Unibrain Fire-i Firewire Color Digital Camera for Mac

by UniBrain

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6 x 3.5 inches ; 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00006HWAW
• Item model number: 2035
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 29, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Unibrain Fire-i Firewire Color Digital Camera for Mac offers one of the best firewire color digital cameras you can get for your home or office. This camera allows you to display, control and record full-size VGA still images and live video-streams with uncompromised quality, at the touch of a single button. Its smart-attachment solutions, compact size and very low power consumption makes it the perfect companion for all desktop and portable Macs and the ideal home and office monitoring solution. With two 400 megabits-per-second FireWire ports, the Fire-i features a built-in 65 millimeter lens with anti-reflective coating and captures video at 640x480 resolution at 30 frames per second. The camera also includes a mini-tripod with telescopic legs.

What's in the Box
Fire-i digital camera, 6-foot 6-pin/6-pin FireWire cable, tripod attachment and mini-tripod, CD-ROM (documentation and manual, Fire-i software and iSpQ VideoChat software for Windows, OS9 and OS X drivers, iSpQ VideoChat software, BTV Pro software, and SecuritySpy software for Mac, and Linux drives and files supporting the Fire-i camera).

From the Manufacturer

The Fire-i Digital offers superior VGA picture quality in a lightweight housing with the speed of FireWire. Several cameras can be daisy-chained and viewed simultaneously on a Mac, via Unibrain's Fire-i Software and the camera's two FireWire ports.

Fire-i Color Digital Camera allows you to display, control, and record full-size VGA still images and live videostreams with uncompromised quality, at the touch of a single button. Its smart attachment clip, compact size, and very low power consumption makes Fire-i the perfect companion for all desktop and portable Macs.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of show!, March 29, 2004

By 

Karl (NH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unibrain Fire-i Firewire Color Digital Camera for Mac (Electronics)

I have over a dozen different webcams, including Logitech, I-Bot, Pyro, Creative Labs, and several others. The Unibrain camera is by far and away the best of all of them, and I now own four of them. Unlike the one-star review, I found setup and function of all four cameras to be trivial, the cables worked great, and I can clip it pretty much wherever I need a camera. The clip also doubles as a simple stand, similar to the stand on the back of picture frames.

Combined with firewire repeaters, they make excellent security cameras.

I just wish someone made a camera with 1394B 800MB+ speed capabilities.... I wouldn't be surprized to see Unibrain one of the first to have one.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent webcam -- best on market, January 1, 2004

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Unibrain Fire-i Firewire Color Digital Camera for Mac (Electronics)

I've owned a Unibrain Fire-i for about a year now. This is the best webcam available today. The FireWire interface is a must for something as demanding as digital video (much better picture than a USB cam). The picture quality is fantastic. Of couse, for videoconferencing, all VC apps end up pixilating your image, but a lower quality camera will produce poorer results. I have not directly compared this to the iSight, but based on other user descriptions, this cam produces as good if not better images than Apple's iSight webcam.

Customer service is excellent. My Fire-i stopped producing an image after about 9 months. I contacted the manufacturer - the email was very responsive, and after a few emails back and forth and determining it was the cam that was defective (and it was not a problem with software or the cable), they allowed me to send this one back, and they shipped me a new cam immediately. Five stars for customer service.

I videoconference w/my parents using iChat AV (we both have Macs). Even though both of us are able to use our miniDV Sony camcorders as a webcam using the Firewire connection, the Fire-i is a lot more handy and a WORTHWHILE INVESTMENT. First, the Fire-i is very small and powered by the FireWire connection, so it does not need a power cable. Also, it is a hassle to plug and unplug a FireWire camcorder to use as a webcam, having to plug/unplug a power cable and firewire cable all the time. It is nice to just leave the Fire-i by the computer. So I just purchased a second Fire-i for my parents.

The only negatives I can think of with this webcam are that the clip mount only opens so far, so that it will not clip on my LCD display, which has too thick a bezel. So you may find it challenging to find a good way to mount this cam (I found a good enough solution.) But the mount DOES swivel in many positions, which is a BIG plus. Also, note that the Fire-i has no microphone, so you will need an external mic for audio.

Other positives, beside excellent picture quality, is the manual focus ring for super-sharp focus (many webcams are fixed focus), and the fact that this has TWO FireWire ports, so that it can be part of a FW daisy chain. I think some don't realize or read the instructions about the manual focus ring, so they give this cam one star (duh!).

I would highly recommend this webcam to anyone. It is a simple plug and play with the Mac OS. It also comes with a lot of software, including a $40 value videoconferencing title. But this webcam works great with Apple's iChat AV and also iVisit (two other programs I have tried it with.), and comes in at about $60 less than Apple's iSight cam.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT CAMERA, June 23, 2004

By 

"tidaly2" (FRESNO, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unibrain Fire-i Firewire Color Digital Camera for Mac (Electronics)

I have an old Mac G4 running at 350mhz. with a 9800 RADEON PRO video card my operating system is Panther Mac OS 10.3. I plugged the camera into my firewire port, clicked iChat and I was off and running, it was that easy. I adjusted the focus ring and the picture was perfect; it works great in low light situations. My computer friend said that the picture she received was perfect.

I would say the picture is as good as the Apple iSight camera. The camera comes with software that enables it to run with Windows Me/2000/XP.