The Kodak DVC 323 Webcam is for both Video and Still Photos!
Written: Jan 02 '03 (Updated Jan 20 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: It takes Still Photos and Video!
Cons: Video resolution could be a little larger.
The Bottom Line: It takes descent still photos and video, though it not as good as a digital camera or video camera.
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| surferdude7's Full Review: Kodak DVC 323 Webcam - USB |
The Kodak DVC 323 Webcam uses a USB interface to your computer. With this little camera you can take still photos up to 640 x 480 resolution and 320 x 240 video up to 30 frames per second. The USB interface provides for a much faster performance over a serial connection and for better videoconferencing.
The Kodak DVC 323
The Kodak DVC 323 has a push-button to take a picture and a thumbwheel for adjusting the focus. The camera gives you 24-bit color. (16.7M colors)
The camera is elongated about 2.5 inches long with a tilting base made out of plastic and has a 9.8-foot cable. The camera can be hand held and it also has a standard 1/4-inch threaded tripod mount on the bottom.
Kodak uses a hybrid glass/plastic lens of three elements, this gives you an f2.5 lens is glass and the other two are plastic. The lens has a field of view of 42 degrees and the digital zoom bring it to the coverage angle to 20 degrees. (In a 35mm camera this would cover from 42mm to 85mm.)
Use of the camera is software driven and comes with PictureWorks Live. Bringing up the program will activate the camera automatically and you will see live what it is pointing at.
The program gives you nice adjustments for Exposure/Color, Image Size/Quality and Video Recording.
Exposure/Color lets you adjust the brightness/contrast in manual or you can let the camera do it automatically. A Light Source selector gives you the options between automatic white balance, daylight, Office (fluorescent), or Home (incandescent). You can adjust the color manually with a Hue slider. Shutter speed can be set at normal (1/12th to 1/120th of a second) or fast. (1/40th to 1/500th of a second)
Image Size/Quality gives you options like a digital zoom ratio, video quality and image sizes. The still modes are 160 x 120, 320 x 240 and 640 x 480 pixels, The video modes are 80 x 60, 160 x 120, and 320 x240 of resolution.
Video Performance
The performance of any video camera like this can depend on what your computer has. If your running an older computer say 300MHz or less then you might expect less in performance than if you have a newer computer only 1 to 2 years old.
If you are using it over the Internet then the best computer will not help you if you have a slow connection.
Running it on an AMD Athlon 800MHz produced good quality in all modes running smoothly. Using it over the Internet (videoconferencing) the 320 x 240 was much to choppy with my 56k connection (My actual connection about 46k) but the small size of 80 x 60 ran smoothly. The 160 x 120 wasn’t bad but it wasn’t as good as the 80 x 60. Now taking the camera to a friend’s house with a cable Internet connection provided good clarity and smooth action in the 320 x 240 mode.
Overall
The Kodak DVC-323 is a nice camera for Digital Still Photos, Video and Videoconferencing.
The Still photos are not to bad and when taken in the 640 x 480 pixels it actually prints up a decent 4 x 6 inch print. I haven’t tried an 8 x 10 but I expect that there are not enough pixels for a nice print. These photos are not the quality of a good digital camera but they are not too bad.
Video isn’t bad though I find the two modes of 80x 60 and 160 x 120 being to small for my preference, though these two modes produce excellent quality. I prefer the 320 x 240, too bad they didn’t go up to 640 x 480 for video.
Videoconferencing is nice if your computer and Internet connections are both fast enough.
Here are some of my other Computer reviews that would be great with the Webcam!
Dell Dimension 8250 Series
Dell SmartStep 200 Series Notebook Computers
HP Omnibook XE3 PIII Notebook Computers
emachines T2080
Recommended:
Yes
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