Eye can see you! (Philips Vesta PCVC680K Web Camera)

Member Name: huddro

Product:	Philips Vesta PCVC680K Web Camera
Date:	30/01/01 (1215 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Crystal clear imagery

Disadvantages: none

Following delivery of my new Dell Dimension 8100 I decided to invest in a Web Camera. Not knowing too much about these I took the advice of a good friend and picked the
Philips PCVC680USB.

Before going into details about this particular camera let me give you a brief explanation of how a web camera works. Basically a normal camera lets light enter through a lens which then makes contact with a light sensitive film, changing the film’s chemistry and capturing a negative of the image which is then revealed when developed. A digital camera captures an image with a light sensitive array instead of film. The most common array is a Charge-Coupled Device (CCD). Essentially a silicon chip that has light sensitive diodes arranged in a grid across its face. A CCD array can have millions of sensors; each registers the brightness of a colour at its position. An array with a million sensors is said to capture a “megapixel” of data.

This brightness data is read, one row at a time, by an analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) that changes the brightness readings (captured by the CCD as differences in voltage) to digital data. By comparing data from adjacent red, green, and blue pixels, the ADC determines and records the colour of each pixel. The data is then colour-corrected, compressed, and stored in memory.

For still photographs this is captured and uploaded via the USB connection to your PC. For Video image this data is refreshed up to 30 times per second and at each refresh uploaded via your USB connection to your PC.

So why the Philip 680?

All cameras on the market seem to have a fairly standard resolution of 640 x 480VGAfor still pictures, which provides an extremely sharp photograph.

But it is in looking at the video imagery that the differences show. The Philips 680 has a refresh rate of 30 frames per second, which provides seamless video movement on screen. Most cameras carry 15 frames pe
r second or 24 frames per second refresh rates that can appear stilted. The image provided by this camera is as clear as highly polished glass, utilising the 352 x 288 pixel maximum resolution for video transfer, many of the other cameras on the market provide a lot lower level of transfer.

This camera also carries a built in Microphone giving speech capability. This brings you into a whole new dimension, not only can you send video e-mail but now you can videoconference in conjunction with NetMeeting or its equivalent. Hours of fun although it does mean slobbing out in front of the PC is no longer an option!

Its compact size means it is unobtrusive on the desk, and the camera comes with a choice of plastic feet to allow it to nest on top of your screen or a metal tripod that screws into the underside. The flexible legs on this allow the camera to point at most angles. Remember to get your best side.

The CCD sensor in this camera is set to give best resolution even in poor light although like any camera the better the light the better the picture.

The variable focus lens produces a focus range of 0mm to infinity, and automatically adjusts for image contrast, hue, saturation and white balance, resulting in superior image quality.

Plugging in the USB connection my PC automatically found the device and we had video connection. Running the installation disk gave us access to the editing program allowing still photographs to be taken as well. One word of warning the installation of this camera with Windows ME caused the default microphone to become the USB Camera mike, and it was necessary to go into my audio controls and reset the default to my own microphone.

This camera is designed for Windows 98 or higher. I run it on Windows ME and find it easy to access the software via the my PC icon. The camera software itself is easy to use and photo editing can produce some shall we say amusing results!!




This camera is at the higher end of the market at £69.99 but is not unreasonably priced. For the functionality provided it is worth every penny. It is compact and easy on the eye. The specification is top notch and on a par with cameras priced a lot higher. It is definitely worth paying the extra cash to get your hands on one of these. Steven Spielberg watch out !!!

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