Need Help With Video On Mac Os X Options

[Spock]

I'm attempting to start video recording myself and I'm using an iMac. The stock program to use is Photo Booth and I have a couple of issues I was hoping someone could help me with.

1 - The video coming from the built in camera looks terrible, very grainy, so I pulled out my old iSight camera to run via FireWire and I'm getting the same terrible result.

2 - The videos are massive in size! I mean several gigabytes for a minutes worth of footage.


There has got to be practical solutions to these issues. Has anyone found a workable solution on Mac?

Thanks!

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This post has been edited by Spock: Mar 19 2013, 08:03 AM

[dcz702]

I'm attempting to start video recording myself and I'm using an iMac. The stock program to use is Photo Booth and I have a couple of issues I was hoping someone could help me with.

1 - The video coming from the built in camera looks terrible, very grainy, so I pulled out my old iSight camera to run via FireWire and I'm getting the same terrible result.

2 - The videos are massive in size! I mean several gigabytes for a minutes worth of footage.


There has got to be practical solutions to these issues. Has anyone found a workable solution on Mac?

Thanks!

hello spock, i also use a mac. first make sure your updated to osx 10.8.2
dont bother with the i sight its a pain in the ass to get a good angle, i use a cheap logitech c270 webcam i bought for 30 dollars,its usb. when you record you wil notice a bit of lag but that lag only apears when recording. you should have quiktime in your applications folder, use that instead of photo booth. just click on it then i should apear in your dock, then right click it and chose new video. all you goota do is hit record right before your start recording your guitar track, after every thing is recorded i save the music and video on my desktop.
then open imovie and simply drag the music you saved on your desktop to imovie, the video is differnt, you cant drag it in. when i movie is open go to the to of your screen click file then find import, if you saved it to your desktop chose desktop then find the movie and click chose. after all thats done its just a matter of matching the audio with video by trimming the clip, wich is very easy it just sound like a pain in the ass.

hello spock, i also use a mac. first make sure your updated to osx 10.8.2
dont bother with the i sight its a pain in the ass to get a good angle, i use a cheap logitech c270 webcam i bought for 30 dollars,its usb. when you record you wil notice a bit of lag but that lag only apears when recording. you should have quiktime in your applications folder, use that instead of photo booth. just click on it then i should apear in your dock, then right click it and chose new video. all you goota do is hit record right before your start recording your guitar track, after every thing is recorded i save the music and video on my desktop.
then open imovie and simply drag the music you saved on your desktop to imovie, the video is differnt, you cant drag it in. when i movie is open go to the to of your screen click file then find import, if you saved it to your desktop chose desktop then find the movie and click chose. after all thats done its just a matter of matching the audio with video by trimming the clip, wich is very easy it just sound like a pain in the ass.

and also invest in a external drive when you start doing music and video its a good idea to save it all on the external that way you dont fill up your main drive, i have 2 externals 1 for saving everything and always connected so i can pull everything up when i want and another for backing everything up in case of a crash

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This post has been edited by dcz702: Mar 19 2013, 08:21 AM

[Spock]

hello spock, i also use a mac. first make sure your updated to osx 10.8.2
dont bother with the i sight its a pain in the ass to get a good angle, i use a cheap logitech c270 webcam i bought for 30 dollars,its usb. when you record you wil notice a bit of lag but that lag only apears when recording. you should have quiktime in your applications folder, use that instead of photo booth. just click on it then i should apear in your dock, then right click it and chose new video. all you goota do is hit record right before your start recording your guitar track, after every thing is recorded i save the music and video on my desktop.
then open imovie and simply drag the music you saved on your desktop to imovie, the video is differnt, you cant drag it in. when i movie is open go to the to of your screen click file then find import, if you saved it to your desktop chose desktop then find the movie and click chose. after all thats done its just a matter of matching the audio with video by trimming the clip, wich is very easy it just sound like a pain in the ass.

Hey, thanks so much for your advise! I guess I was hoping to avoid the extra step of iMovie, but it's not a big deal.

What do you mean by matching the audio and video up? When I have recorded, the audio is input through my Line 6 unit directly, is there any syncing that has to be done in iMovie? I've never tried to sync audio and video.

Also, is the video quality of your $30 camera better than the macs built in or iSite? That iSite cam was $100 back in the day, and people still swear by it, however I've never been impressed with it and considered a Logitech myself.

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This post has been edited by Spock: Mar 19 2013, 08:38 AM

[dcz702]

Hey, thanks so much for your advise! I guess I was hoping to avoid the extra step of iMovie, but it's not a big deal.

What do you mean by matching the audio and video up? When I have recorded, the audio is input through my Line 6 unit directly, is there any syncing that has to be done in iMovie? I've never tried to sync audio and video.

Also, is the video quality of your $30 camera better than the macs built in or iSite? That iSite cam was $100 back in the day, and people still swear by it, however I've never been impressed with it and considered a Logitech myself.

my cheap logitech aint bad at all here is a video recorded using it,
https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_fo...showtopic=48226
and what i mean by matching the vid is you cant record the video while using your interface as the audio input while you doing the video, UNLESS you want to get quiktime pro, pro will let you chose the audio in you would like to use. the free quiktime will not.
when you import both audio and video into imove the video will have a few seconds of video that was started before you started recording the guitar. all you have to do is drag the entire vid over the music you recorded then preview them together then start trimin the begging of the vid till it matches, its alot eiser than it sounds and does not take more than a couple mins when you get used to it. i movie will let you trim .01 seconds from a clip so it will match up perfect. when you get used to it the whole process only take 5 mins to edit. thats of course after youve gone through the recording proccess.

just jump in give it a shot it will all make sence once you try, i just started doing this a couple weeks ago and it was confusing at first now it cake

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[Spock]

Awesome, thanks so much!

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[Bogdan Radovic]

That is really weird - photo booth should allow you to capture good quality video in quick time format.
You should be able to just select your Facetime cam and shot the video.

This is a long shot but you could try :

* Cleaning the lens/screen cover of the built in camera
* Restarting iMac and/or logging in as a different user
* Reinstalling Photo Booth

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[David.C.Bond]

Strange, I get amazing quality from my built in mac camera. It is huge in file size, but then its HD so its to be expected.

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[Kristofer Dahl]

Grainy video could be the result of a dark room, did you try adding more light?

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[Todd Simpson]

Some great replies And KRIS is spot on! Poor light makes for bad video. Try using extra lights. Even some work light, like construction guys use, or clip lights, etc. Anything to give more light. If you give the imac cam enough light it can make pretty spiff video

You can use any of the quicktime based video apps on the mac to record video and you can use the QUICKTIME utility itself to record vid with audio embeded. You can choose a quality setting as well.

Just double click on the QUICKTIME icon and on the litte bar with the play button there is a little triangle. Click it and you get a drop down where you can select your audio source. Then pick a quality setting.

Bingo, quicktime video, all synched up and ready to go.

Todd

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[Spock]

Grainy video could be the result of a dark room, did you try adding more light?

You are absolutely right. The area is very dark, even with the lights on, I did not think of that, however after doing a test I figured I was going to have to put some cheap studio lights in my little area - I bet that will solve the graininess.

Thanks!

Some great replies And KRIS is spot on! Poor light makes for bad video. Try using extra lights. Even some work light, like construction guys use, or clip lights, etc. Anything to give more light. If you give the imac cam enough light it can make pretty spiff video

You can use any of the quicktime based video apps on the mac to record video and you can use the QUICKTIME utility itself to record vid with audio embeded. You can choose a quality setting as well.

Just double click on the QUICKTIME icon and on the litte bar with the play button there is a little triangle. Click it and you get a drop down where you can select your audio source. Then pick a quality setting.

Bingo, quicktime video, all synched up and ready to go.

Todd

Sure will - I purchased some of these for work and will get some for home - only $40 on Amazon.com



Thanks for everyone's advice!

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