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What's the best external webcam that will work with OS X Mountain Lion?

I love my iMac, but I find it difficult to use Skype unless I'm at exactly the right distance from the computer (and the right height). A lot of times the computer is higher (since the keyboard tray is lower) and in order to use the built-in camera properly, I have to tilt the screen way down. I would like to solve this by buying an external webcam so that I can change its angle without changing the angle of the screen. Anyway, from everything I have read, I guess there isn't an "official" or "supported" external iSight webcam for Mac, but most people say the Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920 works for them (not the funky software stuff, just the basic camera and microphone stuff, which is all I need). Is anybody here running a similar set-up or using one of these cameras who can confirm that it works with OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.1 (haven't gotten the next upgrade yet)? Alternatively, do you have any other suggestions for a webcam that will do what I want it to do? Thanks in advance for your help


http://www.logitech.com/en-ca/webcam-communications/webcams/hd-pro-webcam-c920


Ricardo 🙂

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1), 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5, 4GB 1333 MHz

Posted on Sep 19, 2012 5:07 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Oct 5, 2012 8:27 PM

😮😟


Yes, I'm actually shocked and sad because in 2 weeks, I didn't get one single response. I am positive I am not the only person who has an iMac and who wants to use another webcam aside from the built-in iSight. Anyway, I guess if you want something done right, you better do it yoursef. For those of you who may at some point have a similar question, I hope this helps.


I wanted a webcam that could be mounted on a mini tripod so that it didn't have to stay static on top of the screen but could be moved and placed in a variety of places without worrying about leveling the cam, the cam falling, etc (look at the Joby Gorillapod Original). Anyway, after doing as much research as I could stomach, I ended up with two main choices. A Logitech C615 and a Logitech C920. They're both basically the same except that Logitech calls them "better" and "best." Unless the incredible definition of the C920 is essential to you, the C615 will do the job quite well. I ended up buying the C920 because it came up on sale. Alas, Apple rules when it comes to ease of use. I cannot download the software from Logitech for all the special effects and stuff, but the camera (and stereo microphone) are plug-and-play. YES, THE C920 WORKS WITH OS X MOUNTAIN LION. I can say without doubt that the C615 will work too. Let's just say that the picture provided by the camera is incredible. I recorded a 30 second movie under exactly the same condtions on Quicktime with the built-in cam and with the C920 and there is no comparison, the C920 blows the iSight away.


So far, I have tested every single application I could think of and every single one of them allows me to pick between the built in iSight or the Logitech cam, my iMac recognizes the cam automatically. The only one that doesn't seem to detect it is iMovie, but that may be only due to my lack of familiarity with that app. So, Skype, Facetime, Quicktime, PhotoBooth, Messages ALL work with the Logitech C920 AND OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2


A word of advice. If you're like me and you're not too concerned about the extreme high definition, in retrospect I would buy the C615. Why? Simply because it can also be mounted on a mini-tripod, stand alone, or bracketed on top of your screen, BUT also because it doesn't only swivel up and down but also sideways (the C920 only swivels up and down. No huge drawback, but we're talking getting the most for your money). The C615 is also about $30 to $40 CDN cheaper.


Anyway, sorry about the long post. I hope this helps other people and I save them the time, effort, and disappointment of asking a question and having nobody answer it 😟

29 replies

Jul 3, 2013 11:06 PM in response to Patt9

I went through the same issues/thoughts after opening the box, hitting the website and realizing that the C920 didn't have a OSX driver and the logitech support person indicated on the forums that there was no plan.


Despondently I connected it to my OSX 10.7.5, and suprisingly it all worked out of the box. Apparently OSX requires UVC (USB/Universal Video Class), which standardizes web cameras. USB Audio also just works.


The audio just works (and is configurable in "Audio MIDI Setup"). Also the camera just works for most of the applications I tried with it (facetime, photo booth, hangouts, etc). The only concern is that *none* of the applications had the ability to control the resolution of the webcam image. This might be a UVC "feature".


Note that to control the settings of the camera there is the "Webcam Settings" application, however Logitech has released the "Logitech Mac Webcam Software" for C930e. It controls the C920 to the same level.


I did discover that with Quicktime Player, you can create a New Movie Recording (in File Menu), and in the settings (down facing triangle) you can set quality to Medium, High and Maximum. A video recorded at Maximum recorded at 1080p.


So all in all it works, but it looks like the weak link is configurable applications that use webcams.


Matthew

Jul 5, 2013 9:17 AM in response to chiflado8

This is not so much a response, but a tip I'd like to pass on to those who may not know.


I purchased the C920. I had carried it so long in my Amazon wish list that the price went up. I phoned Best Buy and asked them if they carried this same make and model. I was told the price and I immediately commented, "Gee, you guys are really high!" Then I was told that if I would print a web page where the price was lower, Best Buy would accept that as their price. I then went to Ebay and found the same camera being sold, NOT as an auction, at the same lower price I once saw on Amazon before the price was raised. Best Buy accepted my printed proof and I got the lower price. I later did a similar thing with Epson Ink, as it was lower priced on Amazon than it was in the Best Buy store. No problem,


I haven't had time to really work with the camera, but wanted to pass along this tip.


Patt

Aug 9, 2013 6:01 AM in response to Patt

Resurrecting again...


I've got an issue with this camera and I'm not sure what to do. I have mac mini I just purchased a few months ago hooked up to an HDTV via HDMI. I plugged the Logitech C920 in and could immediately use it with FaceTime with audio and had no problems....until the person on the other end started talking and they claim they get a TON of feedback on their end. Camera is clipped to the top of my TV (32") so it's not like the camera is right next to the speakers. I've tried plugging in external speakers to the mac mini, set the speakers on a bookshelf about 5 feet away from my desk and still have the issue. The only thing I can do is plug in my headphones from my iPhone into the mac mini so there's audio in my ear and the headphones have that tiny mic as well. The feedback then goes away for the other person. But that limits me to keeping my head very close to my desk since the cord isn't exactly 10 feet long. Would changing the audio settings work for me as well or is that just to get the audio working with the camera? Any other ideas?


Thanks!

Aug 11, 2013 6:40 AM in response to bluepurplegrey

C910 is best for 720 and even great at 640 but a bit overprocessed sharpening. I actually like it for basic in front of my computer video chats. Good mic, great video. but not the right solution on my mac for living room video confrencing.


C920 has a onboard hardware encoder.. this is critical for faster fluid video but MUCH MUCH to my dissapointment that encoder does not work on the Mac w/ Skype watch the technical call details window and you'll see HardwareEncode (0).


Want your hair blow back, reload into windows7/w8 in bootcamp and download logitech's WINDOWS ONLY drivers and try the same test and you'll see Skype's technical call window show up 1920x1080 w/ 30 fps. HardwareEncode (1) yeah. your doing it. Logitech is failing here in my opinion not supporting HardwareEncoding on the mac. What a waste and a shame. Save your money.

Aug 28, 2013 7:39 AM in response to Ricado

I tested Creative Live! CAM SynC HD on my Mac Mini with OSX 10.8.4. Both Face Time and Skype were working fine. In order to make Face Time working I had to indicate in the System Preferences / Sound the input as being set to the new webcam and then also the sound worked fine. The image quality in Skype was quite weak comparing to a very nice image and sound quality in FT (the call made from iPhone 4S to MacMini).

Please have a look at the screen-shot (Wejscie means 'Input', Dzwiek means 'Sound).

User uploaded file

Oct 18, 2013 9:13 PM in response to bluepurplegrey

Bluepurplegrey,


The c910 **will not** work under ML... I have one that has been sitting on my monitor since the Summer of 2011, and almost 2 1/2 years later, I am still reading the same complaints... A little expensive cam for just sleeping on a monitor.


I was told then it would be a matter of weeks or **maybe** a month or two before a driver would come up for (10.7 then... ) -- Try to figure out why a camera capable of such a high definition was designed to be fit only under Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6 --- (I have a G5 running 10.5.8 and would not even imagine putting a demanding camera like this on that machine !!...)


No idea who is to blame: Logitech for some lousyness or nglecting the Mac market, or Apple for their ecosystem and unwillingness to let third parties enter their bulb?


All I know is there will be a very long time before I even think of buying another webcam from Logitech.... (oh but... who else ?...)

Oct 19, 2013 12:55 PM in response to ShawnG1234

ShawnG1234,


From all the thread above, you're not bursting only my bubble, but the one of many people 🙂


What about the error messages ? What about the poor resolution - well sorry : limited resolution - on Skype ? Are you really able to exploit all the best from this cam or just a portion of what it can do ?


If you have absolutely no issue, I would sincerely incline if you could share how you did that... as this even go beyond what Logitech forums (including their tech support) say about it.


Cheers,

Rob

Oct 19, 2013 1:03 PM in response to lanstrad1

Rob i'm not getting error messages or poor resolution.


Limited resolution on Skype generally goes around 640x480 VGA ..in VGA mode i personally find the image a bit oversharpened... but not BAD.. just .. oversharpened. it's hard to explain. My main imac the system is one now is only 2. Ghz dual core so bumping it to 720p 1200 x 720 takes skype some time to pre-qualify everything and do it and CPU usage is HIGH on my box to do it. But is done w/ regularity.


Facetime is always stuck at I think qvga 320x240 but that's it's limitation I think.


I'm not one to record local video files my main interestes are video confrencing so as to motion control recording, local recording not my bag.


..

I do think ( not certain ) that current UVC drivers on the mac are UVC v1 or v1.1 I'm hoping OSX 10.9 Maverics bumps that UVC driver to 1.5 if it does.. the C930e might be quite a good buy.

Oct 21, 2013 10:09 PM in response to Ricado

RE: the Logitech C615


I have seen numreous places (including this thread) where people can't get this to work with their computer running OS 10.8, especially if they may have upgraded an older Snow Leopard model. I, as well as four tech support people at Logitech and another three (escalating levels) tech support at Apple, worked on this for about a total of 5 hours phone time to finally figure out the fix. To save everybody else this headache, here it is...


The way to get around this is to plug the camera in and forget about looking for it as a device. If you dig deep enough into the system, you will see that it is recognized, even without showing up as a device. Then, while plugged in through a USB port, click on the Apple icon in theupper right corner and go to "About This Mac." From there, you should hit software update. Then you will see an update pop up as available, that was not there before you had the cam connected. I actually forget exactly what the name of the update is, but it says something like Camera RAW and mentions being an update for a specific Pentax and Sony camera.


I downloaded that software update and the tech support guy still had me trying to find this as a device, but forget about doing that at all. What I decided to do was open iChat and I could see the Logitech camera light up and the image of myself was obviously high def. I then went to Facetime and again it was the highdef camera image. The only thing that I needed to do after that was to go back to the Apple icon, drop down to system preferences, then click on the sound icon and finally choose the Logitech Camera for the input (make sure that you are on the input tab). Then just bounce up the input volume as needed, but be prepared, because this mic is way more sensitive than any mac mic. Best if you have a friend that you can facetime with while testing out the best level for the input volume. Once you escape or close those preferences, the logitech camera is saved as teh default. So remember where you did this, in case you decide that you want the stock camera back as the default.


So there it is, the answer of how this actually works with a current (Mountain Lion) mac. Save your time with the logitec support. While it even took a few levels of tech support at Apple, they are light years ahead of the tech support at Logitech. The Logitech support was 4 consecutive "levels" of people that all fseemed to be at the exact same rudimentary level and had no clue how to get this working.

Dec 25, 2013 9:27 PM in response to Ricado

I know this is an old post but I hope someone can help me! I am considering purchasing the logitech c920 for my macbook air, but to record with photobooth. Someone said it records with only 10fps on photobooth, so is anyone able to test this for me? I just want to make sure it records with correct FPS and in HD in photobooth, not just photos, but recording too. And how well does the cameras mic work with photobooth, and how do I change the audio input/output for photobooth if I want to use a separate mic?


Thanks!

What's the best external webcam that will work with OS X Mountain Lion?

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