Inability to complete elementary basic task

[ojwk]

I've noticed this on my MacBook Air and also on a friends MacBook so it is in no way unique to this model.

In Photo Booth both models seem unable to render the effects at a moderately respectable FPS and fluidity is severely impinged. This is especially noticed when keying the background out and recording video from that. It seems to bring the MBA to it's knees! How can such a novelty application have such a drain on system resources?

You would think Apple would have designed the application in mind of the constraints of these models. The MBA isn't especially cheap and if potential customers are seeing it failing to render a novelty webcam application properly I don't think they are going to be particularly impressed.

I'm not particularly impressed and I've bought one.

Performance in Photoshop and Illustrator is exquisite, I haven't had any problems and filters etc can be applied quickly.

Photo Booth is the one application that I have noticed the MBA struggle to perform in the past week I have been using it. The iSight camera seems to be of a lower quality than for instance the MacBook due to apparent high levels of noise. iSight camera live footage appears to lag behind by about 1 second in Photo Booth and by about 3 seconds in iMovie.

Has anyone else had problems in this area? The Intel GMA X3100 has proved to be great in rendering streaming Quicktime H.264 720p media from the Quicktime HD Gallery but unable to work Photo Booth properly?

Doesn't seem right to me.

 

[rogair]

To confirm 1 of your points, the camera in the Air is not the same as the one in the Macbook.

 

[brianhn1]

To confirm 1 of your points, the camera in the Air is not the same as the one in the Macbook.

How so?

 

[NC MacGuy]

I'm sure that the MB is 1.2M pixel, pretty sure the Air's is .2M pixel. Capable of 640 x 480 res. is the only thing Apple says.

 

[iCheddar]

iirc, both cameras are native 640x480, but the Macbook will take stills that it upscales to 1280x1024. I think.

 

[filman408]

This is especially noticed when keying the background out and recording video from that. It seems to bring the MBA to it's knees! How can such a novelty application have such a drain on system resources?

Live keying is very tough for any system.

 

[ojwk]

Never had problems on iMacs or MacBook Pros?

Apple demoed this keying ages ago and it was lag less.

 

[Lewisham]

I don't have an MBA, but:

Photo Booth uses Core Image filters. Core Image relies on Core Graphics, which relies on OpenGL, which is orders of magnitude faster on a dedicated graphics chip, which the MBA does not have. It is little surprise that the iMac and other machines compute the filters much faster than the MBA. I expect you would see the same result on a Macbook.

 

[Killyp]

That's what you'd expect.

The whole backgrounds thing really takes up a lot of processing power actually...

 

[ob81]

Never had a problem with the macbook. You trying to include them in the problem only adds yet another reason why your extra dough wasn't justified.

 

[Clix Pix]

IMHO it's kind of silly to knock the MBA for not performing up to your idea of standards with a novelty, gimmicky program such as Photobooth. I have bought my MBA for many reasons, but Photobooth sure wasn't one of them! I am more than pleased with the performance of my MBA; it does what I need and want it to do quite nicely.

 

[ojwk]

Never had a problem with the macbook. You trying to include them in the problem only adds yet another reason why your extra dough wasn't justified.

Firstly don't assume it was my 'extra dough', it wasn't. If you really want to know it was my company's and that doesn't have any financial repercussions on me.

Secondly I've noticed this problem on MacBooks as well as the Air especially when recording video whilst keying.

Thirdly, you have no right to suggest that I may feel insecure about purchases and may be suffering buyer's remorse. The reality is if I am not happy with a decision I have made I won't try to justify the decision I have made with false words but instead either live with it or do something about it, such as returning it to the store. I am not the kind of person that will sit feeling sorry for himself trying to defend and justify all his bad decisions.

If I wanted to be like you I could suggest that the only reason you are having a go at me and other MacBook Air users is because you are jealous. You want a shiny, aluminum, thin, MacBook Air instead of your thick, weighty, plastic, excuse of industrial design, MacBook but you are forced to justify your bad decision by attacking people like me. I'm not going to stoop to your level and insinuate that though.

On the subject of the actual topic:

There shouldn't be much difference between the MacBook and the Air as their integrated graphics is identical.

What strikes me as odd is that Apple would include this application on a system that is unable to perform it when as everyone states it is a simple novelty.

My PowerMac G5 for example would be able to perform better than the Air with a dedicated NVIDIA 5200 GPU however Apple has prevented these 'advanced' features of photo booth from being used on PPC Macs. Probably in a move to try to encourage more people to switch to Intel when they really don't have to. Any thoughts?

 

[ob81]

Firstly don't assume it was my 'extra dough', it wasn't. If you really want to know it was my company's and that doesn't have any financial repercussions on me.

Secondly I've noticed this problem on MacBooks as well as the Air especially when recording video whilst keying.

Thirdly, you have no right to suggest that I may feel insecure about purchases and may be suffering buyer's remorse. The reality is if I am not happy with a decision I have made I won't try to justify the decision I have made with false words but instead either live with it or do something about it, such as returning it to the store. I am not the kind of person that will sit feeling sorry for himself trying to defend and justify all his bad decisions.

If I wanted to be like you I could suggest that the only reason you are having a go at me and other MacBook Air users is because you are jealous. You want a shiny, aluminum, thin, MacBook Air instead of your thick, weighty, plastic, excuse of industrial design, MacBook but you are forced to justify your bad decision by attacking people like me. I'm not going to stoop to your level and insinuate that though.

On the subject of the actual topic:

There shouldn't be much difference between the MacBook and the Air as their integrated graphics is identical.

What strikes me as odd is that Apple would include this application on a system that is unable to perform it when as everyone states it is a simple novelty.

My PowerMac G5 for example would be able to perform better than the Air with a dedicated NVIDIA 5200 GPU however Apple has prevented these 'advanced' features of photo booth from being used on PPC Macs. Probably in a move to try to encourage more people to switch to Intel when they really don't have to. Any thoughts?

Purchased my macbook right after the air was announced. I don't have a problem with Air users, just the ones who try to down the other Apple products that they grew up on. I have never had an issue with the Macbook and Photobooth. You have a problem with your Air, deal with it.

 

[ojwk]

Purchased my macbook right after the air was announced. I don't have a problem with Air users, just the ones who try to down the other Apple products that they grew up on. I have never had an issue with the Macbook and Photobooth. You have a problem with your Air, deal with it.

I don't know any Air user that has tried to down the other Apple products "that they grew up on".
I am acutely aware however of the plethora of anti-Air Mac users that seem intent on rubbishing what has proven to be a very convenient system, for me at least.

Hence, I can only assume that such comments would be made in retaliation to the ridiculous amount of abuse such Air users have been receiving.

You stated that you don't have a problem with Air users however it appears to me that this is in fact incorrect. You certainly have a problem with me and I haven't tried to 'down' the products 'I grew up on'. I love my PowerMac G5 and still use it on a regular basis, along side a much newer Mac Pro.

Just because I state that I have experienced live keying problems on MacBooks as well as MacBook Airs does not mean I am trying to rubbish MacBooks. I think the technical specifications of both machines supports my comparison. Both have the same integrated graphics solution and there is only 200MHz between them.

You have made a grave assumption which equates to an even graver fallacy in your argument.