# Using a digital camera as a web cam?



## mfreeman72 (Oct 31, 2002)

I'm contemplating purchasing the Canon S230. I noticed you can take AVI movies with it (up to 3 minutes).

Could I use this as a web cam, say on Yahoo? I know Canon's work out of the box with Mac, but to do this would I need a patch?

Thanks.


----------



## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

The camera is working pretty hard to do video (saving it to the camera's memory); you could upload the video and stream it, but not in real time (ie live). A still camera is just too busy to output the video in real time.

I suppose it's not impossible, but the camera would have to be designed specifically to output to the USB port in real time. If you run across one that claims to work that way (even if it's only via Windows) then you could probably use a driver from IOXperts to get it on the web. But it's not a normally offered feature of a still digicam.


----------



## däycüs mäximüs (Nov 30, 2002)

it can be noted that fuji digital cameras have the ability to be used as a webcam... although i'm pretty sure it's only for PC users.

my sony rep once told me that there is some kind of software available to keep the lens open so that it can stream video and thus be used as a webcam... but i haven't found such a beast.

thus far, only fuji cams are equipped with that feature out of the box.


----------

