Well would you believe it...

Just a quick update on my previous post and struggling with getting camcorders working with the Mac.

I had a few comments asking what the fuss was all about as firewire enable camcorders should just work with the Mac and Skype?

Obviously, I was doing something wrong so I thought I'd better check it out before spending any cash on a new WebCam.

I tried two camcorders, a Sony HDR-HC1E and an older JVC GR-DV3000.

First the Sony HD camcorder. By default it was set to HD out so I changed it to DV out to see if that made a difference. Connected it via Firewire to the Mac and launched Skype. Immediately got a message saying webcam configured and lo and behold, there it was!

The issue from the previous day was that it was in HD Mode and also I connected it up once Skype was already running. Connect the camcorder first, then run Skype and Skype can detect it!

So onto the older camera, the JVC DV3000.

This has a connection block with a USB connector and the manual says you can use the Camcorder as a webcam via USB connection BUT you need to install some drivers. I found the drivers on the net but Windows only I'm afraid.

Ah well, connected via Firewire cable, powered up Skype and boom, there it was.

So I was a bit hasty in thinking I needed a webcam, I can use the old JVC which looks surprising good.

Apologies for all the confusion and asking for webcam suggestions but they may well help others in the same situation!

Now to find a mini tripod to mount the JVC on the desk

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Don't push me...

I was invited to take part in this weeks live recording of "This Week in Media" hosted by Daisy Whitney late yesterday afternoon. It was my third time, even though my first outing never got published due to technical difficulties - at least I hope that's what it was :-)

Anyhow, Daisy mentioned in her invite that the show would be based at the Twit cottage and for any Mac based participants, to fire up their video for Skype to be included in the live video feed,

Gulp!

Never done a live video feed into a podcast before!

This blog post is the result of my trying to rig up a simple video feed using my existing kit.

First off, the machine I use for Skype is the main Mac Pro. It has a USB audio interface from my Mixer and a separate Mix Minus input into the audio line in. It's set up this way for when I'm recording the MacRoundtable. I've no webcam, but seeing as I had a couple of Camcorders kicking around, I thought it would be trivial to set one of them up as a web cam.

Wrong!

45 minutes later, I realised that I should have bought a new USB or FW webcam but it was too late to sort that out.

Backup plan, set up the MacBook Air and use the built in video camera on that.

OK, swapped over the USB interface and the audio line in to the MacBook Air - fine worked a treat!

OK, so now I want to use a wired ethernet connection for the MBA rather than wireless.

D'oh! The MBA uses a USB Ethernet adapter and with only having a single USB on the MBA......

So disconnect the USB hub from the Mac Pro and connected the MBA ethernet adapter and the USB audio interface into the USB hub. Fine!

But the USB hub on the Mac Pro had the Mac Pro keyboard plugged in, so my keyboard is not working.

Connect the keyboard to the USB port on the Dell monitor, but that is plugged into the other Mac Pro.

So by now I'm a little bit miffed as you might imagine.

The bottom line is I really need to acquire and configure a decent web cam onto the main Mac Pro. But without giving too much ammunition to the MacBook Air haters, it really would have been so much simpler with just a second USB port on the MacBook Air, it really would!

Update: I threw out a Twitter request last night for good web cam suggestions and the top 5 appear to be:

Quickcam Pro 9000
Quickcam Vision Pro
Blue EyeBall
eCamms BT-1
Logitech QuickCam Communicate MP

I'll ignore @PatMahons suggestion of getting a 24" LED Apple Cinema display for the built in iSight camera and stereo speakers. Pat, you should know me better than that to even seed such an idea :-)

As an aside, I can't seem to put the whole MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro decision point out of my head but the whole debarcle last night has really made me reconsider seriously. I'll still need a webcam for the Mac Pro though.

Update: Following on from the comments, I thought I'd better revisit the camcorder setup before parting with any cash. Looks like it was easier than I thought "Well would you believe it...."

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Disaster averted....

Had a call this morning from a neighbour whose teenage daughter needed to pass in some coursework to College by 12 noon. Following an all night session producing the final bits of graphics for a project, she was struggling trying to print it out as their printer had decided to pack in!

Talk about bad timing.

As ever the good Samaritan, I said no problem and told them bring the work round for me to print off.

They are not a Mac family but the documents were in word format, so it shouldn't have been a problem.

A few minutes later, the USB stick was in my Mac Pro, I fired up MS Word for the Mac (yes, I still have a copy installed for such eventualities) and loaded the document.

Oh dear!

The formatting was all over the place.

I tried to resize some of the components but it wasn't looking too good.

As time was of the essence, I took an executive decision to close the document without saving and fired up Pages. The formatting looked slightly better (!) but still needed work but I was able to drag, resize and basically pummel the document into shape in a few minutes.

Now baring in mind, this was a native MS Word document, why was it easier to correct using Pages?

Just sayin'

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Honesty is the best policy...

Still not had chance to hook up with my brother to admire his new MacBook, but we've been exchanging emails. Bottom line is that he seems really pleased with it and has been amazed with its cool running and quietness, not to mention just how easy it was to get up and running. I can't take any credit for that although he has watched some of my switcher videos :-) One comment he made in his last email gave me pause to think. Basically, out of the blue, he commented that he was not going to install any cracked.or "dodgy" software on his new Mac. I have to admit, being guilty of such practices myself when I was a windows user (oh the shame), I'd pretty much decided the same myself when I came over to the Mac. I also heard one of my ScreenCastsOnline forum buddies, legion, say the very same thing on a recent Mac20q Podcast. So what is it that makes us take the straight and narrow path when we become Mac users? Is it because good quality Mac software is just so cheap or is there a deeper, hidden reason? Regardless, it's a great feeling to be fully legitmate and I'm sure the Mac community is a better place for it!

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Blogging for bloggings sake...

Not gonna do it!

Up at 6am this morning to have a good run at editing this weeks show. All recorded but it's going to take me the best part of the morning to pull it all together and then the rest of the day to encode, upload and distribute.

So with that in mind, it's probably not a good idea to spend 30 minutes putting together a blog post when there's nothing really on my mind.

Except that the MacHeist guys have just included Delicious Library 2 in the bundle - always fancied that but not enough to spend $40 on it - plus another game! There is only 4 days to unlock the final three applications, but I'm sure they'll get there.

Hey guess what!

I've just done a blog post ;-)

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