| Weblog: | Want to Do More with an iSight than Chat? | |
| Subject: | RE: iSight Drivers? | |
| Date: | 2003-06-25 07:41:13 | |
| From: | derrick | |
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Response to: iSight Drivers?
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Hi Don,
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Showing messages 1 through 28 of 28.
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RE: iSight Drivers? -- offer for help and question
2003-06-29 14:00:49 sbpetrack [Reply | View]
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RE: iSight Drivers? -- offer for help and question
2003-06-29 14:57:31 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
Yes, it will work with the Dell and a 4 pin connector - but you will need a powered cable - FireJuice makes one that allows you to plug in power to support the end device. - they make a 4 pin to 6 pin with a lump on the cable where you can plug in an iPod supply or similar.
I have to use a PC Laptop for work and switch between it and my Powerbook - maybe someday the PC Laptop makers will wake up and put powered 6 pin 1394 ports on them. BTW, the iSight works great on my Dell with XP Pro - but just as a camera. Maybe someday someone will create real drivers for this. I would hope Apple would have - as many of their customers have both systems and would like to use the iSight on both.
Warren
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RE: iSight Drivers? -- offer for help and question
2003-07-09 23:04:53 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
Here is a really odd question for you folks. Using an isight with virtual pc (Xp home). Can it be done? Why I would want to is a long story.....
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RE: iSight Drivers? -- offer for help and question
2004-08-12 12:02:57 Samster [Reply | View]
I just got my iSight working with Windows XP AND fixed the image quality problem many are having.
To install the iSight, just plug it in, and cancel out of the "New Hardware Wizard." The camera will show up in My Computer, but will be VERY overexposed.
Next, download some program that will allow you to fiddle with the incoming video properties. I googled and found:
http://www.1394imaging.com/products/software/iccapture/
But I'm sure there's more out there. Use this program to turn down the brightness, and voila, your iSight will remember the new settings and you get great video even with AIM. Now if only the microphone worked... -
RE: iSight Drivers? -- offer for help and question
2004-08-12 11:55:05 Samster [Reply | View]
I just got my iSight working with Windows XP AND fixed the image quality problem many are having.
To install the iSight, just plug it in, and cancel out of the "New Hardware Wizard." The camera will show up in My Computer, but will be VERY overexposed.
Next, download some program that will allow you to fiddle with the incoming video properties. I googled and found:
http://www.1394imaging.com/products/software/iccapture/
But I'm sure there's more out there. Use this program to turn down the brightness, and voila, your iSight will remember the new settings and you get great video even with AIM. Now if only the microphone worked... -
RE: iSight Drivers? -- offer for help and question
2003-06-29 19:25:15 sbpetrack [Reply | View]
Hmm. So in order to use the iSight with a PC laptop, I must buy FireJuice for $21 and an iPod PowerSupply for $49 ($20 on ebay) -- and then I can only use the iSight hear an electricity outlet, correct?
Is there a USB-to-6-pin-firewire pure-power cord that would allow me to draw power from the USB port on my laptop to put into FireJuice?
Are there are PC Cards that give me powered firewire outlets? I could not find one from a quick web search.
Scott
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RE: iSight Drivers? -- offer for help and question
2003-06-29 20:41:18 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
Scott,
I think USB is 5v and 1394 is 12v, so I am not sure if it will work. I know PCI based cards that fit into a desktop or tower provide power, but I have not seen any for laptops (all the PCMCIA ones I have seen do not provide power from the PC - but use an external transformer).
I already had the iPod power supply, so that solved that problem for me. Another alternative is a powered 1394 hub, these come with a power supply that will power devices attached to them. All of this is a pain for PC laptop users, due to the extra devices required. Maybe someday they will get a clue and put powered 1394 into laptops. I use 1394 for external drives as well as the iPod and cameras.
I have been toying with the idea of creating a power take-off from the Dell power supply plug, but have not had any time to investigate it.
Warren -
RE: iSight Drivers? -- offer for help and question
2003-06-30 11:21:59 sbpetrack [Reply | View]
Thanks very much -- I did not know that firewire is 12v. I have ordered http://www.cmsproducts.com/detail.aspx?ID=16
so I'll let people know if it works in a few days.
I suppose that I could just take a 12v power supply and an unpowered 4-to-6 firewire cable and hook them up myself. This can't be too difficult to get right. I'll hunt around for the 6-pin spec, but if you happen to know of a clear picture and spec on the web I'd appreciate it. (If you know that this is a terrible idea, I'd appreciate that too).
Scott -
RE: iSight Drivers? -- offer for help and question
2003-06-30 14:55:38 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
Scott, Check out this site - it has the pin outs for the 4 and 6 pin connectors - pins 1 and 2 are power and ground. IIRC, the shield is also tied to ground.
http://www.fwdepot.com/wcable.html
You should be able to mod a cable and put a connector on the wires for pins 1 and 2 and hook up to an external supply. No reason it should not work.
Warren -
Connecting iSight to a Dell Laptop -- 'almost' there but still need help(sigh)
2003-07-03 06:14:20 sbpetrack [Reply | View]
The adapter from firewire 4-pin-no-power to firewire 6-pin-with-power just arrived in the mail. Looks beautiful. The power supply is ... 9v/1.1A . Not 12v as Warren said iSight needs. I hooked it up, and the PC recognized it as "Apple Computer_Inc. iSight", found no driver and so loaded a "Generic 1394 Desktop Video Camera".
Unfortunately, when I use it with the Audio/Video Tuning wizard I get a completely white picture and if I put my hand in front of it I get a rather brownish-blackish useless set of horizontal lines. I'd be happy to post a picture here or send it to anyone interested.
Is the problem likely to be that I really need 12v, or is there something worse going on?
I can't think of anything to do but go and buy a 12v power supply. (Unless someone tells me that a different driver is needed)
All help sorely appreciated. -
Closer still, but not yet there
2003-07-03 19:53:00 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
OK -- with a 9v power supply the picture was basically white. I just plugged in a 12v / 1.5A power supply from Radio Shack and the picture is now very discernible, but the color is terrible and the horizontal synch seems off. The top band of 70 pixels or so of the picture appear in a band at the bottom of the frame. FWIW, the picture is much worse in the "Audio Tuning Wizard" of Windows Messenger than in the generic 1394 applet in the control panel.
It's a pity I can't post a small bitmap to this board.
Could anyone tell me what the specs of the power supply of the iPod power supply are? thanks!
Scott -
Re: Connecting iSight to a PC
2003-07-03 20:52:25 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
Hmmm. I found a different generic driver at http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~iwan/1394/
Using this driver, I got MUCH better control and eventually a picture that I could recognize!! And in fact this worked even when i switched back to the 9v/1.1A power adapter. However:
1) there is still a problem with the horizontal sycn -- the top band of the picture appears in the bottom band of the window
2) there is very visible jitter and flicker in the picture.
3) Windows Messenger no longer recognizes that there is a camera attached to the PC.
-- just trying to help -
Re: Connecting iSight to a PC
2003-12-05 07:24:46 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
You MUST USE a 6-6 cable, not a 4-6 (usually, the notebooks have a 4pin connector, which is smaller than the 6pin connector). The two extra pins are the power line. The iSight is powered by the firewire cable, and that's why it doesn't work with a 4pin connector. -
Re: Connecting iSight to a PC
2003-07-28 18:08:23 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
Hi. I just found this website doing a search.....
I just bought an iBook with an iSight webcam.
I'm told only I won't be able to use it to communicate with a friend who has a (new) Hewlett Packard (Pavilion, I think).
Do you know if there's anything on the horizon....some product that my friend could buy in the near future that might make our communications compatible??
As you probably can tell, I'm not particularly computer-savvy. Please keep that in mind if you are kind enough to respond to my letter.
Thank you. -
Re: Connecting iSight to a PC
2004-01-22 21:58:30 theross_s9 [Reply | View]
The closest thing I've found is that by using Yahoo! Messenger you can video chat, but without audio. That's all I know, and I'm in the same boat as you as far as computer savvyness. -
Re: Connecting iSight to a PC
2003-07-25 14:03:20 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
Anyone tried the isight with a pci firewire card and a 6pin-6pin connector, rather than the 4-6 connector?
I have a PCI Adaptec DuoConnect usb2/firewire card. The website states it'll give each FireWire port supply up to 18W of power (12VDC at 1.5A).
http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/support/techspecs.html?sess=no&language=English+US&prodkey=AUA-3020&cat=%2fProduct%2fAUA-3020&fromarea=prod
Anyone think that'll work. I'd love to hear before I really make a decision about buying one.
I've already got an apple cinema display for my pc, so why not continue to add more apple devices!? -
Could the problem be a faulty ground?
2003-07-05 21:07:00 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
A random friend told me that the horiztonal synch problem could be caused by a faulty ground.
The power supply has only two plugs, not three.
Could this be the cause of the flicker and/or the boriztonal bar of the top of the picture appearing in the bottom?
I don't know enough about the pins of a two-prong outlet for power. Warren, do you think I should making certain that some extra lines are grounded by hand?
Scott -
Could the problem be a faulty ground?
2004-01-02 19:10:27 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
I have no idea about how well an iSight will perform on a PC, but the top line appearing on the bottom very well could be ground related - though it could be driver related as well. In a power connection with three leads like you see in AC power outlets, everyone knows that the two mains are alternating 120V 60Hz, and the third is a ground. In two-leads household outlets, they were polarized, rather than having a ground. Firewire doesn't resemble either of these, namely because it is DC, not AC. In DC, you have a positive and a negative. Electricity flows from the negative to the positive. However, voltage irregularities, or RFI and EMI interfernce can pollute the electrical signature enough to affect an image - but I'd say drivers were to blame if the problem was a smooth straight consistent line from the top appearing on the bottom. Otherwise, it would not follow a precise regular pattern of distortion like that. -
Could the problem be a faulty ground?
2004-01-02 19:10:16 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
I have no idea about how well an iSight will perform on a PC, but the top line appearing on the bottom very well could be ground related - though it could be driver related as well. In a power connection with three leads like you see in AC power outlets, everyone knows that the two mains are alternating 120V 60Hz, and the third is a ground. In two-leads household outlets, they were polarized, rather than having a ground. Firewire doesn't resemble either of these, namely because it is DC, not AC. In DC, you have a positive and a negative. Electricity flows from the negative to the positive. However, voltage irregularities, or RFI and EMI interfernce can pollute the electrical signature enough to affect an image - but I'd say drivers were to blame if the problem was a smooth straight consistent line from the top appearing on the bottom. Otherwise, it would not follow a precise regular pattern of distortion like that. -
Could the problem be a faulty ground?
2004-12-07 16:03:25 GerryJMcF [Reply | View]
I got my iSight working (no mic of course) using an adaptec AFW-1430 firewire adapter and a Radio Shack 12V 1500mA power supply. I also used
IC Capture from www.imagingcontrol.com to adjust the settings. Cancel out of the new hardware wizard and the iSight will show as a generic 1394 canera in my computer. (This was discussed earlier here on this site) Cost? About $65 (plus iSight of course) Result? A very very good picture! -
Could the problem be a faulty ground?
2004-12-07 16:03:01 GerryJMcF [Reply | View]
I got my iSight working (no mic of course) using an adaptec AFW-1430 firewire adapter and a Radio Shack 12V 1500mA power supply. I also used
IC Capture from www.imagingcontrol.com to adjust the settings. Cancel out of the new hardware wizard and the iSight will show as a generic 1394 canera in my computer. (This was discussed earlier here on this site) Cost? About $65 (plus iSight of course) Result? A very very good picture!
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RE: iSight Drivers?
2003-06-27 15:14:37 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
Hi, I plugged my isight into my WinXP
machine and the camera worked but the audio
did not? I used it w/Cuseeme 5.0 but there
were no video controls, etc. Could use
a WinXP driver, I guess?
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RE: iSight Drivers?
2003-06-25 16:53:06 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
I ran into a interesting article that sheds some light on this...
http://www.instantmessagingplanet.com/public/article.php/2226921
A number of early users of the application report that Apple is tapping Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) as the basis for launching streaming audio or video. To invite someone to a multimedia session, iChat AV appears to send a request via AIM. The recipient's iChat AV client receives the request and automatically opens the appropriate ports to receive an incoming SIP INVITE message.
Shortly thereafter, the sender's client is able to send a SIP INVITE to the recipient's IP address, which has been provided by AIM -- in this way, the participants' IP addresses have been exchanged invisibly. After using SIP to set up a multimedia session, the actual video is handled via RTP, the real-time transport protocol.
While it uses SIP to launch a multimedia session, iChat AV doesn't seem to function as a full-featured SIP client, however. Aside from receiving initiation requests in conjunction with AIM, the client can't initiate Voice-over-IP sessions using standard SIP INVITE messages --
for instance, those originating from a SIP phone.
| Showing messages 1 through 28 of 28. |
Now the question -- my PC laptop is a Dell Inspiron and has the small square firewire port. Is there a "standard" Apple-to-PC (perhaps 4-to-6 pin) adapter that I can buy to connect the iSight to my PC laptop. I realize from some posts here that I might only get video and not audio for the moment, but that's OK -- I'll wait. What I want to know is -- do I need to give up hope of using the iSight with my Dell laptop, or can I just buy the right adapter cable at any CompUSA...
Thanks
Scott