In testing the new Mac Quadra 840AV, I used Sony PCS-V2 and VideoLabs Flexcam cameras to obtain live video. Both provide only a composite video signal, and each has its own separate power-supply "brick," with the usual entourage of a power cable and a supply lead to keep track of.
Sony's PCS-V2 is a flat box with a fixed-focus, tiltable video camera, speaker, and microphone. It's designed to sit on top of your monitor, but this assumes the monitor has a flat area several inches wide along the top. Apple's AudioVision monitor has a steeply sloping top, so I had to put the PCS-V2 on the Quadra 840AV's housing instead. I looked at a preproduction version that is actually an inch deeper than the final version will be.
VideoLabs' Flexcam looks like a Martian tripod from H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds: A wide base sprouts a long, limber neck that e
nds in an eyeball contraption. This section contains a focusable video camera and two microphones for stereo sound recording. The PCS-V2's captured images looked better than the Flexcam's, but the Flexcam has the advantage that you can aim it at practically anything, including papers on a desktop (a form of scanning), and you can adjust the focus.
Using Apple's bundled Video Monitor application, I could observe the view behind me through my office door with either camera while I was working. You can observe the view in windows ranging from 160 by 120 pixels, to 320 by 240 pixels, to full screen (640 by 480 pixels), but the image looks grainy on the largest screen. The live video image is 16 bits deep.
Apple manages this feat by splitting VRAM (video RAM) into two frame buffers when live video is in use. The computer-generated screen goes into one buffer, and the live video into another. The video circuitry then melds the two buffers together at the D/A display hardware. To capture the Mac Deskto
p and live video simultaneously, you need an application, such as the Video Monitor or VideoFusion's FusionRecorder, that understands where the live video resides in the system.
Live Video on the Mac
