Watching me, watching me. (Creative Webcam NX)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Creative Webcam NX
Date:	22/06/04 (1137 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Image quality mostly good, Reliable, Easy to use

Disadvantages: Image quality can be a bit poor at times

Broadband brings with it a whole new world of Internet. Online radio, VOIP (internet voice chatting) and video messaging are all now completely feasible. It was the latter two which prompted me to buy a webcam. A lot of my friends are not local to me and are spread throughout the world from England to Canada all the way down to New Zealand. A webcam would be an ideal way to be able to interact with my friends rather than simply using MSN Messenger which can make you feel rather detached at times.

As it wouldn't be used too often, I didn't want to spend a lot of money, and it was really a bit of an impulse buy at my local computer retailer (www.mplex.com). I ended up choosing the Creative WebCam NX as it was reasonably cheap at £23 (and I believe it's now under £20 at amazon.co.uk) and that was a price I thought was completely reasonable.

Installation was simplicity itself and all was explained clearly in the multi-language Quick Start manual. The actual user's manual is included in PDF format on the installation CD and is well written with plenty of diagrams and information.

The NX comes with a fairly long lead (rough guess at 1.5m or 5 foot) meaning that it doesn't even have to be sitting on top of your PC or if your base unit is far away from your monitor, it can still reach. If you have an LCD monitor or are using a laptop, the NX has clawed feet and a hinge system which means it can perch on top of your screen. I thought this was a nice touch. Either way, the WebCam is pretty stable and once you've placed it to your satisfaction and set up the focus (by twisting the blue ring around the camera lens), it shouldn't move around too much.

Now you've got your WebCam set up (assuming you have a free USB port), there's all sorts you can do with it. You can record video, show live video, take pictures (as JPEGs or Windows BMPs) and integrate your webcam feed into many different applications such as
Microsoft NetMeeting or MSN Messenger, for example. There are other options, like using your WebCam as a security camera, but I've yet to try this out.

You can set the preferences for the camera (picture/video resolution etc.) through the supplied PC-CAM Center Lite which, like most Creative software, is pretty ugly, but does its job exceedingly well and it's also easy to use and covers both video and still pictures.

Image quality will depend on a lot of factors. Resolution is a main factor and I've found that video and pictures tend to be fuzzy and a bit blurry at the highest resolution (640 x 480), although given what its primary use is, I don't have a problem with that. Images at lower resolutions (are sharper, although smaller.

Lighting is also a major issue. In broad daylight, you should get excellent results (providing you're not pointing the camera straight into bright sunlight). At night, when you're going to be using artificial light, then image quality will be a lot poorer. You might have to experiment more with lighting and camera positions and some of the finer settings (there are settings in PC-CAM Center for the type of lighting you are using) before you get a setup which works adequately. It's not impossible to get a decent image though.

I wouldn't want to use the camera for taking 'proper' pictures as it's quite limited in that way, but the quality for using as a video extension of instant messaging (IM) or as a companion to voice chatting (although bear in mind that the camera does not have a built-in microphone), it's worth the money given the frequency of use and does the job well. It integrates well with the IM programs I use most often with no difficulty whatsoever and so a new dimension has been added to my chats with my friends across the water.

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?p rodid=627

Please note: As the camera uses USB ports
, it is compatible will all versions of Windows EXCEPT Windows95 and WindowsNT.

Summary: