Creative has had a relatively long history in the Web camera business, but until now its products have been a little uninspiring in the design department. Perfectly acceptable in terms of desktop performance for individuals, they lacked a certain amount of eye candy compared to new snazzy widescreen laptops and LCD monitors. All thats about to change with the Live! Cam Optia, a Web camera so cool that it looks like it has been designed by Apple.
The ice-white and clear plastic design of Creatives Live! Cam Optia (Best Current Price:
£47) is a refreshing change from the usual black gadgets adorning most computer worktops. The clip-on stand, which tucks neatly under the camera when not in use, is another neat design touch and allows you to attach the camera to CRT monitors, LCD panels and laptops, as well as tables or other flat surfaces. Having said that, the Web camera doesnt sit confidently on flat panel monitors.
Fitted with a multi-axis swivel, the Live! Cam Optia allows a forward and backward horizontal tilt of up to 15 degrees and vertical swivel of 270 degrees, giving you reasonable flexibility for the best possible angle in videos and photos. The bundled hands-free stereo headset gives decent voice quality during communications, but is left wanting when in comes to music playback.
The Live! Cam Optia is also Creatives first Web camera with USB Video Class technology for instant use, requiring no drivers for Windows PCs. Unfortunately, we had problems installing the camera on our test laptop (Dell XPS M1710), and Creatives Software AutoUpdate feature required us to download a further 59.46MB of software updates - hardly instant use! Youll also need to install the driver software and bundled applications to take advantage of special effects and other such frivolity.
The Web camera offers a privacy control feature which shows a black screen when the Web camera is tilted downwards into its base. The Automatic Image Flip feature ensures that the captured image is always upright even when the viewfinder is rotated to the other side of the PC. Not only that but the high-precision glass lens helps ensure increased video clarity and sharper images, while Creatives Smart Face Tracking technology reasonably follows your face movements to keep your face constantly in the video frame. In addition, Creatives Advanced Video FX, a library comprising eight categories of special visual effects including Backdrops and Distortion, allows you to get creative with your video chats with friends and family.
Equipped with a VGA CMOS sensor, Creatives Live! Cam Optia offers good video and photo quality, with relatively rich and realistic colours. It captures video at up to 640x480 pixels, and photos at up to 1.3-Megapixel resolution (interpolated). With Certified Hi-Speed USB 2.0 connectivity, raw data is transferred from the Web camera to a PC without compression, providing video quality at up to 30fps (frames per second).
The Web camera comes bundled with the Creatives Live! Cam Suite, enabling you to remotely monitor the Web camera via Web browser, set up motion detection alerts (useful for monitoring your work area), as well as create time lapse video. The included Advanced Video FX adds fun stylised video effects, while Cam Manager allows you to launch Creative Live! Cam tasks and programs from one convenient location. Cam Console lets you access, activate and configure the Live! Cams key features, while Photo Manager enables you to organise, arrange, manage and enhance pictures and videos. Finally, Photo Calendar lets you create and print your very own personalised calendars - a hit with the kids!
Creatives Live! Cam Optia is small, stylish and packed with fun features, and it does a good job of automatically setting the best lighting and brightness levels for you. Image quality is very good for a low-cost consumer offering, and should more than suffice for making videocalls to colleagues. The ability to add a wide range of special effects and backgrounds to a video chat session is a great feature for families, and the handsfree stereo headset lets you chat away with greater ease and comfort. The only real disappointments were the installation, which was far from Plug & Play, the stand doesnt work well with LCD displays, and theres no power LED to indicate that the camera is operating (youll have to remember to swivel the lens downwards to save on embarrassing moments!).
[7.5]
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Best Web Camera Pricing UK]
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Best Web Camera Pricing US]
BIOS, Dec 21, 06 | Print | Send |
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