Check out the new macam wiki! Hopefully this can become a useful tool for all users.

What is macam?

macam is a driver for USB webcams on Mac OS X. It allows hundreds of USB webcams to be used by many Mac OS X video-aware applications. The aim is to support as many webcams as possible.

In addition, macam also supports downloading of images from some dual-mode cameras. macam especially tries to support those cameras not supported by Apple or by their manufacturers.

macam consist of an application and a component. Run the macam application to verify whether your camera works with your Mac and your USB setup. The component is the actual driver that allows other applications to access the video-stream. (note: iChat does not recognize most USB webcams unless you install iChatUSBCam - this is shareware unrelated to macam)

Many thanks to the spca5xx/gspca Linux webcam driver project, especially Michel Xhaard and friends. Their hard work and helpfulness have made many of the recent advances possible.

If you have a camera and Mac OS X, please help out by testing and reporting the results. Thanks!

Supported Cameras

macam supports several hundred different cameras! Many Logitech, Creative and other name brand cameras are supported, as are a large number of generic, and store-branded cameras. Thus many cameras are supported that we have not even heard about.

Here is a list of cameras with macam support indicated. Remember that this list is necessarily incomplete and not always up to date; so please try the macam application with your camera before abandoning hope. If your camera is not on the list, or if the support is different from what is indicated, please let us know!

Latest Version (0.9.2)

The most recent version of macam is release 0.9.2, available here. This version adds support for a number of webcams. In particluar the PS3 Eye, which requires USB2, but has a phenomenal picture. Many other webcams have been added, all the cameras from the gspca project should work (although no guarantees are provided). There is better support for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), as the NSLock console warning messages should be gone. The driver for the PAC207 has been improved in many ways, this chip is used in many cheap webcams.

If the latest version does not work, try the latest cvs-build, available here. It may support more cameras and fix bugs, even if it is not ready for release.