iSight not working

[sunracer]

I've read many of the threads on iSight issues and here is my situation:

I'm brand new to DVDpedia - just bought it yesterday. I installed it on a last get (pre-unibody) 17" MBP and the isight scanning feature refused to work. I restarted the app and then it scanned 2 DVDs very quickly - almost instantaneously - and then refused to scan any more - same lighting, same everything.

What it does: once iSight is selected, the camera box appears and I see the camera image on the screen. I never see a red box, only a green box and nothing happens. Since those first two scans I've been unable to scan anything.

So I tried 3 more of my Macs

- 2009 15" unibody MBP with a Apple display iSight - nothing ever happens - no scan
- 2009 MacPro with an Apple display iSight - nothing ever happens - no scan
- 2009 iMac - works well 80% of the time - then the last 20% if I restart DVDpedia

- 2008 pre-unibody 17" MBP - works 10% of the time - other 90% it does nothing - no scan

All the macs are running 100% up to date OS (10.6.3). I've tried them all in the same room and in different rooms (varying lighting) and in all cases, no other apps were running and varying services were running on each Mac.

[kbarnes70]

I've read many of the threads on iSight issues and here is my situation:

I'm brand new to DVDpedia - just bought it yesterday. I installed it on a last get (pre-unibody) 17" MBP and the isight scanning feature refused to work. I restarted the app and then it scanned 2 DVDs very quickly - almost instantaneously - and then refused to scan any more - same lighting, same everything.

What it does: once iSight is selected, the camera box appears and I see the camera image on the screen. I never see a red box, only a green box and nothing happens. Since those first two scans I've been unable to scan anything.

So I tried 3 more of my Macs

- 2009 15" unibody MBP with a Apple display iSight - nothing ever happens - no scan
- 2009 MacPro with an Apple display iSight - nothing ever happens - no scan
- 2009 iMac - works well 80% of the time - then the last 20% if I restart DVDpedia

- 2008 pre-unibody 17" MBP - works 10% of the time - other 90% it does nothing - no scan

All the macs are running 100% up to date OS (10.6.3). I've tried them all in the same room and in different rooms (varying lighting) and in all cases, no other apps were running and varying services were running on each Mac.

Does this other thread help?

http://www.bruji.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3783

Kind regards,

Keith

[sunracer]

not really...the other thread mentions a beta version but it's only bookpedia as far as I can tell. The version of DVDpedia that I'm using is the latest released version 4.6.0.

I just downloaded and tried Delicious Library 2 and it easily scanned every DVD on my old 17" MBP - the same MBP that won't scan any of my DVDs but two (out of the 10 I tried so far).

I tried DVDpedia again on the same 17" MBP and scanning still doesn't work (just an image and green box) - after another restart and reboot...

[Nora]

Please give the DVDpedia beta a try and let us know if that works for you.

[sunracer]

I tried the beta (27) and no improvement. I did notice that there is a red box always present on the video image unlike the always present green box but other than that - no scanning taking place.

I've tried Delicious Library 2 and Booxter on the same systems and scanning with those is (as far as I can tell with a dozen or so DVDs) perfectly reliable and very fast so I don't think the issue lies with the MBPs or iSight cameras. I also tried iGlasses (after trying the beta and other apps) with one MBP since it works with DVDpedia but after playing with the iSight settings it didn't help at all (set back to defaults, uninstalled, rebooted)...

[bookscanner]

This sounds like the same issue I have with Bookpedia.

The "Add" isight box pops up and shows a red box but the rest of the screen is black. I once actually got the bar code centered and the box lit up green and looked up the code.

But you have to admit it's MADDENING not to be able to see the video from the camera.

As I said in the Bookpedia forum, when I first clicked on the iSight button to Add, I was asked which of three drivers (?) to choose, one being isight and another having "google" in its name (I have google chat installed on my macbook). I chose isight.

[sunracer]

in my case I was asked for which iSight camera to use only on my unibody 15" MBP since it's used with an external Apple monitor. On all of my other systems I was never asked since they each have only one camera. The video appears perfectly fine when I try to scan a barcode on all my systems. I can see my face and background in the barcode video screen and it looks just fine. Once in a while a system will scan a barcode and this happens very fast and without having to have the barcode fully inside the green box (it seems). However, no amount of steadiness or time seems to help in most cases...

[Conor]

@Sunracer,

Thank you for all the testing. Please try out the Bookpedia Beta 28, or DVDpedia beta.

@Bookscanner

The latest beta should also no longer have the black screen. If you still experience a dark screen, please send me any information from Bookpedia in your console log.

[kbarnes70]

@Sunracer,

Thank you for all the testing. Please try out the Bookpedia Beta 28, or DVDpedia beta.

Hey Conor - how come these Bookpedia dudes get a beta number in their release and all that us DVDpedia types get is a file name!
Kind regards,

Keith

[sunracer]

I downloaded the latest beta (28) and tried it on my primary laptop (15" unibody MBP). It scanned some DVDs but not many (3/10) and on 2 of those it searched for a long time (minutes) to find the DVD info.

I've been scanning DVDs on my 2009 iMac 24" and DVDpedia seems to be working pretty close to 100% on that machine. So I'm just carrying ll my DVDs to my office to scan them (as opposed to carrying the laptop to the DVDs).

Since I already purchased DVDpedia I'll just go ahead and use my iMac to scan. I'll admit that it would be nice to see DVDpedia look/feel combined with Delicious Lib 2 or Booxter iSight scanning which works much more reliably (on all my Macs).

[kbarnes70]

I downloaded the latest beta (28) and tried it on my primary laptop (15" unibody MBP). It scanned some DVDs but not many (3/10) and on 2 of those it searched for a long time (minutes) to find the DVD info.

I've been scanning DVDs on my 2009 iMac 24" and DVDpedia seems to be working pretty close to 100% on that machine. So I'm just carrying ll my DVDs to my office to scan them (as opposed to carrying the laptop to the DVDs).

Since I already purchased DVDpedia I'll just go ahead and use my iMac to scan. I'll admit that it would be nice to see DVDpedia look/feel combined with Delicious Lib 2 or Booxter iSight scanning which works much more reliably (on all my Macs).

I'm one of the fortunate users who doesn't have any scanning issues on my Imac. But what I don't quite understand is if the iSight works just fine with Delicious etc, why it doesn't work always with DVDpedia. Presumably it's not a hardware issue if it works OK with these other programs? And if it's a software issue, knowing how hard Conor and his guys work, it must be a strange problem to resolve?

Kind regards,

Keith

[Conor]

It's all software but with a lot of math involved. Because the cameras unfortunately are set to a fixed focus (meant for video chat) small objects are blurry. We all do deconvolution (a fancier word for deblurring knowing what you want the final result to be). There so many variables and camera types (even within the built-in iSight) that it turns into a complicated problem to get a clear barcode. Luckily you are in the majority and it's just a handful of users that are having trouble with the iSight. Delicious has spent a lot of time over 1 year and 3 months on building theirs and with help from other programers. The Booxter developer is impressive, he was also the first to do scanning on the Mac iSight when it comes to our competitors (I think EvoBarcode came afterwards in late 2004). But we all have our issues, just with different Macs. They have the advantage that our version is open source, so any enhancements we do they can incorporate into theirs. There is a decoding algorithm based on the peaks created by the black lines, that is less prone to the blurring at the edges of the lines, and this will be my next step in the future in trying to make the code work for those few having issues.

[kbarnes70]

It's all software but with a lot of math involved. Because the cameras unfortunately are set to a fixed focus (meant for video chat) small objects are blurry. We all do deconvolution (a fancier word for deblurring knowing what you want the final result to be). There so many variables and camera types (even within the built-in iSight) that it turns into a complicated problem to get a clear barcode. Luckily you are in the majority and it's just a handful of users that are having trouble with the iSight. Delicious has spent a lot of time over 1 year and 3 months on building theirs and with help from other programers. The Booxter developer is impressive, he was also the first to do scanning on the Mac iSight when it comes to our competitors (I think EvoBarcode came afterwards in late 2004). But we all have our issues, just with different Macs. They have the advantage that our version is open source, so any enhancements we do they can incorporate into theirs. There is a decoding algorithm based on the peaks created by the black lines, that is less prone to the blurring at the edges of the lines, and this will be my next step in the future in trying to make the code work for those few having issues.

Thanks for taking the time to explain that, Conor. Nothing is ever simple in life in my experience Good luck with it - the Pedia userbase is very fortunate to have developers who take so much trouble, especially when the majority of users are happy enough. Most wouldn't bother. Then again, who wants to work in Seattle?

Kind regards,

Keith

[sjk]

Hey Keith -- how 'bout omitting or trimming back some of the quoted text in your replies, especially when it's longer than the new text? Thanks!

[kbarnes70]

Hey Keith -- how 'bout omitting or trimming back some of the quoted text in your replies, especially when it's longer than the new text? Thanks!

Why? Are they charging you for your internet access by the word?