Back in the early '80s, the very idea of chatting with someone in full-motion color video with sound was the stuff of dreams - or you were watching the TV show Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Your camera and your VCR were analog . . . if you could afford such luxuries.
Ah, what a difference two decades make. Now you can use the Dynamic Duo of your laptop's iSight camera (check it out in Figure 1) and Tiger's iSight-savvy software. With iChat AV, you can videoconference in style, and with Photo Booth, you can snap digital pictures just like the old automatic photo booth at your local arcade. Heck, if you like, you can even capture live video for use in iMovie HD!
Your iSight camera's indicator light glows green whenever you're taking a snapshot or recording video. If you're using an older Mac laptop that doesn't include a built-in iSight camera, you can still buy the external model from Apple and continue merrily on your way.
Using iSight with iChat AV
Although your MacBook comes ready for videoconferencing, you should understand two caveats before embarking on the Voyage of Video Chat:
- Speed is an issue. To take advantage of video in iChat AV, you need a fast Internet connection - at least high-speed DSL or cable Internet service, or even a connection between computers on the same network.
- All participants need a video camera. Plenty of folks online have bought an iSight camera and then suddenly realized that most of their iChat AV buddies didn't have video capability!
Even with an iSight camera installed, you can still join text-based and audio chats. (Your Mac has a built-in microphone, so even if your online buddies aren't equipped with video hardware, you can enjoy an audio chat.) iChat AV displays audio and video buttons next to each person on your buddy list to help you keep track of who can communicate with you and how they can do it.
Starting a video chat is as simple as launching iChat AV from the dock (or from your Application folder). Then, in the buddy list, click any buddy entry with a Camera button next to it to connect.
Using iSight with Photo Booth
With Photo Booth, you can always snap a quick picture of yourself for use on your Web page or even for safekeeping in your iPhoto library. Although the photos it can capture at 640-x-480 resolution are nowhere near as high a quality as those produced by today's crop of digital cameras, everything's built-in, so you don't need to drag your Canon or Nikon from town to town or classroom to classroom.
To snap an image in Photo Booth, follow these steps:
1. Launch Photo Booth from the dock or from the Applications folder.
2. (Optional) Choose an effect that you'd like to apply to your image.
Photo Booth can produce some of the simple effects you may be familiar with from Photoshop, such as a black-and-white image or a fancy colored pencil filter. Although you can always launch your favorite image editor afterward to use a filter or effect on a photo - for example, the effects available in iPhoto - Photo Booth can apply these effects automatically as soon as you take the picture.
3. Click the Camera button.
Photo Booth enables you to save your image directly to your iPhoto library, or you can save it to your hard drive for later use.
Using iSight with iMovie HD
You don't need an expensive digital camcorder to produce video clips for use in iMovie HD. In fact, your laptop's iSight camera can capture those clips for you - think of the party possibilities!
To capture video directly from your iSight camera into iMovie HD, follow these steps:
1. Launch iMovie HD from the dock or from the Applications folder.
2. Click the Import Video/Editing switch (the toggle switch under the monitor window that sports camera and scissors icons) to switch to Import Video mode.
3. Click the Camera icon (which is just to the left of the Import Video/Editing switch) to display the pop-up menu, and click Built-in iSight.
4. When you're ready to start recording video, click the Record with iSight button.
iMovie HD automatically displays the incoming video in the monitor window as it's recorded.
5. Click the Record with iSight button again to stop recording.
After you've ended the recording, iMovie HD creates the video clip and adds it to your Clips pane.
