Facetime and external iSight - no sound input

Hi Stephen Glick,

This might seem strange but can you do the following.

In System Preferences > Sound > Input can you change th "mic" to anything but the iSight's mic ?

In FaceTime can you do the same ?

Then Set the System Preferences > Sound > Input "First" (for the iSight's Mics)

and the FaceTime App "Second".

This has helped some people with Headsets in iChat.

8:08 PM Sunday; February 26, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

As strange as that was, yes, it worked. Who would have thought that the order of the settings would make a difference. I unset both off of isight, and then set them both back to isight doing the System Preferences > Sound first, and the facetime setting second. Thanks, Ralph.

Steve

Hi,

There is a sort of logic if you think about it.

Until System Preferences has been set for an Input then no app can access that input.

Unfortunately most apps are like a car with a stick shift/manual gearbox in that you can select a gear even before you turn the engine ON.

10:23 PM Sunday; February 26, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

I have a new mac mini and a 20" apple cinema with the isight with Lion 10.7.3 and tryied to do a facetime

today but no audio. Do I need to redo some settings?

Thanks

Martin

upctry2 wrote: ... no audio. Do I need to redo some settings?

If you mean no audio input, verify that your FaceTime > Video setting is set to use your microphone.

If you mean no audio output, check your volume settings and connected speakers.

Message was edited by: EZ Jim

Mac OSX 10.7.3

Hi,

Do you have Mic ?

As the Camera is in fact External to the Mac Mini so would a Mic need to be.

You describe having Camera...

If you have a Mic, have you set this in System Preferences > Sound > Input ?

Have you set the Volume here High enough (The Blue response bar should getr about 1/2 - 3/4s fo the way to the right) ?

Is the same device/mic selected in iChat menu > Preferences > Video section > Microphone drop down ?

EDIT

Apologies EZ Jim.

I have this thread on Subscription

For me in Threaded View it is 5 pages or so long.

At about this point Links in the email I get don't always take me to the Post made. (it did for upctry2)

However when it does link to thre right Posts I don't always see follow posts in order.

I did not see yours this time. (in fact your Subscription led me to another post of yours and I had to search for this one)

7:46 PM Thursday; March 29, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Message was edited by: Ralph Johns (UK)

Thanks for the help.. I think im going to un install it on the macmini and just use my iphone or ipad.

upctry2 wrote (in response to EZ Jim):

Thanks for the help.. I think im going to un install it on the macmini and just use my iphone or ipad.

You're welcome.

You have a good plan to use FaceTime from your iphone or ipad. However, I would suggest that you NOT un install FaceTime from your macmini.

Mistakes made when uninstalling individual components installed with your OS (as FaceTime was) can cause system problems.

Unless you are an OS X expert, I suggest you simply use your mini's FaceTime > Preferences... to turn off FaceTime. Then quit FaceTime. FaceTime will continue to work with your iOS devices, but it will no longer respond on your mini.

Message was edited by: EZ Jim

Mac OSX 10.7.3

Ralph:

Looking for some help here and you appear to be the external iSight/Facetime Guru!

I upgraded to a mid-2011 Mac Mini (comes with Lion) and added my iSight Camera to it through a Belkin USB/Firewire hub. This Mac Mini has no internal mic.

Audio/Video works fine in Skype. No audio in Facetime.

Thanks!

Hi,

Actually I learnt all I know about FaceTime from EZ Jim.

I would also say the same about the External and Internal iSights (EZ Jim wrote the info about iSights on my site)

This tends to be about which version of the OS you have.

FaceTime Beta in Snow Leopard works with the external Mic over firewire

In Lion it does not until you reach OS 10.7.3

I am sure EZ Jim has included that pic in a thread somewhere (If not this one) where the Mic is added to the Audio option

(EZ Jim's one reads iSight as he has an External he can use)

If you have not already then update to OS 10.7.3

10:05 PM Monday; April 9, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

OS X 10.7.3 works! I guess they forgot the iSight driver in the earlier Lion versions...

Thanks!

No Problem.

7:01 PM Wednesday; April 11, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

So all this time (up until the release of 10.7.3) external iSight camera would not work with Facetime?

Good timing on my part!

Hi,

The camera was Identified in Face Time but the Mics (there are two of them) were not.

Most external iSights are at least 7 years old since the last manufacture let alone being sold.

There were three versions mostly with different mounts for different Macs that came out.

However both camera (for Video) and the mics show up in the Video menu of FaceTime.

8:04 PM Wednesday; April 11, 2012

Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.3)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Just bought my iSight firwire off of eBay. I couldn't get the MIC to pick up any audio and tried everything that Ralph has posted with NO LUCK. I located a 10.5.5 Mac OSX restore DVD and used an app called "PaciFist" to open the CD and view the files. The trick is you have to open the entire DVD, not just one package. Search for "iSight Updater.app." Extract that to the desktop and run it. I did this on OSX 10.8 and sucessfully upgraded the firmware of my iSight. I rebooted and now my Mic works on my iSight. If you no longer have access to a 10.5 or 10.4 DVD or older MAC to update the firmware of your iSight, perhaps you could e-mail a buddy that might e-mail you the updater.

For a recap, this fixes no audio on a firewire iSight plugged into FireWire 800 on a Mac Pro where the iSight Camera AND Microphone are detected yet the Vu meter shows no action when audio is presented to it. Simply patching the firmware from 1.0.2 to 1.0.3 and a reboot should fix the issue. It's probably due to a driver written for the 1.0.3 firmware in OSX 10.8.

-Cole at xcole dot com