Recommendations for webcams and software to make postable video clips

[Peter N. Spotts]

Folks,

Our all-Mac office is beginning to ask some of us reporters to do very
brief video clips for our website (I've been blessed with a voice, and
cursed with a face, made for radio!). Usually, two someones from our
photo department trundle over with a camera, tripod, light, and mike --
a major, and often disrupting, production. At the office yesterday, one
of our web gurus had me test a video approach that uses the tiny camera
and mike built into a rather large Mac flat-screen monitor to make the
video. Then we used some Mac software to record it and convert it into
a .mov file for posting. 

I use my Ubuntu-run laptop as my primary (read "only") machine in the
office as well as at home or on the road (where we'd also be expected to
originate these little clips). So, what are my best options for hanging
a webcam off my laptop's lid and for software that will give me
something akin to an .mov file at the end of a recording/file-massaging
process? I'm running Xubuntu Edgy on a four-year-old Toshiba Satellite
1905-S303 -- which still hums along too smartly to trash yet.

This is a new universe for me, so thanks in advance for any guidance...

With best regards,

Pete
-- 
Peter N. Spotts | Science reporter
The Christian Science Monitor
One Norway Street, Boston, MA 02115 USA
Office: 617-450-2449 | Office-in-home: 508-520-3139
Email: pspotts at alum.mit.edu | Amateur radio call: KC1JB
www.csmonitor.com | www.peterspotts.net