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Creative WebCam Notebook
The latest addition to Creative's extensive line of Webcams, the Live Ultra is a novice-friendly unit that offers decent-quality photo and video in medium to high light situations, but its low-light quality leaves room for improvement. With easy-to-use software this $80 Webcam is a suitable unit for greenhorn users who need to perform only basic editing and who are satisfied with few settings options.
The Creative WebCam Live Ultra sits atop a tripod base. The front two legs are hooked to hold onto the front of the monitor, while a third leg folds down against the back of the monitor for support. This design works well for LCDs and other flat screens, but it doesn't work well with CRTs: the third leg folds out only 90 degrees, so it sits unsecured on top of the monitor, leaving the top-heavy unit liable to tip over. The camera itself is highly adjustable and can rotate 360 degrees. From vertical, it can tilt 45 degrees forward and 45 degrees back. A large focus ring around the lens makes the focus easy to adjust.
Installing the Creative WebCam Live Ultra is easy: simply drop in the installation CD and install the drivers; you can choose to install Creative WebCam Center, Yahoo Instant Messenger, and a detailed Live Ultra user guide. As with most PC Webcams, the majority of the features are in the software. The camera sports 1.3-megapixel snapshot resolution and 640x480-pixel video resolution, and you can make simple edits to still photos. Other features include smart face tracking, where the camera follows and zoom in on your face as you move; remote monitoring, which takes photos of your home or office and sends them to an FTP for you to check in on; a motion detector, which, when set, will start recording as soon as motion is detected; and time-lapse video which will take a still shot at a set interval and play the shots back as a video. The only feature that didn't impressed us was face tracking: it follows anything that moves--be it an arm, a hand, or a face. An additional ArcSoft software CD includes: VideoImpression, which lets you do simple edits to video; PhotoImpression, for doing simple edits to photos; Multimedia e-mail, which lets you create e-cards; and Collage Creator, for creating scrapbook-style collages. All of these programs are relatively easy to use and provide basic cropping and editing tools, but more-advanced users may crave more editing, color, and settings options.
Creative - WebCam Notebook review
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tiny webcam for laptops (03/11/2004)
Whether you're a hectic business person on the move or a student wanting to keep in touch with your friends, a sensibly sized and priced Webcam is the perfect accessory for your laptop when you're away from base.
Anything that takes up as little space as possible and doesn't weigh as much as a half-brick is a prime candidate and Creative's latest foray into the Webcam market certainly fits those needs very neatly. Weighing a mere 40g, the WebCam Notebook is exceptionally unobtrusive.
It comes with a stylish soft carrying case and has an attractive design that sits neatly along the top of a notebook screen, unlike the more usual circular designs. It attaches itself using a spring-loaded clip, and unfortunately this is where the first alarm bell starts to ring.
We tested the camera on an Acer Aspire 1700 laptop and the clip couldn't expand sufficiently to encompass the (admittedly slightly broader than usual) screen's edge. The 'hook-on legs' method would have been a much safer bet, as the camera can only attach to displays of up to 14mm in thickness.
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