is in grad school would make the situation more agreeable. We don’t need video chat, but it would really shrink the distance between us.

I am serous, if the camera offered some serious resolution, good color, and 24+fps, it would compete with miniDV cameras to those on a budget.

 

[GeorgeTheMonkey]

I am awfully sure you don't know what "broadcast quality" is.... A 1CCD camera is *not* broadcast quality. If you want true broadcast quality.. it is upwards of 10 grand. I am AWFULLY sure that this won't happen in a iSight. The quality is over-and beyond what most could even run (bandwidth wise). Just imagine the bandwidth you would have to have (not to mention the processing power) to run that thing. Not feasible.

Sorry for the confusion, Kyle: I meant broadcast-quality lines of resolution. As in, a resolution of 720x480, standard for TVs. The iSight currently only proffers 640x480 resolution, and while decent, I just don't think it's good enough. It makes me nervous using something like that and artifically bumping the resolution up to 720 for use in, say, an iMovie.

I definitely should've spent more time than the five seconds it took to write my post.

 

[quidire]

Sorry for the confusion, Kyle: I meant broadcast-quality lines of resolution. As in, a resolution of 720x480, standard for TVs. The iSight currently only proffers 640x480 resolution, and while decent, I just don't think it's good enough. It makes me nervous using something like that and artifically bumping the resolution up to 720 for use in, say, an iMovie.

I definitely should've spent more time than the five seconds it took to write my post.

720p is HDTV, not standard.

-RS

 

[stoid]

I'm just waiting for Tiger and multiple audio/video chats. Being away at college with an older brother out of the country living in Taiwan, so for he has been able to keep in touch with the fam back home, but to be able to all see and hear each other at the same time... It sure would bring the family back together, if only for a little while.

 

[digitalbiker]

720p is HDTV, not standard.

-RS

You are mixing up vertical and horizontal resolutions.

Standard TV is Analog 480i which means it is 480 horizontal lines, interlacing two 240 line images every 1/60th of a second. Along a horizontal scan line the image is analog and is restricted by the electronics and pixel density of the television. I am not exactly sure what the digital equivalent would be.

HDTV has many standards but one is 720p which means that it is 720 horizontal lines of persistent image refreshed every 1/60th of a second. Again along a horizontal line, I am not exactly sure what the digital equivalent would be.

Anyway if the iSight is 640x480 it would probably be more equivalent to 480p, with a slightly poorer horizontal resolution.

 

[wdlove]

Hear, hear. My only gripe about my iSight. Can't use it when my Firewire hard drive is on. Not unless I want to make Swiss cheese out of my data. 🙄

So you are saying the an external firewire must be **** off. It take it that corrupted data is the result inaction. Is this a software problem?

 

[cyanide]

the above poster didn't mean to be obscene, but to use the word "shut". they must have made a typo, resulting in the stars... haha.. the beauty of vBulletin

 

[olwynbag]

iSight Security

How about using the iSight for face recognition security. It can tell which user is using the computer and automagicly logs them in. Or for triggering expose with head gestures. People will either think your cool or stupid. But a least they will be looking, so look good damnit

 

[surfsofa]

Whatever they release I hope it'll include a firmware update that allows older iSights to play nice with other firewire devices.

Agreed! Are you listening Apple? It's not clever that your own peripherals don't play nice with one another.

 

[liketom]

ISIGHT-INT M8817Z/B On or before
07/03/2005 £84.26 1 £84.26

well thats what i orderd , then i read this ! oooppppsss might have to cancel order and wait for rev c to come online in the UK

 

[petej]

iChatAV for Windows has to be on the cards.
Tiger Server will include an iChat server. http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/tiger/. Perfect for big corporates who want to do more desk to desk video conferencing. Unfortunately most corporates do not have Macs. So iChatAV has to be ported to Windows.

But how do you plug an iSight into a corporate PC. Firewire just isn't a standard fit item. It has to be USB2. Let's just hope that Apple see some sense and either lauch 2 models or come up with a neat adapter like the USB to PS2 adapters for mice.

HD would be nice too but I guess it's a little early for that.
Wonder if a USB iSight could be plugged into the forthcoming camera connector for iPod Photos? Then again firewire could already have been used from launch. But maybe hardware H.264 in the iSight + iPod photo + something to hold them together including interface and extra batteries just might be possible.

 

[bbowdon]

Then again, now that I think of it. What reason would Windows users have for downloading and using iChat AV when they arleady have MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, ICQ, etc.. The PC IM market is already saturated.

The reason is that iChat AV Windows would support full-screen video-conferencing with their Mac friends, and none of those others would.

Trillian is supposed to support full-screen Windows video chats with iChat compatibility, but at least one person I know required a hard drive reformatting after downloading it.

My question: Has anyone had luck with Trillian, or have any of you at least had video chats with Trillian users, and does it work transparently with iChat?

Thanks....

 

[Beligerent]

The reason is that iChat AV Windows would support full-screen video-conferencing with their Mac friends, and none of those others would.

Trillian is supposed to support full-screen Windows video chats with iChat compatibility, but at least one person I know required a hard drive reformatting after downloading it.

My question: Has anyone had luck with Trillian, or have any of you at least had video chats with Trillian users, and does it work transparently with iChat?

Thanks....

I think trillian pro is required to video chat with ichat users... If thats the case you'll be hard pressed to get windows users to PAY for a video chat app to talk to a Mac user. Ive used Sightspeed in the past and for cross platform chatting its pretty good. I was one of those people that paid $29 for ichat on Jaguar before I sold my G3 iBook. I didnt know that after I paid my $29 that the development of iChat for Jaguar was going to cease meaning all future features would require a $129 OS upgrade. Seems that video chatting on a Mac is probably one of the most expensive things I have done with my computer and still it doesnt work with windows very well. Wait i think im ranting.

 

[Mechcozmo]

The other question is 'how many people WANT to video chat?'

Having to be perfectly groomed while chilling out on the sofa just in case someone wants to chat? I can understand those with SOs or kids but for others? My mother lives 400 miles away and she's horrified by the prospect of webcams.

I do. If I don't want to video chat then I just audio chat. 😀

 

[zv470]

Yeah definately... we need:

1) iChat XP
2) USB2
3) price drop

I use SightSpeed to chat with my PC friends, since we never got iChat/AIM to work. But SightSpeed doesn't work very reliably... what usually happens is that only one person can hear the other person. I really would like to iChat with my PC friends.

Until then... I'll be using skype which I discovered today, wow... my iSight makes a really good microphone 😀 I talked for a couple of hours today to friends in Japan and Australia, and it worked great, crystal clear audio and no lost connections.

Come on Apple... iChat for PC... do it... do it... do it!

 

[wdlove]

iSight is, for now, mostly a toy. Video chat isn't a necessity, at least for me, but then again, I send snail mail to my friends. My girlfriend, (likely fiancé), and I have determined that seeing each other over the internet while she is in grad school would make the situation more agreeable. We don’t need video chat, but it would really shrink the distance between us.

I am serous, if the camera offered some serious resolution, good color, and 24+fps, it would compete with miniDV cameras to those on a budget.

May I be the first to congratulate you on your upcoming proposal and engagement. Sounds like a good use of iSight, great way to remain close.

 

[abc123]

tiger has been pushing the video chat so it would be smart to release them at the same time.
you are going down to the store to pick up tiger why not pick up a new (cheaper) isight to go along with it?

 

[skipx]

Well I would like to see a price drop downunder for one.

Maybe H264 support requires some tweaks...At some point I expect the iSight to go HD in the year of HD but people seem to think that a shift from B to C wont do anything substantial, so maybe later this year after Tiger appears...

I'm quite sure it's going to have H264 hardware rendering inside. DV pal/ntsc would be great, but i don't think so really, and HD would just not be possible..
But H264 is great, it would mean that the image becomes sharper, and much bigger then 640/480. Also the image for the person on the other side, receiving the image via chatting will get a bigger and sharper image then the last iSight used to be...
What there software solution will be, we will find out. Maybe Quicktime 7 comes out before tiger? 🙂

 

[chameeeleon]

I don't think Apple would port iChat, although I wish to god they would - AIM is bloated crap. My higher hopes are that Google is working on a Jabber chat client with fullscreen video chat, and knowing their generally good relationship with Apple, would have them build compatibility with it into iChat instead of writing a whole new Google messaging app for Mac.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I'm quite sure it's going to have H264 hardware rendering inside. DV pal/ntsc would be great, but i don't think so really, and HD would just not be possible..
But H264 is great, it would mean that the image becomes sharper, and much bigger then 640/480. Also the image for the person on the other side, receiving the image via chatting will get a bigger and sharper image then the last iSight used to be...
What there software solution will be, we will find out. Maybe Quicktime 7 comes out before tiger? 🙂

Somehow I doubt that is possible or necessary. My understanding is that the iSight merely captures an image. It is the computer's job to encode it. Think about it - Apple wouldn't make us get new iSights to use Tiger's iChat. That makes what you describe highly unlikely.

 

[Skiniftz]

bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard

Just bought an iSight today :/

 

[aswitcher]

Somehow I doubt that is possible or necessary. My understanding is that the iSight merely captures an image. It is the computer's job to encode it. Think about it - Apple wouldn't make us get new iSights to use Tiger's iChat. That makes what you describe highly unlikely.

See I am not expert and I appear to be missing something here.

Why can't the next isight have a slightly bigger CCD to capture 1920x1080i (2.1meg) or even 720p...we dont need three CCDs for HD...is the firewire 400 bandwidth the issue? Are the increased needed exlectronics the issue? If its all run at the back end then does it come down to the machine alone once you get a big enough CCD?