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I need cheap HDV camcorder.

Can I use the Canon VIXIA HV40 camcorder for skype?

  • I've spent hours trying to get the Canon HV40 to work over firewire to Skype! ANY help is greatly appreciated.... Interested in experimenting with using it for a super high-quality Skype/Video conferencing camera for my work. I'm able to record HDV out to disk using a simple freeware stream capture tool, so I know the video is "there", but I need it to be nicely packaged for web video software. It shows up in Adobe Connect as "Canon Camera/Camcorder" but it's just a black box with no picture. Skype flat-out doesn't recognize it as a camera. I know Leo LaPorte from the TWiT network said they were using these for their high quality streaming, but I don't know if he was also using VidBlaster or some other high $$$ software to "push" the video to Skype.

  • Answer:

    I looked into using a decent (photo)camera as as webcam. The only option appeared to be a $100+ hdmi capture card. You may have other/better options.

lattiboy at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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See, the issue isn't capture. I'm getting a full res 1080p stream off the camcorder, the only issue is Skype recognizing it as a valid webcam "stream". Haven't had any success with software that does this.

lattiboy

I found links to http://www.splitcamera.com/ and http://www.trackercam.com/TCamWeb/ on the Skype forum. Have you tried one of those?

Magnakai

I've played around with trying to do this in the past. Unless you specifically care about the image quality and that's absolutely paramount, this will take up more of your time than its worth. Go to goodwill or another large thrift store and buy a USB webcam for $3.99/6.99/whatever. Last time I noticed one of those there it was even a 720p model. And there was a pile of various models. I realize this isn't a direct answer to your question, but you might spend a ton of time on this. The only winning move may very well be not to play.

emptythought

Magnakai: I did try those, but they only capture "DV" out, not "HDV". emptythought: Yeah, I might be coming to that conclusion. Various products from BlackMagic were recommended to me, but you need a RAID array and high-end hardware to capture the full stream of HDMI. Boo!

lattiboy

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