With the help of macam I was able to get my A4tech camera to work, but it was quite pixelated on a high resolution and didn’t have sound. This was countered by the acquisition of a USB headset, but that of course didn’t resolve the picture issue.

Logitech have a range of webcams, and some of them are supposed to work on the mac. Everything seems to have an inflated price when it connects to Apple but I was not wanting to fork out €100.

Enter ‘The Live Cam Socialize HD webcam‘. At €60 this was not too pricey and offerer HD, built-in microphone and promised to work on a Mac.

Opening the box, of course the installation disc was windows only. This meant to drivers. I have come to expect that, especially after my 6 month experimentation with Ubuntu. However I plugged the camera in and it was recognized immediately. Not a surprise, but how would it work in programs?

First off, the image capture application – no camera. Macam – no camera. Gulp, was this going to be a complete disaster? Main reason for the camera was for chatting so I tried Gtalk in Gmail, camera recognized and worked. Skype and iChat were the same. Success then sort of.

Picture quality was an improvement on my previous camera and the sound seems to be OK. I was a bit concerned about my set up and peripheral noise, but everything seemed alright in the end.

So despite the fact that at least 2 programs don’t recognize the camera successfully I am pretty pleased. Should I be? Is this an acceptable level of success? Let me know what you think.