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The advantages of having an iSight

The iChat is the best webcam I have ever used. The picture quality is the best! That being said I don't use it that much because I only know 2 people who own one. I do chat with my girlfriend on it sometimes :D because she live 45 minutes away right now and even though I see her a lot, it is cool to fire up the webcam sometimes...

Another cool use for it is to make impromptu recordings in iMovie! Not DV quality but good enough for a quick taping. The Photobooth program which I'm sure will be released in iLife '06 is fun to use with it and there is a game for sale called ToySight that uses the iSight that is interesting but nothing to write home about. The single best use I have found for my iSight (besides as a webcam) is the program Delicious Library uses it as a barcode reader to scan the contents of your Audio, Video, Book, and Video game libraries. This is really neat and useful function for an iSight.

Although I don't regret buying my iSight one bit, I feel that in the next year or two all Macs will come with iSights built-in so it's not worth purchasing one if you are planning on getting a new Mac in the near future.

BTW- There is a hack posted on this site or possibly OSXHints.com detailing how to hack iChat to work with other networks besides AIM and .Mac. It won't allow iChat to do video or audio on those networks though. Can anyone verify if there is a hack like this?

BTW- Why do you not use Aim? It is still the top messenger service in the US as far as I know...
 
You can use it with MSN with Mercury, if I recall correctly. Other than that, iChat and the little novelties (such as ToySight and iMovie and iSightStopMotion and stuff), that's pretty much it.

But you can't deny that it's the best webcam ever. Use it with iChat with someone else who has an iSight, and you see the future of video conferencing. It's truly awesome.
 
Does the iSight work with Adium.. can other applications access the webcam like it is a general purpose camera the way they do on Windows?
 
i'm pretty sure adium doesn't support video. but i might be wrong, but either way adium is the best chat client in my opinion.

generik said:
Does the iSight work with Adium.. can other applications access the webcam like it is a general purpose camera the way they do on Windows?
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2nyRiggz said:
does iSight work with any other messenger program besides ichat AV? i want to buy one but i really dont use ichat or AOL.

Whats the advantages of having one?


Nuff.
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i don't see any clear advantage if you don't use iChat or AOL having an iSight...

yeah probally u can play around with PhotoBooth (but i don't think u can do it unless u have an iMac which already has an iSight but there are "ways" to get PhotoBooth) newayz, u're gonna get bored of it pretty soon anyway, iMovie and some usual recording stuff stuff but most other 3rd party program u would want to use with ur iSight might gonna cost u bit...so, my recomendation, don't buy it...
 
How odd, apparently we have the best cam on the market yet we can't use it to talk to the majority of cam users out there. :confused:
 
I have an isight pointing at me right now - and yet, I never ever do video conferencing.

The iSight is a firewire driven video input device. It shares a lot of similarities with DV cameras, and I use it purely as a method of inputting digital video into my computer. It's about £150 cheaper than any other video solution.
 
the iSight should be compatible with any program that wants to use it. Unfortunately, Adium doesn't support video chatting. I use Adium, so whenever I want to video chat I fire up iChat. I'm pretty sure that AIM's official client doesn't support video chat either, although iChat does over its networks. Yahoo I think is the only official client that supports video chat. MSN Mercury may.
In any case, the iSight is totally worth it, but you have to have something besides Adium to use it.
 
Sorry if this is thread drift, but I'm waiting to get hold of a new iMac and whilst I don't really plan on using the video camera, I may well use the inbuilt mic with GoogleTalk (via iChat?) Is this possible, and how good is the inbuilt mic? Is 'just talking' loud and clear?
 
WarrenM said:
Sorry if this is thread drift, but I'm waiting to get hold of a new iMac and whilst I don't really plan on using the video camera, I may well use the inbuilt mic with GoogleTalk (via iChat?) Is this possible, and how good is the inbuilt mic? Is 'just talking' loud and clear?
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my built in mic's pretty clear as far as i know...but can u do Googletalk on the mac side? i'm not sure about it...
 
ddrueckhammer said:
The iChat is the best webcam I have ever used.

BTW- Why do you not use Aim? It is still the top messenger service in the US as far as I know...
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I belive you meant to say the "iSight is the best webcam I have ever used


Just BEcuz its the top does not mean its the best( example Mac OS has what 4-6% market share but its better then Windows which has 90+%)
 
fayans said:
You can use iChat to IM another GoogleTalk users but not voice calls.
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Oh, that's a pity. I was looking forward to that. Looks like the iSight is a bit of a waste (apart from messing around with PhotoBooth) for me then :(
 
The point is an iSight is only useful as a webcam between two iChat users. Yahoo can only video with no voice and is buggy at best as Yahoo haven't developed their version for Mac in a long while. No other chat client supports full webcam capabilities for Mac. It wouldn't matter what webcam you get.

I have an iSight, but it was $229 down the drain. Here in Australia iChat and AIM are not very popular (as I gather is pretty much the same in a lot of other countries excluding the U.S.). Think hard about it before you get it.
 
Bern said:
How odd, apparently we have the best cam on the market yet we can't use it to talk to the majority of cam users out there. :confused:
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I know right.....i wished i could use it with msn or adium. i was thinking about moving ichat from my ibook but although i have no use for it i'll leave it.

Bless
 
I use my iSight to video chat with my parents (they really just want to see their grandson) my sister and my cousins. We love it! My parents have a PC and it works well enough I would say (Yes, the normal AIM client supports video chatting) but the others all have macs and they work flawlessly.
 
Mac webcam solution other than iSight-iChat?

What would be the best webcam camera and software for a Mac OTHER than the iSight-iChat? :rolleyes: What is the best thing to video-chat with someone that has a PC? Will Yahoo work?
 
Bern said:
I have an iSight, but it was $229 down the drain. Here in Australia iChat and AIM are not very popular (as I gather is pretty much the same in a lot of other countries excluding the U.S.). Think hard about it before you get it.
Click to expand...

Is there someone in your life that's really important enough for you to want to webcam with, who you can't get to install AIM on their Windows machine? iChat AV users with iSights can AV chat with AIM on Windows (using whatever cam), can't they?
 
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