A web cam is a web cam right? Well perhaps not always, in fact several have the ability to store images inside their own memory away from the PC, some can even store sound and by that you know they can also record video.
This Philips unit is small and light, it can stand on any flat
surface, Velcro pads are supplied for mounting in more unusual places
and there is even an anchor point for a tripod. The camera is less than
7cm tall, 5cm wide and 3.5cm deep, all these measurements are maximums
as the unit is half of a circle. The base folds out of the back of the
camera and can go to 90 degrees forming an inverted L. There is a 1.5
metre USB lead hard wired into the camera this has a slot under the
base to enable stability.
Configuring for basic camera use under Windows XP is just a matter
or plugging in and Windows adds it as an icon in My Computer. Users of
earlier versions of the operating system will need to install a driver
and only attach the camera when told.
XP users can currently not use the internal memory of the camera as
according to the user manual a conflict exists between XP and Twain,
Philips are currently working on this problem.
I remember some considerable time ago reviewing an earlier ToUcam
(that's the way it is spelt) and finding audio was carried down the USB
lead. At that time Philips were the only company doing this. Now others
have realised that setting up audio is not always that easy so the USB
way seems to be a simple alternative.
Images (via enhancement) can be up to 1280 x 1024 and even though I
could see some pixel distortion the quality was reasonable. There are a
total of six image sizes 160x120, 320x240, 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768
and 1280 x 1024. I was totally happy with all images up to 800x600. As
far as video is concerned there are two sizes 320 x 240 and 640 x 480,
the latter was not surprisingly heavy on PC resources as 1 minute at
30FPS takes around 100MB of hard disc space. Quality was reasonable and
sound quality was excellent. The light source for my tests was a single
100 watt light bulb and this was taken in dull overcast conditions so
very little light was coming in the window. Video can be captured at up
to 60FPS or as little as 5FPS.
Lots of software is provided for both still and video capture as
well as software for video conferencing. As stated I cannot comment on
the ability to capture images within the camera using the button on the
unit as XP does not yet support this feature. It can be used for time
delay capture and a series of images can be taken and stored at set
intervals, this feature worked well.
I found on occasions (not consistently) that the camera would not
shut down and the only way to do so was with 'Ctrl Alt Del', this
problem did not seem to be mentioned so maybe it was peculiar to my PC.
I liked the camera and at around £70 with all the software and
features like larger image size and higher frame capture rate, I do not
consider it expensive.
Links :
www.philips.co.uk then > electronics > pc stuff > multimedia > pc cameras > toUcam pro II
http://www.consumer.philips.com/global/b2c/ce/catalog/product.jhtml?divId=0&groupId=CONNECTION_GR&catId=MULTIMEDIA_PCPROD_CA&subCatId=PC_WEBCAMS_SU&productId=PCVC840_00
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