Master Blaster (Creative Videoblaster Webcam Go Plus)

Member Name: superguinness

Product:	Creative Videoblaster Webcam Go Plus
Date:	26/12/00 (942 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: unplug and Go !

Disadvantages: no flash

This is a digital PC webcam, portable digital camera with digital voice annotation all rolled into one.

Its main feature is as a webcam for videoconferencing, sending full-motion video email or creating multimedia web sites. The video picture quality when in this mode is excellent. Its default setting is 320x240 video size, RGB24 colour mode at 30 frames per second. It auto adjusts for brightness etc, although prefers some level of natural daylight in the room or a light positioned behind the camera. All videos and images are stored in the media directory on the pc and you can email them direct via the webcam software or manually via outlook etc.

However perhaps its more advanced features become apparent via its ability to unplug and "Go" with you when you are out and about (it comes with a carry case which fits neatly into your top pocket). It takes 16.7 million colours up to 640x480 jpg type digital pictures (it can store 150 on its 8mb memory) which are actually of a very good quality, even when used indoor, considering there is no flash. It can also take rolling sequences (15 frames a second) and includes a time delay option and you can annotate each picture as you take them, with comments or general background sound. It has a LCD display where you can change its mode and see how many pictures are left. It emits a little "beep" each time it takes a picture. It also auto shuts off after about a minute to save battery life.

Creative Labs appear to have thought of most things when they produced this camera. It really is an extention of lesser webcams in their range, so I reckon they should know what they are doing by now. The box states that system requirements are a genuine Intel Pentium or AMD Athlon family processor running at 200mhz or higher. Mine is an Intel Celeron 433 which seems to cope ok. It apparently needs 32mb of ram (although I would guess it prefers 64) and a USB port or a powered USB hub.

W
indows 98 will autodetect the webcam device and install the driver, although it required putting the windows 98 cd in to do this. You'll need 120 of hard disk space for all the software goodies that come with the webcam. I have managed to make the software "fall over" a couple of times, since it seems not to like the right mouse button clicking option, and when I've been trying to configure it for video compression. However I have only been using it a short while so far, so am hopeful that I will fathom it all out in due course. It should be remembered that uncompressed video clips that you make at its optimum resolution, and then save, will take great chunks out of your available hard disk space!

So far I have been impressed with the results from this product, although you have to remember that it is not a "true" digital camera, but then I didn't want to shell out £300, so this will do me fine for now.

Summary: