Sony DCRHC-52 Web Camera Use

I have a new Mac Book Pro and the above mentioned camera. I want to use it as a web camera to broadcast, but cannot find anyone who can tell me how or if in fact I need software. I lugged all my equipment to Best Buy and Sony only to have their supposed brain trust look befuddled.....

is it even possible? Can someone PLEASE at least point me in a direction to possibly get help or just jettison all of this equipment

Thanks in advance.....and apologies if this is a dumb question

D

I have 2 Question for you:

1. when you say new MacBook Pro are you referring to the one that was released this summer 2012 that has 2 USB 3 ports?
2. I'm looking at the specs on your camera and I see that you have 1 Firewire Port, 1 S-Video and 1 Composite output. Is that correct?


Ok lets hope you do not have the newest MacBook Pro because if your Sony DCR HC-52 only has Firewire there is no way at this time to ingest your media in real time on the machine. So if you can give me the details about your Macbook… like the types of ports on the sides of the machine – for example Firewire 400 or Firewire 800, Thunderbolt, USB 2 or USB 3 that kind of thing would really help. There is always a solution but we have to find these specifics out before I can begin to give you advice…

Oh one more important thing how often are you going to want to record like this and for how long?

http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/product/specifications.jsp?skuId=3827152&pid=1218434722284

Is the laptop - camera to follow.

I don't want to record - I want to broadcast like a web cam

Camera. http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/st...&storeId=10151&langId=-1&partNumber=DCRHC52/1

Many thanks if it's not possible just want to jettison it all and start over

Well thank you for confirming the specs on the camera. The main thing i REALLY need to know is which MacBook Pro version you have? I need to know the inputs it can take. – for example Firewire 400 or Firewire 800, Thunderbolt, USB 2 or USB 3. This part is extremely important because it will determine what you need to do moving forward.

I posted the best buy link with the Mac book specs prior to the cam

Didn't it work?

It said the following when I went to the link:

"Sorry, the page you requested was not found. The page may be temporarily unavailable or may no longer exist."

Ok forget that part... here's a more efficient way to find it. Go to the upper most left of your computer screen, select the Apple Icon>> a dialog box will pop down and you want to select "About This Mac" >> a pop up box will appear and you will go down to the button that says "More Info">> The last box will pop up and will tell you up top the Kind of Macbook Pro (for example mine says "MacBook Pro 17-inch, Early 2011". That is all you need to give me and I will figure it out from there.

Features
The latest quad-core and dual-core Intel processors
Intel HD Graphics 4000 (all 13- and 15-inch models)
Up to 60 percent faster discrete NVIDIA graphics in 15-inch model
Thunderbolt and USB 3 ports
FaceTime HD camera
Multi-Touch trackpad
OS X Lion
Apple, PowerBook, AirPort, FireWire, QuickTime, iTunes and Mac OS are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Velocity Engine, SuperDrive and iLife are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.
Intel, Pentium, Celeron, Centrino, Core, Viiv, Intel Inside and the Intel Inside logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
Intel, Pentium, Celeron, Centrino, Core, Viiv, Intel Inside and the Intel Inside logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

Display Type
Widescreen LED-backlit (1440 x 900)
Screen Size (Measured Diagonally)
15.4"
Cache Memory
6MB on die Level 3
System Memory (RAM)
4GB
Type of Memory (RAM)
DDR3 SDRAM
Hard Drive Type
SATA
Computer Hard Drive Size
500GB
Operating System Platform
Mac
Operating System
Mac OS X Lion

Ok here's the bad news... Because you have a Firewire ready camera and Apple decided on your particular model to do away with Firewire you cannot capture to your MacBook Pro.

The potential good news... is that you do however have the ability to capture via S-Video or Composite video. The downside is that the video quality is slightly compressed its not a HUGE loss but to be honest it will be more than sufficient to do what you need to do.

Now many many years ago I used to convert my television signal on the fly using S-Video and Composite video via a media converter bridge to my computer. I am assuming you can do the same with your video camera. I say assuming because its hard to know what Apple has done on your model because there has been a lot of inconsistency with the changing of specs and the fazing out of certain technologies... At any rate i suggest you try a product like this out Elgato Video Capture . It has been around for years its a simple fix for now. There are other solutions out there but this one is a good bet and its probably among the cheaper solutions. We can try to figure out if there are a few others better than this but seeing how its featured on Apples Website I trust that it will work. Let me know what you think of this.


OH one quick question why can't you just use the on board built in webcam?