You're welcome, RNobleman.
I did not intend for my response to indicate that your processor was being overworked, but rather that some apps make automatic decision based on processor capacity. Capacity can be effected by several things that you can influence, including your processors power, System Preferences settings, how may apps you use simultaneously, the complexity of the running apps, etc.
Perhaps you are right about programming quality. You may want to try some of the
other apps that can capture video clips to see if they work differently, too. Because iMovie works better for you than Photo Booth, the concern about which you posted may merely be due to differences in the way various apps are written. That would seem even more likely if some of the other video clip apps also work better than Photo Booth.
As another test, you should be able to play back any of the clips you record with any of these app by opening them in QuickTime Player. If they play back with less delay that you see in the monitor window, it would see to me that Photo Booth (or other app) has been optimized for
recording rather than for
monitoring the camera image. If the playback delay is not objectionable, ignore the slight lag in the monitor window unless it is too bothersome for your taste. In that case, use some app other than Photo Booth to record video. If you want another app that offers video "effects", you could also try WebcamTweaker to see if it exhibits less lag on your Mac than Photo Booth.
In my own test with Photo Booth vs iMovie and QuickTime7 Pro, Photo Booth does seem to have slighlty more lag during recording, but all played back without any real problem for me. Nevertheless, I never use Photo Booth for any serious video recording. I use QT Pro or iMovie for recording video when I want their better quality recording or editing capability.
One other thought:
iSight switches to 15 frames-per-second to improve picture quality in low-light conditions, so you might want to consider a test recording in sunlight or with
additional good-quality light to see whether better lighting helps reduce the lag you notice in Photo Booth.
EZ
Jim
PowerBook 1.67 GHz w/Mac OS X (10.4.11) G5 DP 1.8 w/Mac OS X (10.5.1) External iSight
