[PD] Webcam advice

[Jonathan Goodwin]

I only need a cheap camera. Basically I'm making a video installation, which
for the most part I am producing proper DV quality videos. But I just need a
cheapy cam that I know will work with OS X to take crude footage for
overlaying a distorted live feed of the installation's viewer over the other
video streams.

Trouble is, just having a glance around online, not many manufacturers seem
to be committing themselves to saying they will work with Macs. Grrr!

Jonathan 


On 9/2/06 17:07, "james tittle" <tigital at mac.com> wrote:

> On Feb 9, 2006, at 11:28 AM, Jonathan Goodwin wrote:
> 
>> Phew!
>> 
>> Just got in from trudging the city centre of Plymouth...no Firewire
>> webcams,
>> only USB! Doh!
>> 
>> How do USB cams fare with the PD, GEM and Mac OS X combo? I'm sure
>> I read
>> somewhere that they won't work, am I right?...should I just be
>> ordering a FW
>> cam online already?!
> 
> ...since you're using osx, you have the advantage (and sometimes
> disadvantage) of quicktime's media handling:  basically anything that
> says it works with osx will work with gem on osx...this means usb,
> usb2, or firewire...firewire seems desirable because of a higher
> datarate, but you can usually only use one camera per firewire port,
> especially when working with higher resolution images...otoh, several
> usb cameras can be used on the same port, but they will be lesser
> quality signals...
> 
> ...if you are serious about video input, you want to stay away from
> off-the-shelf cameras (they usually have crappy optics) and look to
> other solutions; just search for "firewire" or "ieee-1394" cameras,
> and you should find some $500-2000 cameras that have interchangeable
> lens mounts...
> 
> james
>