Shoutbox

I have the Kodak Easyshare DX4330 camera, which has video capture capabilities. Is there a way to set it up, via USB, as a webcam so I can use it in messenger? (Note it has to be USB as there are no video in ports on this computer, nor any firewire ports on either side) Thanks.

Not nessecairly... it's not because it can record a small video that it can be used as a webcam: You'll need a webcam driver specific to your camera for that and your camera must be able to broadcast what it sees to thru the USB port....

However, many digital camera's can act like a webcam though, refer to your manual to see if it can be set like that and how to do it....

EDIT:
I just viewed the specs a bit and have seen that it has a Video Out plug. This can be used as the way to output the things it sees (but again, not all camera's actually have the Video-Viewfinder feature, the main feature of this Video Out is to view your already taken pictures on a TV, not to see what your camera is seeing)...

But using this means that you need to have an Video In plug on your computer and a software/driver that use that Video In Signal as the source for "webcamming"...
This said, if you have a Video In plug, you also, most likely, have the software to enable this as the webcam source. And if the drivers of the TV-card are installed properly, MSN Messenger can reconize this as your webcam....

EDIT2:
Found another spec-table of the camera.... It seems that you cannot use the Video Out as a Viewfinder, so that option (video-out) seems not to be possible....

EDIT3:
In case you don't have the manual:
http://www.kodak.com/global/plugins/acrobat/en/se.../DX4330_GLB_en.pdf

In my opinion, Just spend a few bux on ebay and buy a cheap camera.

Most cameras can be used as webcams: just look in your camera's configuration menus for an option like 'PC-CAM' or similar.

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Originally posted by raceprouk
Most cameras can be used as webcams: just look in your camera's configuration menus for an option like 'PC-CAM' or similar.

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Actually, most cameras can't. Only the cheap, small, CMOS-sensor cameras tend to have that feature.

Do you class the Fujifilm A204 Zoom as a cheap camera? OK, so the professional cameras may not have that feature, but a lot of regular consumer cameras do.

my mate uses he digital camera as a webcam


he plays pre-recorded videos for me to watch

quote:

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Originally posted by raceprouk
Do you class the Fujifilm A204 Zoom as a cheap camera? OK, so the professional cameras may not have that feature, but a lot of regular consumer cameras do.

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I said that only cheap cameras TEND to have that feature, not that that ONLY those have it; I said that most of the normal, P&S cameras don't have it. I wasn't even considering professional cameras, of course they don't have. I was talking about "middle" cameras, between $150-$500.

Sorry if I didn't consider that Fuji camera, I haven't used it before, I talk at least about most, if not all, Sony, Canon (and IIRC Kodak, Olympus).

quote:

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Originally posted by Stigmata
my mate uses he digital camera as a webcam

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Yeah, some digital cameras do both...
I have experimented with this idea in the past and as far as I've been able to see its impossible...The only way in detail was to use a TV out plug...but the firmware on the camera is unable to stream the video out in real time...

Webcam functions will provide poorer quality video as the amount of data is kept low to preserve bandwidth.