New webcam - slow and bad quality

[renzopanta]

Hi all,

I have recently bought a webcam for my mac mini.

It's a very cheap webcam - only spent 30 euros on it.
Brand: philips, 1.3 Megapixels, 30 fps.
It is currelty hooked through usb connection (2.0).

(http://www.philips.ca/c/webcams-headsets/spz2000_00/prd/en/)

I pluged it in and worked immediately.
No need to install any drivers.

Used it with skype. Quality is VERY low - both compared to my old macbook isight and to my wife's cheap samsung netbook - NC10 - which by the way has a 1.3 megapixel webcam as well.

Is there anything I can do (like a driver I can install?)?

Thanks

Renzo

PS i have an old version of the bacbook - 4GB, 2,53ghz

[Smithcraft]

I believe the only third party driver is the Macam driver, but if your camera is already supported, I doubt that it will help any.

You could also try iGlasses. It might be able to make a difference or not.

I think this is one instance where having Apple supply universal drivers might be a minor drawback to getting third party cam support.

SC
_________________
Grumpy old man of computing.

[Desktop] G4 mini - 1.5Ghz 1GB 80GB HDD - Newer miniStack v2 500GB - 10.5.8

[Media System] Intel i5 mini - 2.33Ghz 8GB 500GB HDD - 4 x Hitachi 2TB HDD in a qBOX-SF - 10.7.5 (Thanks Phil!)

Make sure it has pins!

[hasty]

Could someone suggest a good model of webcam that works well with a macmini.
I have two here but neither are recognised and the macam driver has no effect either.

[zedtvl]

Have you tried that for a driver:
http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net/cameras/index.php
_________________
Mac Mini i5 2.5 GHZ, 16GB Ram.
Macbook pro 2008 Core 2 Duo, 256GB SSD, 2.5GHz, 6GB Ram
Dead PowerBook 180, M4440 33 MHz, 8 MB ram.

[hasty]

The Macam driver recognises one of my webcams but the screen remains obdurately black

Will have to visit my local store check the stock and return home to check the macam site......

[mooblie]

[Slackjaw]

The Logitech Vision Pro is much more expensive than I wanted to pay but the pic quality is much better than I thought it would be so I'm very pleased.

SmithCraft tipped me off to what I thought was a problem which turned out to be nothing more than a wrong assumption on my part that being... if the CAM LED wasn't on when connected to the Mini something, most assuredly was hooped.

Not so. LED comes on only when a compatible program is launched...which in this case was Photo Booth.

You can find this cam for considerably less than the price on this page.I've seen it as low as 75bux so if that isn't too much I'm sure you'll be happy.

I figure the better the pic quality - the more likely it will get used
Anyway here's the link to specs etc.

http://tinyurl.com/2c75ayw