Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)First off, anyone tech-savvy these days knows what end-users go through when it comes to drivers -- especially with web cameras. There have been hundreds of problems, if not in the thousands, with webcam drivers from all sorts-of vendors. Driver incompatibilities and bizarro problems (such as Logitech's DLL injection problem, which causes X Windows under Cygwin to not function -- a flaw later admitted by Logitech and fixed) are a nightmare.
As one of these users, and as a software developer who's familiar with USB classes and protocols, I was delighted to hear that Creative had come out with a camera that was driverless. The instant the camera was released in the United States, I picked one up.
The camera does in fact live up to it's driverless name -- you simply plug it into your PC, and Windows XP will find it as a standard USB Video Camera. You do not need to install control applications or any drivers -- it just *works*. By default, you can control exposure (automatic or manual), brightness, contrast, hue, gamma, sharpness, saturation, and a couple other features. Focus on this camera is done manually, via an adjustable ring around the lens.
If you want more control over the camera, such as face tracking and some additional features, you can install Creative's Optia Driver program from their website (it's about 1MByte in size). This makes the camera show up under Windows XP as a "Creative Live! Optia", and provides a pretty decent control application (not memory or CPU hungry, either). It sounds like a fantastic camera, does it not?
Yeah... until you actually examine the image quality. Visually, this camera is *awful*. I am surprised it's using a CMOS image sensor, because the camera looks horrible. Under absurdly bright lighting conditions, you get a semi-decent picture, with a lot of mosaic and anti-aliasing around the edges of objects. Adjusting the sharpness slider does not help. Under low light conditions (or even normal bedroom lighting), you get a washed-out look to your picture, and all focused objects appear almost pitch black. CMOS isn't great, but it's normally not this bad either.
Aside from the visual atrocity this camera results in, another complaint I have is with the hinge-based clip which allows the camera to sit on top of any monitor (CRT, LCD, or laptop). The hinge spring is too strong, thus if sitting on top of an LCD with a curved back (which is completly normal), the camera literally falls forward due to the strength of the spring in the clip, and falls off your monitor. I can't imagine this working on a CRT or an LCD, but a laptop it would work perfect on.
Finally, back on the positive train, the camera has fantastic swivel capabilities (even left to right), and the base of the clip has rubber on it so that it stays stable if you place it on a desk or a flat surface.
In general this camera gets 4 out of 5 stars for being driverless and living up to that claim, but gets 1 out of 5 stars for its awful visual quality. If you're looking for a camera that gives you great imaging, avoid the Optia. If you want something driverless that should work w/out any fuss (or use FreeBSD, Linux, etc.) and are willing to sacrifice quality, get this camera ASAP.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Creative Live Optia Webcam (73VF027000000)
Experience true plug and play with Live! Cam Optia! Hook it up to a USB port and start video chatting right away! No drivers are needed for this USB Video Class1 webcam. Built for perfection, Live! Cam Optia uses Precision Lens to give you the best picture quality. Its stylish and ergonomic design means you can use it confidently anywhere on any laptop computer display or LCD monitor.
Click here for more information about Creative Live Optia Webcam (73VF027000000)
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