Macs and webcams???

[Karen]

I know the Mac has an inbuilt cam but it's a bit fixed being at the top of the screen - is it poss to get an external one via usb - will they run on a Mac (my old external webcam won't) and how do I use one with a non Mac user as they are not compatible via MSN are they???

 

[rmccardal]

do they still do iSight ?

 

[Gareth]

yes, my colleage recently bough a mac (2 weeks ago) and it has iSight

 

[sn00p]

I know the Mac has an inbuilt cam but it's a bit fixed being at the top of the screen - is it poss to get an external one via usb - will they run on a Mac (my old external webcam won't) and how do I use one with a non Mac user as they are not compatible via MSN are they???

Nope, microsoft in their infinite wisdom have a completely different development team for the mac messenger than to the PC messenger, as a result the mac version is severely crippled and limited and doesn't support webcam.

I used Adium as my MSN client, but as of yet it doesn't support webcam (although they claim that it is now their main focus). There are a couple of msn clients that do support webcam, but they're written in java and are, quite frankly, crap. (Mercury MSN and I forget the name of the other).

You'll have to wait until either Microsoft adds webcam support to their MSN client or until Adium supports it, my money is on Adium supporting webcam way before Microsoft.

 

[Rich]

or Virtual PC when they do the Intel Mac version and a USB webcam will be the only way.

The Macbook came with a built in isight and I was gutted when It would'nt work with MSN, I need to get everyone to buy macs and use ichat!

 

[Karen]

So right basically give up hope of using a cam with msn then...

but are there usb cams that work with macs???

 

[sn00p]

These MSN clients should work with a webcam: (i've dug out the links for you)

http://www.mercury.to/
http://amsn.sourceforge.net/

And with regards to other webcams, the iSight will just work straight out of the box, and other third party webcams are supported via this driver:

http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net/

There's a list of cameras on that site so you can see what will work.

 

[Karen]

ooh excellent, thanks very much for the info

 

[sn00p]

ooh excellent, thanks very much for the info

I should probably point out that it's pretty hard to figure out from that website whether or not the driver has been built as a universal binary, there's a bit of text on the last update which implies that is has, but it just be for that SQ905 based cameras, it's not entirely clear!!!

 

[Dansta]

dude,
what u just said wasnt clear, never mind the website... pmsl. lol

will this work on g5's?

 

[sn00p]

dude,
what u just said wasnt clear, never mind the website... pmsl. lol

will this work on g5's?

yes.

(clear enough! )

 

[Karen]

dude,
what u just said wasnt clear, never mind the website... pmsl. lol

will this work on g5's?

lol must admit i posted before i looked at the links - and then got very confused... the cam ive got was listed but that was as far as i got - i saved the links and will get someone else to set it up for me