How to make the ordinary videocam into webcam

[Jun aka Pekto]

From my own experience....

First thing is to make sure your camcorder (I take it that is what you meant by videocam) has a battery saver that can be disabled. I have a JVC MiniDV camcorder that automatically turns off after a certain time if it's not recording and there's no way to disable it. That limited its use as a webcam.

as for input to the pc......

You can try a tv tuner card and use the S-video In or Composite In. But, that involves a lot of settings in the software.

If your video card has Video In/Video Out (ViVo). Every video card I've bought over the last several years are from ASUS because of their ViVo features. It's what I currently use to capture/record from my DirectTV box.

You can also try a dedicated capture device from say, Pinnacle. It'll take any input: composite, usb, firewire, S-video.

Personally, what I'd prefer is to just get a high-res webcam like the Logitech Quickcam Ultravision (640x480 res, true 1.3mp capability).