Dissecting QuickCam Pro
Written: Apr 10 '00 (Updated Apr 10 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Ease of use
Cons: bad quality, CCD technology
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| cocacolajhk's Full Review: Logitech Camera Family |
I purchased Logitech QuickCam Pro mainly to have fun with whatever videos or pictures I could take with it. It seemed like a fun idea at the time, but what I got was more stress from this "disastrous" webcam. It is totally what I had not expected from a $150 dollar equipment. I consider $150 to be a lot and logically I expect high level of performance but instead I got an over priced plastic with a lens.
First I'll point out few facts about Logitech QuickCam Pro...
Sensor: 640 x 480 CCD
Lens: Manual Focus
Interface: USB
Video Capture: up to 640 x 480
Still Image Capture: up to 640 x 480
Numbers of Colors: Thousands or millions
frame Rate: up to 30 frames per second
Looking at the specification it seems like a good buy. Hey, if this webcam could output 640 x 480 resolution with 30 frames per second then I would think this is one of the best buys, but that is not the case. When the video capture res. is maxed to 640 x 480, the frame rate suffers from enlarged res. size. I can almost walk out of the room and come back and still see myself on the computer screen (with a rather goofy face). I currently have a AMD K6-2 450, 96meg ram computer so I do not believe that this problem is due to my computer. At the lowest res., the frame rate seems fine but who would want to see a video capture of oneself in a "tiny box" where you can't even recognize your own self.
As with all other webcams, it also allows you to take still pictures along with video captures. After getting tired of looking at rather choppy video captures I made, I took few still pictures to see how that would come out. After, I actually found this more useful for taking still pictures than creating video captures. By this I don't mean that I actually liked how the pictures came out, rather the picture qualities were horrible but it was still more usable than video capture feature. The pictures came out really blurry even at maximum focus. Comparing between digicam pictures and quickcam pro pictures, I noticed a huge difference in clarity. But of course, how can I compare the two when there is also a huge difference in prices. So if you expect that kind of high clarity I suggest you not buy this product expecting it to give the same kind of quality. Also I noticed that in low light setting, the pictures will come out almost pitch black. Since quickcam pro uses CCD technology it will not work well under low light conditions...almost useless I can say. It does have a low light boost option, but it's only useful if you still have somewhat of an ample light. The software provided with quickcam pro also needs to be refined. It is easy to use, but it takes up much memory that I always need to close up all other applications to run it at maximum potential.
Only aspects I liked about quickcam pro was easy installation and setup. It connects to USB, but it doesn't really seem to matter since data transfer rate seems to still suffer. I also liked the design of the product with swivel base to point in any direction I wanted.
All in all, I would not recommend this product to anyone since I could have purchased a better webcam at about the same price, i.e. Intel (I have seen Intel's webcam and it performed much better than Logitech's QuickCam Pro). It is user friendly, but that's about it. You will not enjoy how your videos or pictures turn out. For high res. video and still pictures try other products, because this product will not deliver.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
cocacolajhk
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Member: Jae Kim
Location: NYC
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 11 members
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