I’m still working on a way for people to see what I’m doing with the iPads while I’m performing because that’s part of the fun of live looping: seeing the process of how a song is made as you experience it. With the help of some friends I finally have a setup that seems to work:

• Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920: It’s quite expensive at $100, but other people have confirmed that if you want HD 1080p output at 30 fps this is the camera to get. It autofocuses and has a camera tripod mount. (Cheaper webcams can’t deliver 1080p at this frame rate.)
• A solid Macbook or Mac Pro: You’re going to be pushing a lot of pixels and you’ll need to be hooked up to power anyways, so get a fast computer.
• Logitech Camera Settings desktop app: Controls autofocusing, brightness/contrast, color.
• CamTwist Studio: This is the best thing out there for this use.

If you just do the first point above, you’ll be OK. But Photo Booth flips the image horizontally, iGlasses is expensive, and other options not great. CamTwist does exactly what you need, and more:

• Start up the program
• Go to Preferences
• Click General
• Change the video size to 1280×720 (or set 1920×1080)
• Quit CamTwist
• Restart the program
• Choose “Webcam” from Step 1, click the Select button
• Click Webcam in Step 3, then choose the “HD Pro Webcam C920” from the dropdown
• Click on the Tools menu, then Preview

Now, what you can also do is add an image overlay like your artist name! Also, you can have more than one camera source if someone is manning your computer: CamTwist is actually more of a live video studio app. You can also do things like flip the video left-to-right or upside down if you need to.