Just not clear enough (Logitech Quickcam Web)

Member Name: Murf!

Product:	Logitech Quickcam Web
Date:	16/09/01 (1828 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice framerate, built-in mic, comparitively cheap

Disadvantages: Fuzzy, graphical garbage crops up here and there

I was planning on getting a Vesta Pro after reading an article on webcams in PC Format, but when I went down to Tottenham Court Road to hunt for a webcam, I was annoyed to find that all the shops there only had the Logitech range, and sometimes the overpriced Creative offerings. The Quickcam Web had received a respectable mid-70s score in PCF, so I decided to part with my hard-earned for it rather than carry on looking for what I was after ideally. Was it a good decision?

Well, as far as pricing goes, it's one of the cheaper 'cams available. I wasn't about to spend my life savings on a webcam, not exactly the most essential PC addon, so this was a good plus point. I come home with vague enthusiasm, and after a rather slow, although easy to work out for newbies, installation, it was working. Fuzzy, but still working. There's a lot of image options to tweak - brightness, contrast, hue, gamma and so on; and by fiddling with these, it's possible to improve the image by quite a bit. But it's still as fuzzy as ever. I tried knocking up the resolution to the cam's maximum 640x480, but it was rather pointless, with the image being as grainy as ever. Altering the focus helped somewhat, but just not enough.

Software was the next problem, and after trying and failing to get Yahoo! Messenger's webcam support working (I later found out how slow it is... not recommended), I grudgingly settled for Micro$oft's offering, Netmeeting. With the same webcam at both ends, I was receiving a solid 20fps video image, and this was from my ADSL connection to a DSL connection across the Big Pond. It froze sometimes, but generally not for long. Along with the fuzzyness, however, came weird coloured interference. Randomly, little squares of colour would appear on the video image for a while. The 'cam seemed to degaus itself every now and again, ridding itself temporarily of said strange interference. Also, sudden movements caused a strang
e effect where the subject would be visible in both the original and new locations, ghosted in the former. This created a cut-up image sometimes. Again, this was cleared up when it 'degaused', as it were. The Quickcam Web is somewhat temprimental, with the image quality being different depending on what mood the webcam is in... or so it would seem. Close up, you can see the target pretty well despite the fuzz, but beyond close range, things get decidedly worse.

The 'cam also thoughtfully has a built-in microphone. It works pretty well, although under Windope 98, it only worked about 1 time in 10. Going on a slight tangent, Netmeeting is rather tempremental software, often requiring a few reconnections to get audio and video running fine from both ends. I ran into a small problem, though: the mic was picking up what came out of the speakers at both ends; ie. whenever one person talked, it would be picked up by the other person's mic, which would come out of the speakers of the speaker, if you follow, which would be picked up by their mic, and so it goes back and forth, getting a little quieter each time, but still making a racket, especially if you have music playing. The simple solution here is to wear earphones/headphones. It would be nicer if it were possible simply to turn down the sensitivity of the mic, but for some reason, the sensitivity scroller just moves up of its own accord. Rather annoying, as on the highest setting that it sets itself to continually, you'll hear yourself softly humming or whatever from their speakers. But that's the software, not the hardware. However, Netmeeting is the bundled webcam software, so maybe it's justified to have a mini-critique of Netmeeting.

The other bundled software is made up of a few gimmicky games that'll keep you interested for a good five minutes, and a pretty decent program which allows you to take stills and record videos, amongst other things.

So overall
, it's cheap, but the image quality is too fuzzy, and gets corrupted now and again. If you've got a good 'net connection at either end, you can expect a good framerate, too. The addition of the mic is great. Not the best by a long way, but a decent budget buy.

Summary: