Logitech QuickCam Pro 3000
Written: Dec 18 '02
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: -Takes good pictures for a Web Cam, Price really isnt that bad
Cons: Bad low light pictures, pictures arent good quality to be printed
The Bottom Line: The best Web Cam i have ever seen/used. I think the new version (4000) is a bit better, I havent had a chance to try it out yet though.
|
|
|
| mattoboyle's Full Review: Logitech QuickCam Pro 3000 Web Cam |
I first picked up my LogiTech QuickCam Pro 3000 mainly because I wanted to try a webcam out. I thought $99 TAX wasnt that bad so I picked one up. But enough of that let's get straight to the details.
Pro's:
Mine came with 2 types of stands. One was mad for putting on a laptop which is pretty good. And then the original one. I personally use the laptop one because it seems to sit better than the other one.
Great software included. Mine came with; Reality Fusion and a Logitech QuickCam program.
Takes really good pictures considering that it IS a webcam. If you want pictures to keep (like of the family) invest in a good digital camera, this is not for you. This is good for quick pictures, video conversations etc.
Manual focus, great idea. My friend has a camera that automatically focuses and let me tell you, it doesnt focus at all. I would much rather have this Manual Focus.
Nice long USB cord so you can move it plenty around. I think it's 9 feet. But if you find you need a bit more length you can buy USB extension cables.
Record's at a pretty fast FPS which results in a much smoother picture, but watch out 56k users.
640 x 480 Resolution is the max, it is pretty small for pictures, but if you are recording videos it can bog down a bit.
Now let's move on to the Con's
Con's:
It's a bit, how do you say, tippy? The camera part (top ball) is quite heavy for it's stand. If your comes with the two different stands try out the one made for the laptop, I think it works a bit better.
Like I said above 640 x 480 resolution for pictures is quite small. It would have been nice if it could have been a bit bigger, but I think the quality would take a major blow if done.
Cannot be disconnected from the computer, most webcams cannot but it would have been nice.
The software that comes with the camera is quite a bit of a RAM hog when being used. But most systems nowadays will be able to handle it without many problems.
Now to the software....
My camera came with a Logitech QuickCam software which has the following options:
Create Pictures And Videos
Create A Video E-Mail
Create A Web Album
Create A Web Cam
Broadcast Live Video
Create Animations
Activate Motion Detector
Look At My Gallery
Create Pictures And Videos - In the Create Pictures and Videos activity, you can take pictures and videos using your Logitech camera in several sizes. You can control the delay time before a picture or video is taken, allowing you to set up the shot, or include a date/time stamp on your pictures. For videos, you can specify the video framerate, and choose to record audio in your video.
Create A Video E-Mail - The Video Mail activity of Logitech's QuickCam software provides an easy-to-use interface for you to quickly record a video, and send it as an e-mail via your favorite MAPI-compatible e-mail software application. And your recipent doesn't need to have the QuickCam software to play the video... you can wrap your video with QuickCam's Video Mail player for sending.
Create A Web Album - The Logitech QuickCam Web Album helps you to create and publish to your Web site, a Web page that displays pictures and videos created with your QuickCam or imported into your QuickCam Gallery.
Create A Web Cam - The LogiTech QuickCam Web Cam is flexible--you can upload a Web page to your own website, or update only an image on an existing page. You can schedule regular updates of the image, even when the QuickCam application is not running, via the Web Cam applet. And the Web Cam will start up automatically when you reboot your computer.
Broadcast Live Video - The Broadcast Live Video activity provides an easy way to stream live video over the internet. SpotLife hosts this facility where you can create your own personal show to share with friends and family over the Web.
Create Animations - The Create Animations activity in Logitech's QuickCam assists you in creating two types of time-dependent videos: time-lapse animation and stop-motion animation. Time-lapse animation is useful when you want to compress a large span of time into a few seconds of video. For example, it may take all night for a lovely flower to bloom, but with time-lapse animation, you can display the entire evening's blooming in a few seconds. Logitech's time-lapse portion of the Animation Wizard assits you in setting up the length of the playback video, and the frequency in which the camera takes an image (framerate).
With stop-motion animation, you can make inanimate objects come alive! We're all familiar with animated films that utilize physical objects like toys or dolls that appear to move under their own volition. Stop-motion animation requires the animator (that's you!) to move the otherwise inanimate object after each video frame is taken. Logitech's stop-motion portion of the animation wizard assits you in assigning the number of frames per second of your video
After you use the Animation Wizard to set up your animation parameters, the Animation activity guides you through your camera work, prompting you for each seperate frame of your video, and displaying statistics like video length and number of frames already captured. The activity also assits you in managing your animations.
Activate Motion Detector - Motion Detector snaps a picture when it detects motion in front of the camera, and saves that picture into the gallery. You can adjust the sensitvity (so that it's not triggered by your cat!), have the system play a sound when activated. No longer will you have to ask "Who's got my phone book?" Wou'll catch the theif red-handed!
Look At My Gallery - The Logitech QuickCam Gallery is the place to manage and store your pictures and videos. You can view your images a variety of ways, and perform simple editing functions. You can rename your images for easier organization, get infromation on their size and format, or specify a picture to use as your computer's wallpaper. Using either QuickCam's Picture or Video Editors, or others that you specify, you can modfiy them in a variety of ways. You can also e-mail your images to friends and family from within the Gallery using your favorite e-mail application.
Whew that was long... Now on to the next program, Reality Fusion.
This is actually a bundle of different games. All using the motion activation property of your Logitech QuickCam.
BounceIt2 - You can use your hands, head, fingers and anything else to hit the ball around. Not much of a use just a bit of entertainment.
PoptheBubbles2 - Use your hands, head, fingers and anything else to pop the bubbles, but watch out they may have something inside them that will mess you up.
SHoop - Play by yourself or against a friend, try to make as many baskets as you can!
VBall - Play by your self or against the computer. It's just like volleyball.
Not too much to do with anything but they might keep you entertained for a little while.
Web Cam Specifications:
Video capture resolutions: up to 640 x 480 pixels
Image size: up to 640 x 480 pixels
Interface: USB
Sensor type: high resolution 640 x 480 (VGA) CCD
Compression: fixed data rate hardware intraframe
Still image data formats: BMP, TIF, JPEG, PCX, PNG, TGA, PSD (3.0)
Video data formats: AVI Video frame rate: up to 30 frames per second at 320 x 240 pixels with recommended systems
Exposure and color contrasts: automatic or manual
Lighting: ambient indoor incandescent, fluorescent (50 or 60 Hz flicker-free), daylight
Lens: manual focus
Audio capture: built-in microphone
Power consumption: USB 100ma @5V
PC System Requirements:
Windows® 98, Windows® 2000, Windows® Me, or Windows® XP
Pentium® II 266 MMX, Celeron™, AMD Athlon® processor, or higher (Pentium® III 400, Celeron™, AMD Athlon® processor, recommended)
32 MB RAM
100 MB free hard drive space
CD-ROM drive
Available USB port 16-bit color display adapter
Windows®-compatible sound card (full duplex sound card recommended)
MAC System Requirements:
Macintosh® OS 9.04 - 9.21
Macintosh® with USB port
64 MB RAM
CarbonLib® 1.2.5
Quicktime® 4.1.2 or higher
Other Requirements:
For SpotLife™ Activities and to Send or Receive Video E-mail:
Web browser such as Microsoft® Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher or Netscape® Navigator 4.0 or higher
E-mail application that supports file attachment such as AOL® 6.0, Microsoft® Outlook® Express or Netscape® Mail 4.x or earlier · 28.8K modem and Internet connection with e-mail account
Sound card and speakers needed for audio playback
Reality Fusion Games:
Pentium® II 300 or higher
That just about concludes this little review. Congrats if you actually read the through the whole thing and didn't just browse ;).
*Note - I bought this camera awhile ago so the bundled software may have changed.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
mattoboyle
|
|
Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.