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Cheap and cheerful WebCam needed

post #1 of 6
2/25/06 at 2:36pm
Thread Starter 
I could do with a little buying advice. I'm looking for a cheap an cheerful WebCam I can use for my G4 iMac with Yahoo messenger to chat with my sister who's moving away.

I don't really want to fork out £100 for an iSight (planning to buy a new iMac soon) so I need something to tide me over. Thing is, for all the products I've looked at, none explicitly say they support Macs. Is that because they don't at all or because they don't officially support macs (i.e. can't be bothered to support us)?

So can I buy any WebCam and expect it to work with Yahoo Messenger, or will only certain brands work - and if so, which?

Thanks for your help!
"Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh" Alex: A Clockwork Orange
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"Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh" Alex: A Clockwork Orange
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post #2 of 6
2/26/06 at 8:43am
Lots of people recommend the Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000:

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/pr...CONTENTID=5042

It officially supports Macs and has 3rd party drivers available. You can get it online for £25-30.

When searching for cameras, just make sure that at the very least the cameras are well supported by these drivers:

http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net/
http://www.ioxperts.com/devices/supportedvideo.html
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post #3 of 6
2/26/06 at 2:37pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks Marvin, I'll give Logitech a spin
"Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh" Alex: A Clockwork Orange
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"Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh" Alex: A Clockwork Orange
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post #4 of 6
3/2/06 at 2:54pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Marvin
[B]Lots of people recommend the Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000:

Hi. I'm looking for a webcam and while I find the logitech for the price you mention used, I see that it's $100 retail. I have no doubt that it's a nice camera, but when I compare its specs with other ones I find here in stores, that retail for a third of the price, I don't see much of a difference.

Take for example this Genius Look (link) which has the same 640x480, 1.3 megapixel specs. It retails for 27.

Yes, it has amazingly shitty software and doesn't support the Mac, but I'm just curious, knowing next to nothing about webcams, what stands out about the Logitech 4000?

Thanks a bunch,

--B
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post #5 of 6
3/2/06 at 5:57pm
Quote:
Originally posted by bergz
Hi. I'm looking for a webcam and while I find the logitech for the price you mention used, I see that it's $100 retail. I have no doubt that it's a nice camera, but when I compare its specs with other ones I find here in stores, that retail for a third of the price, I don't see much of a difference.

Take for example this Genius Look (link) which has the same 640x480, 1.3 megapixel specs. It retails for 27.

Yes, it has amazingly shitty software and doesn't support the Mac, but I'm just curious, knowing next to nothing about webcams, what stands out about the Logitech 4000?

Thanks a bunch,

--B

The only thing about Logitech is official Mac support. That gives people some assurance that the camera features will work as described and they should support system updates. That's probably all and if you see a camera that has similar features and cheaper then by all means go for that but make sure the features are properly supported by one of the available OS X webcam drivers. Logitech cameras have official support and 3rd party support so I would just feel safer buying one of them.

Another thing to think about is build quality though. I bought a Lacie drive that was essentially a firewire case with an IDE drive in it. At the time, I thought it was quite expensive at £100. Later on, I needed to get an external HD so I decided to build one from a cheaper enclosure and IDE HD. Well, I have nothing but trouble with it. It will unmount itself randomly while file copying, it's noisy and it's supposed to be portable but is nearly double the size of my Mac Mini. I actually had to get it replaced when I bought it because it was broken. I'll be getting a Lacie next time because it has never failed me once.
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post #6 of 6
3/2/06 at 6:07pm
thx for the reply and the links to the drivers.

now, since I'm being out-bid on ebay for logitech 4000s, if anyone else wants to make a recomendation for a sub-60 webcam, be my guest!

--B
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