OpenCV wont' capture from MacBook Pro iSight

Question

Since a couple of days I can't open my iSight camera from inside an opencv application any more. cap = cv2.VideoCapture(0) returns, and cap.isOpened() returns true. However, cap.grab() just returns false. Any ideas?

Example Code:

import cv2

cv2.namedWindow("preview")
vc = cv2.VideoCapture(0)
rval = True

while rval:
    rval, frame = vc.read()
    cv2.imshow("preview", frame)

    key = cv2.waitKey(20)
    if key == 27: # exit on ESC
        break

• Mac OS 10.8.5
• Python 2.7.5 (but also not working from inside a C++ app)
• OpenCV 2.4.6.1

Answer 1

This is how I got the camera working for your code (on OSX 10.6):

import cv2

cv2.namedWindow("preview")
vc = cv2.VideoCapture(0)

rval, frame = vc.read()

while True:

  if frame is not None:   
     cv2.imshow("preview", frame)
  rval, frame = vc.read()

  if cv2.waitKey(1) & 0xFF == ord('q'):
     break