Webcam on Mountain Lion

[DE1988]

Hi,

I have a Microsoft LifeCam Cinema. It works with UVC (to control brightness) in Photobooth but when I start Skype (with UVC on) there's no video in Skype. it will work in Skype without UVC but it's way too bright. Anyone know of a fix for this? Or do I just have to get another cam?

 

[DE1988]

anyone??

 

[boydapa]

im using a c920 that i got for $48. works fine on facetime,skype & photo booth.

 

[evolutg]

Hi,

I have a Microsoft LifeCam Cinema. It works with UVC (to control brightness) in Photobooth but when I start Skype (with UVC on) there's no video in Skype. it will work in Skype without UVC but it's way too bright. Anyone know of a fix for this? Or do I just have to get another cam?

Well, I have no experience with your particular USB camera, but are you trying to have it work in Skype while PhotoBooth is still open? Please specify.

If yes, then this is the way it is supposed to be (and unfortunately so!). I have the same behavior on my Apple MacBook Pro with iSight: The first app using a camera monopolises it for itself. A second app will not see that camera. I need to quit the first app and restart the second for it to use the camera. I have always seen that behavior and I just tried again with PhotoBooth and Skype to verify, it is still the same in ML.

I don't know why a camera, just like a microphone, couldn't be used by multiple apps at the same time, especially since I came accross a utility few years ago that allowed a camera to be shared between severals apps (I forgot what it was and I think it stopped being supported). Is it the same on windows by the way?

Other than that, I can comment on the very cheap Logitech C270 that I have on my hack, and I find it works beautifully with a great image (it does HD 720p) and sound is also fine. I got for less than $30 at BestBuy over a year ago, while now it can be had for $20 online it seems...

--------
Now I have a question for you: How do you "control" brightness with UVC? How do you turn ON/OFF UVC? ... as your post seems to suggest. Do you mean there is a UI somewhere for this?
I thought I knew what UVC was, just a basic/standard protocol to work with a system-provided driver. If a camera is UVC-compliant, then its basic features would work on OS X, and if not UVC-compliant, then you would need a special driver (likely non-existent).

 

[DE1988]

sorry about the uvc thing.. i wasn't clear on that. it's uvc camera control. here's the link:
http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2009/07/uvc-camera-control-for-mac-os-x

this will work in photobooth but not skype, at least for my cam. when you open Camera Control you will see what your cam is on and you can open Photobooth at the same time and control exposure and white balance. it just mirrors Photobooth. but it will not work in skype. this may be different on other cams.

i found something soooo much better and now my camera (Microsoft LifeCam Cinema) works like it did on windows (i think better now). it works in skype too. I didn't want to go out and look for a compatible cam. i really wanted to get this one working because it was a good cam for what i use it for. last night i found a program called "Webcam Settings" by Mactaris at the Apple store. I looked at their blog - http://mactaris.blogspot.com/p/webcam-settings.html and found a comment with a guy that has the same cam as mine. so i bought it. i figured that if this works, I wouldn't find a cam at $7.99. if it didn't, then i'm out $7.99. but when i tried it, it worked great!! i was trying it out when the room was full of daylight and it looks great!! i can control the brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpeness, white balance, exposure time (very sensitive). the aperture priority works great in a bright room. press that and it adjusts everything automatically. the advance mode, i can control the focus and backlight comp. but not the zoom, pan, and tilt. maybe that would vary depending on what kind of cam you have. you can email them and ask if it works for your cam or check their testimonies to see if someone has the same cam. hope this helps others. it's a great alternative if you have a compatible cam.

also, "Webcam Settings" will only work in one program at a time.

 

[evolutg]

sorry about the uvc thing.. i wasn't clear on that. it's uvc camera control. here's the link:
http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2009/07/uvc-camera-control-for-mac-os-x

this will work in photobooth but not skype, at least for my cam. when you open Camera Control you will see what your cam is on and you can open Photobooth at the same time and control exposure and white balance. it just mirrors Photobooth. but it will not work in skype. this may be different on other cams.

i found something soooo much better and now my camera (Microsoft LifeCam Cinema) works like it did on windows (i think better now). it works in skype too. I didn't want to go out and look for a compatible cam. i really wanted to get this one working because it was a good cam for what i use it for. last night i found a program called "Webcam Settings" by Mactaris at the Apple store. I looked at their blog - http://mactaris.blogspot.com/p/webcam-settings.html and found a comment with a guy that has the same cam as mine. so i bought it. i figured that if this works, I wouldn't find a cam at $7.99. if it didn't, then i'm out $7.99. but when i tried it, it worked great!! i was trying it out when the room was full of daylight and it looks great!! i can control the brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpeness, white balance, exposure time (very sensitive). the aperture priority works great in a bright room. press that and it adjusts everything automatically. the advance mode, i can control the focus and backlight comp. but not the zoom, pan, and tilt. maybe that would vary depending on what kind of cam you have. you can email them and ask if it works for your cam or check their testimonies to see if someone has the same cam. hope this helps others. it's a great alternative if you have a compatible cam.

also, "Webcam Settings" will only work in one program at a time.

Great stuff, Thanks!

Another candidate for controlling a camera is iGlasses, which I knew from a long time ago and am surprised to still see it alive: http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/16105/iglasses - More epensive, but not MAS and demo available (comments on it welcome!)

Adding camera controls is now in my ToDo list, but rigth now I am wary of adding stuff (other than straight apps that you can start and stop), I am still busy identifying lots of suspicious messages in my console log, I don't want to add more uncertainty - I have this totally unrealistic goal of categorizing and understanding all messages LOL!

 

[evolutg]

sorry about the uvc thing.. i wasn't clear on that. it's uvc camera control. here's the link:
http://www.phoboslab.org/log/2009/07/uvc-camera-control-for-mac-os-x

this will work in photobooth but not skype, at least for my cam. when you open Camera Control you will see what your cam is on and you can open Photobooth at the same time and control exposure and white balance. it just mirrors Photobooth. but it will not work in skype. this may be different on other cams.

i found something soooo much better and now my camera (Microsoft LifeCam Cinema) works like it did on windows (i think better now). it works in skype too. I didn't want to go out and look for a compatible cam. i really wanted to get this one working because it was a good cam for what i use it for. last night i found a program called "Webcam Settings" by Mactaris at the Apple store. I looked at their blog - http://mactaris.blogspot.com/p/webcam-settings.html and found a comment with a guy that has the same cam as mine. so i bought it. i figured that if this works, I wouldn't find a cam at $7.99. if it didn't, then i'm out $7.99. but when i tried it, it worked great!! i was trying it out when the room was full of daylight and it looks great!! i can control the brightness, contrast, saturation, sharpeness, white balance, exposure time (very sensitive). the aperture priority works great in a bright room. press that and it adjusts everything automatically. the advance mode, i can control the focus and backlight comp. but not the zoom, pan, and tilt. maybe that would vary depending on what kind of cam you have. you can email them and ask if it works for your cam or check their testimonies to see if someone has the same cam. hope this helps others. it's a great alternative if you have a compatible cam.

also, "Webcam Settings" will only work in one program at a time.

Another app of interest (free!!): http://camtwiststudio.com
Not investigated much yet, so I am not sure the video stream output by that app can be fed back into iChat and the like, but it might (it is shown to be visible by Quicktime) (if not, sorry about the noise!)
Besides this, this free app looks relly great (look at the video under Blog)

 

[DE1988]

just tried the camtwiststudio software. didn't work for me.