Integrated isight Resolution and Quality.

Best reference I can find says:

"With the LED-Backlit MacBook Pros, Apple has moved to using a sensor capable of 1280x1024 pixels, but when accessed using provided APIs, the image is re-sampled to 640x480 pixels. However, Quartz Composer allows access to the 1280x1024 pixel video stream."

PhotoBooth and iChat only use 640x480 and I'd expect it's something to do with the CPU demands of processing 1280x1024 pixel frames at a reasonable rate - i.e. it can't handle it well.

Welcome to Discussions, Sp1ke85

In addition to Michael's good info, see if you get anything useful from this thread:

  http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10690773&#10690773

A couple of ways to test your camera's hardware resolution are explained there.

FYI, my MacBook Pro's built-in camera resolution is also 1280 x 1024.
My old external (Firewire) iSight is only 640 x 480.

EZ Jim



Mac Pro Quad Core (Early 2009) 2.93Ghz w/Mac OS X (10.6.2)  MacBook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009) 2.26GHz (10.6.2)
LED Cinema Display  G4 PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11)  iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9)  External iSight

I would like to add to this question. I purchased an MBP 13 2.53 manuf June 2009 and a MB manuf oct 2009. When I use skype i see people in gloriuous widescreen but everyone sees me in only 4;3 with black bars down either side. Can anyone explain why this is the case. Do I have an inferior camera?

Thanks
mark

Mark Cockram wrote:
I would like to add to this question. I purchased an MBP 13 2.53 manuf June 2009 and a MB manuf oct 2009. When I use skype i see people in gloriuous widescreen but everyone sees me in only 4;3 with black bars down either side. Can anyone explain why this is the case. Do I have an inferior camera?

Thanks
mark

It seems to me that you have found a software feature (limit?) of Skype for Mac, Mark.

This Skype Help page states, in part, that Skype's "High Quality Video will transmit video images at 640x480 resolution at up to 30 frames per second."

  http://tinyurl.com/y89568y

640 x 480 is normal (4x3) screen format, not a widescreen one. Moreover, according to this Skype Help page:

  http://tinyurl.com/yz8nezk

Skype's "Standard Video" offers a resolution of up to 320X240 pixels (QVGA) at 15 frames per second (fps). 320x240 is also a normal (4x3) screen format.
 
Based on this info directly from Skype, although your preview monitor image on your Mac may be showing your webcam's full widescreen capability, it appears that neither video quality level in Skype for Mac can transmit widescreen images to your contacts.

IF you have other Skype-specific questions, you may get better and faster help from Skype Help

  http://www.skype.com/help/guides/

if you do not not get the answers you need here in this Apple forum. The users who post in the dedicated Skype Community Forums linked in the Skype Help pages may have already answered your Skype related questions for their own use.

See http://share.skype.com/sites/mac/video/ for some examples of more Mac related video info.

EZ Jim



Mac Pro Quad Core (Early 2009) 2.93Ghz w/Mac OS X (10.6.2)  MacBook Pro (13 inch, Mid 2009) 2.26GHz (10.6.2)
LED Cinema Display  G4 PowerBook 1.67GHz (10.4.11)  iBookSE 366MHz (10.3.9)  External iSight