web cam and head set

[lomokev]

i am setting my mate up with a web cam and head so he can talk to his mate in the US with MSN. i am a mac man so don't no much a PC peripherals but do all web cams and head sets work with MSN, AOL mesager, skpye, yhaoo mesager?

can some recommend a good cheep one around £40 $73

[JPnyc]

Not ALL of them, you have to be sure they're for PC and not for mobile phones or other. The jacks aren't the same size. But if it's a PC headset mic, yes, MSN msgr will work fine with any of em, as will the rest. As to recommending one, they're all roughly the same. A $15 (£8) one served me fine for yrs. A quality wireless one costs almost 20x more.

[lomokev]

i don't need a wireless one! i asummed they are all just USB

i have had a little look around amazon that the price has really come down sine i last looked 5 years ago!

[JPnyc]

No, the cheaper ones have to jacks, but there are wired ones that use USB. They're a bit more dosh. Frankly, I can't distinguish any sound quality difference between the USB and the analog models. They both sound very good.

[David Harrison]

I think that all webcams will be USB now, headsets can be either USB or 3.5mm leads. Since most computers have both front and rear connections for both USB and audio leads, it doesn't really matter which type of headset you get.

Pretty much all webcams and headsets should work with MSN, once a webcam identifies itself to the OS as a webcam, then any program should be able to access and use it.