Looking for some webcam advice. Can I pick your brains for a second?

treitz3

Good afternoon Polk Forum members. I'm on the search for the best (preferably HD) webcam out there. This will not be for a desktop. My lovely wife will be using it on her laptop for when she's traveling during the week for work, so that our 3 year old son can "see" Momma and listen to her say goodnight each evening she is out of town. We are going to try the Skype thing or equivalent web based video chat. Being a complete virgin at this kind of thing, I sure would like to pick your brains a bit if you don't mind.

For the home, I just purchased the Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910. The spec's can be found in this link >>> http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-HD-Pro-Webcam-C910/dp/B003M2YT96/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355436805&sr=8-1&keywords=Logitech+HD+Pro+Webcam+C910

What I'm looking for is something my wife can use that will be the best possible companion to the desktop webcam I just purchased. Of the things I have read about, some things of concern are having a protective case or something to protect the webcam during transit [always carry-on], refresh rate per second and having a good grip on the laptop in case she wants to walk around. There's also the reliability factor with having the webcam in a completely portable capacity. Having my son "experience" Momma without her being there with the best possible quality would be the #1 thing I am looking for. A 360 degree swivel feature would be pretty cool feature but is not a requirement, unless you think otherwise from experience.

At the house, we have a 24" widescreen HD monitor the Logitech C910 will be mounted on, an incredibly fast CPU, decent internet speed and Windows 7 [64-bit] to view things on our end. I currently do not know what my wife has going on with regards to her laptop. I have seen it but have not used it, so if any additional information is required here, I can find out.

For those in the know, is there anything that I may want to be aware of that may be unforeseen? My computer at home is solid as a rock and I do not foresee any issues with that [I hope], what is the unknown to us is actually using this type of contraption on the go. Any advice, warnings, things to look out for, compatibility issues, hotel wireless issues and associated suggestions are more than welcome and I'd like to thank you in advance for taking the time to read this and look forward to any advice you might have to share.

Tom

seabeerob213

http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/webcams i have the 5000 and its awesome, much better than the logitech in the same price range they had on demo, im sure this one, http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/lifecam-studio/Q2F-00001 is much better than mine, and being a microsoft product it is optimized for use with a windows operating system

seabeerob213

http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/lifecam-hd-6000-for-notebooks/7PD-00001 this one is designed for laptops

Gadabout

Because of issues in the past with Microsoft branded hardware, I have shied away from that brand.

I run the Logitech C905 on the road with my laptop. Looking at the Logitech page web page it looks like it isn't a current model, but can still be found at amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-960-000045-720p-Webcam-C905/dp/B000RZNI4S/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1355721944&sr=1-3

I'm sure you can get more Mega Pixels, but it isn't always about that. My thinking was that if I could get a decent picture, with the fewest amount of mega pixels it might decrease the required bandwidth that I would need in a hotel. It's a little laggy with a 1 Mbps connection but does fine with anything else above that.

I also bought it because it has a fairly large lens (for light gathering) and optics by Carl Zeiss. It does fairly well in low light, but will do better in a fairly bright light. I also like the size, it's easy to carry with you. It doesn't come with a carry case, but it is small enough that I'm sure it will fit in any gadget bag. (Mine is carried in a little wallet that was designed for 3 USB thumb drives). It clips securely to the laptop and is easy to move into position.

I have used the software that came with it (Logitech Connect?), but prefer Skype.

Hope that helps,
Scott

Syndil

No webcam built into the laptop?

rooftop59

Honestly if you have two iPhone 5s facetime over 4G LTE will be much easier and more reliable, and the little guy can say goodnight to momma in bed.

There are android options as well. The key is that it is an LTE phone. Your internet connection is the biggest issue here, and hotel wifi is often spotty. That will be the killer.

I have similar logitech cam, as do the both sets of grandparents. It works fine for everyone, but my mom had a slow dsl connection and a dinosaur computer and it was almost unusable. If your wife has a decent current laptop with decent processor and speed that part should be fine.

My wife spent three weeks in China when our daughter (almost 5) was 2. It was tough. But we got through! Good luck!

treitz3

Hello, Syndil. Apparently our laptops aren't "new" enough to have a built in webcam. I didn't know that was a built in feature with most all new laptops until I inquired about this very subject on another forum. There haven't been many responses over there either just because of that reason but I'll be damned if I'm gonna upgrade the laptops just for a webcam.

Just as an update, I went ahead and ordered seabeerob213's suggestion with the Microsoft webcam. http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/en-us/p/lifecam-hd-6000-for-notebooks/7PD-00001#details It looks like this was the best one I have ran across yet and it's specifically built for laptops. It's got the 360 degree swivel, 720p video chat, widescreen, 30 Fps, a carry case for traveling and the webcam comes with good reviews. The best thing was that I was able to snag it for 30 bucks to my door with Amazon Prime.

Sorry, Scott. I went ahead and ordered the Microsoft one last night figuring that there wasn't going to be many more responses on either website due to the fact that most laptops already have them built in. If I experience any issues with either product, I'll be sure to update things so that others won't have to spend money to discover what issues may arise. With that said, *knock on wood* hopefully, there will be no issues.

The Logitech just hit the house a couple of minutes ago and I believe it's already downloaded for both the Logitech Vid HD and my desktop was already Skype ready, so I should be ready to go. At least, in theory. The Microsoft webcam will be here on Wednesday and the wife and I will at that point test the capability/compatibility of both while we are still here in the house.

Tom

treitz3

rooftop59 wrote: »

Honestly if you have two iPhone 5s facetime over 4G LTE will be much easier and more reliable, and the little guy can say goodnight to momma in bed.

There are android options as well. The key is that it is an LTE phone. Your internet connection is the biggest issue here, and hotel wifi is often spotty. That will be the killer.

Hi, rooftop59. No fancy phones here. She's got one but I have no interest in getting one. I just use my phone for talking and occasionally to check the time, that's it. There's still many things about me that are "old school", the phone being one of them...but I'm getting up to speed, albeit reeeeaaaalllllllly slow. Thanks for your input.

Tom

rooftop59

No problem Tom. As long as she has a decent internet connection I think that you should be fine.

Sherardp

I have the same Microsoft HD cam also. Very nice.

treitz3

Hello and Merry Christmas everyone. Well, just figured that I would update my findings so far for those who may be interested.

It turns out that my wife did have a built in webcam in her work laptop. Several folks tried and tried to figure out how to get the sound from it to no avail. It's got a video camera but no microphone. An external one is needed. Eh, whatever. There are many things in life that just make no sense whatsoever. With that said, we have tried all three devices [Logitech, Microsoft and the Dell built in with no microphone] on both ends of 1 desktop, 3 laptops and some sort of fancy phone.

What we have learned is that in this case, you get what you pay for. The Dell built in webcam has no outgoing sound and considerably the worst picture/transmission of the three. It was actually so bad, that I wouldn't have even been interested in acquiring a microphone or using Skype altogether. Too many consistent issues with the video/transmission on both ends and it also wasn't very user friendly. The Microsoft I ordered had a nice picture, great sound but focus issues regardless of what settings we tried. It keeps going out of focus and self readjusting all by itself whenever it wants and there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to the cause. The Logitech was clearly the winner of the three. Great picture, great sound and the receiving end looks almost a little too revealing at times with no focus issues whatsoever. It was also the fastest and easiest to hookup, get rolling and adjust prior to calling or on the fly while using Skype. The two external webcams were considerably better video-wise over the Dell built in webcam. The refresh rate, digital snow, fast moving images, detail, focus and what the other end views were all considerably better than the built in.

None of them really looked like an HD video but the two HD webcams were vastly superior to the built in. The best way I could describe the two HD webcams would be like you were watching regular programming on an old tube TV that was slightly out of focus. This is clearly not HD. Better focus on an image would be how I would describe it but not HD. Still, not bad at all for a free service [Skype]. No complaints here, just thought I'd mention it.

Found out another thing. You can't use the aforementioned Microsoft laptop webcam on a desktop...or at least we couldn't on the one we tried [not mine]. So, it looks like we are good to go and I'm glad I decided to go external with the webcams. Now onto connections...We have found out that my wife has an android phone and that we can DL an app to make her phone a hot spot. The app is http://foxfi.com/ and we will be trying this out soon. It has been relayed to us that hotels do not like guests using Skype and they will purposely block your internet access if you try to use it. Apparently, it's all written in the fine print so this will be the next setup challenge for us. Either get a hot spot, use this app [that will hopefully work] or tether.

Tom

Gadabout

Tom,

You might also try the messenger programs. Most offer web cam support. I haven't tried any of them recently so I have no idea which one would be best. A couple years back, we tried Yahoo messenger, and it worked fairly well. Did your Logitech come with program for doing this also? I tried that a year ago when I got the cam and it worked pretty well and it was free (at the time).

Hope you get all the bugs worked out so Mom and the little one can say goodnight on a regular basis.

Scott

Syndil

treitz3 wrote: »

None of them really looked like an HD video but the two HD webcams were vastly superior to the built in. The best way I could describe the two HD webcams would be like you were watching regular programming on an old tube TV that was slightly out of focus. This is clearly not HD. Better focus on an image would be how I would describe it but not HD.

Nope, it isn't HD. Your chat program won't send HD unless there's a perfect storm of available bandwidth and low latency on both ends of the video call. If there isn't, it will default to either 320 x 240 at 15 fps or 640 x 480 at 30 fps, depending on how bad the connection is and the capabilities of the webcam. Most of the time "HD" is a useless marketing gimmick on a webcam. It will do HD if you want to record video locally, sure. But who uses a webcam for that?

TNHNDYMAN

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