should i buy an iSight camera for my MacPro from ebay?

[charlestrippy]

so I'm in need of a good webcam for my MacPro - but all the 3rd party ones just don't look good enough...

i've checked ebay for the old iSight camera apple used to make - but i'm not sure - are these are GOOD as people say? I have a MacBook Pro but the isight is so much darker then my fiancee's MacBook (i know, strange right?)

so i guess my question is - are these worth it?

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_npmv=3&_trksid=m38&_nkw=apple+isight&_sacat=See-All-Categories

 

[kkat69]

Did you investigate other web cams. You can use MacCam provided the model your looking for is there.

With MacCam you can use pretty much any camera with iChat/PhotoBooth/etc.

I've compared my wife's MB to my iMac on the iSight and they are very much the same regarding dark/light. One thing to remember when comparing 2 different machines is color profile, brightness setting on display, etc. Especially the color profile.

 

[charlestrippy]

Did you investigate other web cams. You can use MacCam provided the model your looking for is there.

With MacCam you can use pretty much any camera with iChat/PhotoBooth/etc.

I've compared my wife's MB to my iMac on the iSight and they are very much the same regarding dark/light. One thing to remember when comparing 2 different machines is color profile, brightness setting on display, etc. Especially the color profile.

yeah i have been looking for a bit - my little sister bought a 3rd part and used that ichatusb drivers and it looks ok - but not that clear - and what i read it says the old isight has a bigger camera, brighter colours, etc...

i found this guy selling with a 30 day warranty...
http://www.powerbookguy.com/xcart/product.php?productid=17425&cat=0&page=1

is it worth it?

 

[shroud]

My iSight works great for simple podcasting, iChat, Skype, quick photos etc. etc.....BUT there is one thing you should be aware of should you decide to get an iSight. If you leave it plugged in then you can have spotty issues such as slow down, corrupt files, unmounting and error - 36 on firewire hard drives, you can also have dropped frames when sucking up video from camcorders.

There is a quiet fiasco right now with the MacPro (both 06 and 08 models) when having multiple firewire or USB devices connected. Especially if any device is bus powered (read iSight) or if the speed of said devices are different. (read microphone, mouse, UPS, hard drive, camcorder).

If you do go the iSight route, I suggest getting a firewire card or firewire/USB card like a sonnet tango. This way you can plug in all non essential and bus powered devices to the card and leave the camcorder, firewire HD, or other important devices to run on the MacPros own ports. This is because there are issues with the cards not having full speed throughput of data.

Be warned that there is also an issue with firewire/usb cards not allowing the MacPro to enter into deep sleep properly. This may have been fixed in Leopard though.

Don't let the multiple ports on the MacPro fool you into a sense of security. The poorly designed logic board and Apples' own poor support have culminated into one of the worst Professional grade workstations I have had the pleasure to use/support in recent memory. This is exacerbated by the fact that many MacPro users' issues are intermittent and thus fixing is more difficult than if the computer was outright failing. (read Tiger Direct retail quality)

Sorry if I digress, this is an issue close to my heart. Apple Computer should never have become Apple Inc.

Anyway, best of luck in your decision and the iSight is a fine desktop video camera though it is darker than the MacBook version.

--I am and always have been an Apple fanboy as well as a lover of Next, BeOS, Amiga so no flames unless you really need to--

 

[tuxtpenguin]

I got an iSight for my PMG5 off of ebay and it works great.

 

[aye5882]

if you're gonna spend that much money on the iSight, you might as well save a little and buy the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000. Its the best video quality so far and i believe it trumps the iSight. I have it for my PC at home and theres no comparison b/w that and the built-in iSight of my mbp. Some guy did a video review of it on amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/review/produc...cm_cr_acr_img?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

also, logitech has now provided drivers so you can use the software features on a mac

good luck!

 

[iZac]

Although i dont know about the picture quality of the old barrel iSights, compared to current day webcams the simplicity of use is fabulous. I used to have a few logitech webcams in the past and had NOTHING but trouble with the s**t that company churns out, but I digress...

the standalone iSight is beautiful and seamless compared to anything that can be hacked to work with the maccam drivers, but if i recall, you cant use it easily (or at all?) in windows, if thats your bag. Im very happy with mine though and would recommend it.

I was given mine 2nd hand from a friend though, so i really cant complain. Free is always the best price.

 

[ray_uk]

Get the webcam that the xbox360 shipped with its $20 and records at 640x480, sure it doesnt have auto focus like the $100+ isight but its a 1/5 of the price.

And it works on the Mac