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darcybaston · Jan 14, 2006, 01:02 PM

Hi guys. I just got an iSight camera for my DC 2GHz tower. All I can get from it so far is 320x200 recordings (iChat snapshots, Quicktime pro 7 captures). How do I tell it to use 640x480?

tooki · Jan 14, 2006, 01:09 PM

I've wondered the same thing. I've never been able to get super-sharp images from mine. (1.25GHz AlBook)

It's still a great camera for video chats, though! It always looks better than the typical PC user's webcam!

tooki

darcybaston · Jan 14, 2006, 01:14 PM

Oh yeah, it's beautiful. Figures out exposure in low light settings very well. Audio capture is very reasonable too. I did some VoIP calls with it using Skype and the experience was very good.

tooki · Jan 14, 2006, 01:15 PM

Never mind: I figured it out.

In QuickTime, go to Preferences and choose "Recording". Then choose "Device Native" under "Quality". It produces huge files, but at 640x480 that you can then compress later.

tooki

darcybaston · Jan 14, 2006, 01:15 PM

This person believes the camera doesn't *really* do 640x480:

http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/cs_msg/20939

Think he's right?

tooki · Jan 14, 2006, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by darcybaston

Oh yeah, it's beautiful. Figures out exposure in low light settings very well. Audio capture is very reasonable too. I did some VoIP calls with it using Skype and the experience was very good.

Really? While I totally agree that the iSight has a great set of microphones in it, when I've tried it with Skype, the volume of my voice has been far too low -- I switched to a Logitech USB headset instead. For iChat AV audio or video chats, the iSight mike is perfect, though.

tooki

tooki · Jan 14, 2006, 01:21 PM

Originally Posted by darcybaston

This person believes the camera doesn't *really* do 640x480:

http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/cs_msg/20939

Think he's right?

I'm honestly not sure. In 640x480 capture, there are definitely some jaggies, but those could just be the result of a lousy de-bayerizing algorithm. The thing is, whether it's a 640x480 or 320x240 CCD, what is pretty clear is that it's not capturing much (if any) image resolution (as in clarity, not pixel count) beyond 320x240.

tooki

darcybaston · Jan 14, 2006, 01:28 PM

Originally Posted by tooki

Really? While I totally agree that the iSight has a great set of microphones in it, when I've tried it with Skype, the volume of my voice has been far too low -- I switched to a Logitech USB headset instead. For iChat AV audio or video chats, the iSight mike is perfect, though.

I went to system prefs, audio section, and cranked up the recording level. A little past half works great for me. I'm sure it's a much better experience with a headset to cancel out ambient-room noise though. I may do that yet.

darcybaston · Jan 14, 2006, 02:11 PM

Thanks for the QT prefs tip! Awesome! Gave it a whirl and it works great. And yeah, huge files are generated with that setting. It allows for a shorter pause when you begin a recording too as there isn't any pre-buffer for compression to catch up on.

Nebrie · Jan 14, 2006, 11:47 PM

Can someone post a pic taken with iSight? I dropped mine (and dented it) and now my video looks grainy. I don't remember what the picture quality is supposed to be.

rparke1 · Jan 23, 2006, 12:42 PM

Originally Posted by Nebrie

Can someone post a pic taken with iSight? I dropped mine (and dented it) and now my video looks grainy. I don't remember what the picture quality is supposed to be.