webcam 2007 - how does that work?

November 26, 2007 3:24 PM

My Laptop has a camera with it atop the screen. It came with no software itself (I have hunted through the OED disks and the OS), but just works with things like Skype automagically in terms of detection - which would be great if I wanted a videophone, but I wish for more. It's a bisoncam by trade name. Is there any third party software that I could use to get the most out of it (in particular, to record still shots, or video diatribes for use later?).
posted by Sparx to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

It sounds like the OS ships with drivers for it. If that's true you should be able to go to "Cameras & Scanners wizard" to acquire images. I forget where it is but poke around and you'll find it. (I don't have a camera or scanner here to poke around on)
posted by aubilenon at 3:40 PM on November 26, 2007

Best answer: I haven't used it that much, other than a few minutes of general tinkering, but Yawcam was highly recommended on Lifehacker a few weeks back.

Does video streaming, image grabbing and other stuff like motion detection.
posted by afx237vi at 3:42 PM on November 26, 2007

WebcamXP is pretty decent software. I've used it for a year or two and havent found anything better yet (for my Windows box..... Mac on the other hand is another (sad) story)..
posted by jmnugent at 4:10 PM on November 26, 2007

Response by poster: The OS does indeed ship with drivers, but no executables that I have seen to utilise the hardware and they are not on the net in abundance. Yawcam worked great for single frame stuff (really good, thanks for that), but not so good for recording video/audio cap, which was the other factor. Any suggestions?
posted by Sparx at 4:13 PM on November 26, 2007

I wonder if you have a program but don't realize it. I just bought an ASUS notebook which has a camera in the display bezel. The program to use it is called "LifeFrame".

Presumably that means there are drivers for it, but there don't seem to be any TWAIN drivers for it, which means I cannot access it from things like Paint Shop Pro or Thumbs Plus, which ordinarily would be able to take frames from TWAIN devices.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:35 PM on November 26, 2007

Response by poster: I wonder if you have a program but don't realize it.

I have hunted though my system and found nothing meeting the description but the Drivers. First thing I do with a new system out of the shop is eradicate boring stuff like MSWorks in favour of OpenOffice, and install various bits like firefox and spybot. All I found for this camera were drivers, which, as I say, work with skype downloads out of the box, but I had to download skype to ascertain, visually, that it was in fact working.

I thought it seemed odd too, which is why I'm looking to get some more functionality out it, if possible.
posted by Sparx at 5:44 PM on November 26, 2007

It seems peculiar that they would provide such a hardware mechanism without any app that could use it. I don't think I've ever seen that happening.

My bet is that you deleted the appropriate app by accident when you were cleaning out all the crapware.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 5:59 PM on November 26, 2007

Try playing with sites like Ustream and YouTube which, through Flash, can tap directly into your built-in camera (and presumably microphone) and record (or broadcast live) video. It won't get you a local file you can edit (though Ustream, at least, gives you a download file for the created FLV), but in terms of shortest distance between you and internet stardom, the Flash door seems the best bet.
posted by pzarquon at 7:14 PM on November 26, 2007

Response by poster: My bet is that you deleted the appropriate app by accident

Good point - I checked this out via the manufacturer and, nope - the software it's supposed to support is MSMessenger :-p (which is one I did clear out, but, still, same problem with the video recording). I may have to pay for something! Ah well. Thanks for your help, folks.
posted by Sparx at 7:13 AM on November 27, 2007