Affordable camera with decent output
Written: Oct 14 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Now costs about $37, Decent picture, Good software bundle
Cons: Focus is a little hard to adjust, No VMAIL software included
|
|
|
| adamadi's Full Review: Creative Labs Video Blaster WebCam 3 |
The Creative Labs Webcam 3 is one of the cheapest PC cameras you can buy today. When I bought this product, I paid about $50 dollars, which was the cheapest available anywhere. Now, it is available for about $37 online.
Obviously, this is what motivated me to by this product, the price. Also, knowing it was from Creative labs, who I have had the least problems with after buying video cards, sound cards, cdroms and modems from, I somehow felt assured that this would be a high quality product.
The creative labs webcam 3 comes with a decent manual with enough information to help you set up and get your camera runing. I was actually quite happy to see this as normally, alot of manufactures are including 2 or 3 page manuals. The product also came with 2 cds.
One of the CDs came with the Software drivers, Webcam software and Creative's Mediaring for PC to PC calls. On the other CD cam Ulead movie editing software and Polariods Image editing software, none of which I have used to date.
The Webcam was easy to install with the USB version, just plug it in and install the drivers, no problem. (NOTE: I also bought the Parallel port version which was rather complicated to install because it involved tweeking my parallel port and the performance was rather lackluster)
There are 2 types of Webcam software with this product. There is the Webcam Control software which is used to capture video and pictures. This software is rather easy to use as you can capture video or pictures in 1 click of a button. Also, you can change the video capture compression format. This videos are saved in .AVI format.
The other software is the Webcam Monitor which allows you to use the camera as a motion sensor. You can set it to capture images or movies when there is movement infront of the camera. Also, you can use this software to capture images at different intervals and upload them to a website. I have had no problems with this software.
The one thing missing here is a VMAIL software. I was expecting some way to automatically send captures videos to family or friends, but that was not included. Instead, I went ahead and got Chillisofts Vmail software for $15 which captures video in Real format.
Now, down to the actual performance. The camera is capable of outputing 320 x 480 at 30 fps. At 640 x 480 the fps is under 15. The actual image is slightly fuzzy, but is quite good a such a small camera. The camera shows in full 16 bit colour.
One problem with the camera is the focus, which is a little dial on the lens. This focus is sometimes a little stiff, so getting an accurate pictures involves a little use of your time. Besides that, the image quality is good. I really don't know what to compare it to. The USB version was much better than the parallel version. The delay the picture to your actual movement was about a 1/2 sec. On the parallel, the delay was about 1 1/2 seconds.
Currently, for $37 bucks, I don't think you can go wrong. I have used this camera on netmeeting and cuseeme and people of told me my picture was good (This is heavily dependent on your internet connection). I think this would be a great gift to your relatives far away, so you can keep in touch and video conference with them.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
adamadi
|
|
Reviews written: 56
Trusted by: 25 members
About Me:
"The more people smoke herb, the more Babylon fall" Bob Marley
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.