It depends what your needs are (WebCams in general)

Member Name: Modena

Product:	WebCams in general
Date:	17/04/01 (1235 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Buying the right webcam allows you to enhance your internet experience. Take snaps, make movies, video conference, set up a web cam etc…

Disadvantages: Webcams are inferior to digital cameras, and it’s a minefield out there with so many models and so many that offer little value!

Web Cams are increasing in popularity at the moment, with unmetered internet access sweeping the UK, users want more out of their PC and internet connection. What can a webcam give your internet experience?

4 features stand out…

1: Take Stills; like an ordinary digital camera, but on most webcams, you are limited by the length of the cable.
2: Web Cam communities ; what a webcam is designed for in my opinion, sign up for one of these (I have signed up for spotlife) and a picture of the image will be displayed on the WWW (refresh rates and privacy up to you), pure and innocent fun!
4: Video conferencing; see and talk to friends live, it’s free and refresh rates are bearable on a 56k connection
5: Home movies; limited by the length of your cable obviously and the size of your hard drive, these take up a lot of space.

So webcams seem like the ideal gift for children, and with them costing from just over £20 to over £100 they seem to be good value too, at least on paper. With so many webcams on offer, and so much jargon, it’s really a minefield out there, well fear not, here is a “short” guide with healthy advice.

The Jargon

Resolution – this is the amount of pixels in a frame (how many dots make up the picture), the higher the resolution the better the picture (allegedly). Low end ebcams have a maximum resolution of about 300x200 pixels, high end webcams offer megapixel max. Res. (That’s over 1 million pixels in an image!). Note this is a maximum, when capturing footage, the resolution is lower, and there’s all this business about “True Resolution” so beware!

FPS – When capturing video, this measures the amount of images that make up second’s worth of video, obviously the higher the better, and nowadays you can get up to 60FPS, which is pretty awsome.

That’s it for the jargon really, apart from the sensor type, you ha
ve CCD or CMOS, I don’t know about this except CCD is better.

What kind of user are you?

This ultimately determines what Web Cam you buy, assuming you are on a budget and want value for money. The stats do not tell the whole story however; aspects such as real life image quality and software support are non quantifyable.

<Light Video Conferencing>
The most useful thing a webcam can do. Unfortunately video conferencing is quite bandwidth intensive, this means that if you are a modem user, video quality and sound quality are likely to be rather poor. At the best of time you get like 10 frames per second and sound which is poor quality and in packets.

Sound comes from either your microphone through your soundcard, or an in-built microphone in your web cam. Simple video conferencing is free, and if both sides wish to see each other, both sides need a webcam and the same software. Usually Microsoft Netmeeting which comes with Windows or the Webcam software bundle. It’s not stress free, but you get used to it.
ADVICE: No need to buy a top webcam here, just try and get one with a microphone. Resolution does not matter if you are only dealing with video conferencing. But try to get the most out of your money, a benchmark would be a Phillips ToUcam fun (with Mic) for about £45

<The Webcam>
If all you want your Webcam to do is sit there so the whole world can see you, or a limited number of friends can, so you can check up on your pet hamster while you go to your cousin’s house, then there is really no need to get a decent webcam, and no need for a microphone.

ADVICE: Get the cheapest you can, and sign up to something like “Spotlife”, let the Logitech Quickcam Express (~£25) or Philips ToUcam XS (~£25) be the benchmark,

<The Snapshot Taker>
If this is your primary reason for buying a web cam, look somewhere else. You get what you pay for, otherwise why would
one spend hundreds on a quality digital camera?

If you wish to be stubborn, you have two choices, a good webcam, or a dismountable one. A good web cam means something that offers about mega pixel resolution and a CCD sensor. Megapixel does not necessarily mean true mega pixel quality, the snaps still could look blocky or grainy.

Dismountable web cams can be removed from their base doubling them as small portable digital cameras, examples include the Creative Labs Quickcam Go Plus (~£100), and the Kodak EZ 200 (~£85). These are battery powered, and images are saved onto on-board memory (not a lot of it too)!

Everything is manual here, focusing, brightness adjustment, taking pictures in artificial light is a little tedious, but there are lots of user controls. There are lots of fun ways to take pictures, such as saying “Cheese” clicking with the mouse or pressing a button on the camera.

ADVICE: Save up and buy a digital camera!

<Home Movie Maker>
Here we fare better than snapshots, but you need a large HD, some videos take up 2 megs of HD per second! Quality is good, depending on your camera, but realistically, you are confined to the spaces around your PC.

ADVICE: Buy a Digicam, or if you can’t afford one: Look for over 30FPS (preferable 60) at 640x480 resolution, look for a long cable 2.5 to 3m minimum, a microphone, and make sure you have plenty of HD! A benchmark would be a Philips ToUcam PRO (~£55) which is capable of 60PFS at low resolutions, has it’s own mic etc.

Don’t buy based on software; lots of web cams say they come with this, they come with that, don’t bother, I bet you you already have the necessary software, and all webcams come with the bare essentials.

Apart from what I have already said, also consider USB; it’s difficult to find a webcam not using the UniversalSerialBus interface, but if it doesn’t, AVOID! Looks: I am n
ot shallow! But this is going to sit on the top of your monitor or wherever for a while, buy one that looks nice! Standing: You don’t want your webcam to fall off your monitor every few minutes, so make sure it is securely fixed onto your PC! Also make sure that if you wish, it can be moved around without much difficulty.

If it looks tacky, avoid it!

Installation
This will be very simple, just insert the CD into your PC, then plug it in. Assuming you have a PC, you will need about a 233MHz processor and 32 megs of RAM, WIN 98 or better is preferred! Most are also MAC compatible.

Where To Buy
Try to avoid the high street of PC World if you can. As a rule of thumb, once you know what to buy, go online to somewhere like Dabs or Simply (www.simply.co.uk see opinion on that) and compare prices, that way you know if you are getting a good deal or not, there is no rush!

That’s it really, follow these tips (which will be out of date soon) read trustworthy reviews in sites such as DooYoo, and make your own mind up! Remember don’t rush

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