Help with webcams for Mom to see the new Baby

hychamaz · Post by **hychamaz** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 12:51 am

I hope that I could get some feedback here. We are having a baby any day now and I am trying to find out about webcams so that my mother back in the states can see the little guy. I am pretty clueless on the topic as I have never used a webcam nor do I know how to. I was hoping that someone could reccomend a good webcam out there for us (well 2 of them as my mother will have to buy one too obviously). I honestly dont even know where to begin. My connection is 2MB/1MB DSL and my mothers in the states is 15MB/2MB Cable. I guess that I am looking for 1 that i sof good quality but not too expensive.
I see a lot of webcam images online and they seem very choppy (I guess not refreshing too fast). Is that from buying a crappy camera or is that because of slow connection speeds?? I would like mom to see the baby pretty clearly, how he moves, etc. without being choppy. Also does it matter how the webcams are used. I just set up a Yahoo account and see a place in their IM to use a webcam. Are all these places like Yahoo the same as far as how the camera projects and not being choppy.
Thanks for your help in advance everyone. I am completely ignorant on this topic. Not to mention that I will have to talk my mom through setting up hers over the phone as she doesnt know a USB port from a wall socket

. We just want her to see the little guy befor eshe can come over here this summer. Thanks

**Sponsor:**

mCowboy · Post by **mCowboy** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 9:02 am

- there's not much difference between a €30 webcam and €130 webcam, so as long as you don't pick the cheapest you're ok
- the choppiness is not up to the webcam itself, but the connection, and the connection is as good as the slowest bit between 2 points
- installing a webcam = install the sw that comes on a CD + plug it in
- the best quality video I've found to be on Skype as it seems to have dynamic compression based on varying bandwidth and it's p2p unlike MS, Yahoo etc

littlefrank · Post by **littlefrank** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 9:02 am

Best thing to do is to check reviews on the internet, because recommending a webcam is difficult because it does depend on personal preferences, just remember that FPS means 'framerates per second' and the higher the FPS the better, also remember the majority of cameras require you to load the software before you connect the camera. I use Skype.

I just love the name of this site.

http://cowboyfrank.net/webcams/index.htm

littlefrank · Post by **littlefrank** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 9:04 am

I find it even funnier now.

mCowboy · Post by **mCowboy** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 9:20 am

köyhillä on halvat huvit
-vanha suomalainen sanonta

littlefrank · Post by **littlefrank** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 10:14 am

Kukas kissan hännän nostaa ellei kissa itse?

hychamaz · Post by **hychamaz** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:48 pm

Thanks for the input everyone!

raamv · Post by **raamv** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 12:33 pm

If you are able to afford a 3 CCD video camera( Some of them do have webcam features, at least the canon ones) then you can get really really good resolution on that.

malachi_north · Post by **malachi_north** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:35 am

I also recommend Skype very much. It's free, the voice quality works quite well, and the transmission is rather smooth. It's also very simple to set up. The quality of course depends on computer components and internet speed as well, but yours shouldn't have any problem.

I use the webcam that's in my Macbook, but my mate uses a Logitech quickchat one. He's had no problems with it, and uses it quite often for conferences (and WoW clan/group sessions... *rolls eyes*).

Also, congrats!

hychamaz · Post by **hychamaz** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 10:10 pm

Thanks for the congrats. The little guy is a week late now so any day.... I appreciate the feedback. I am going to definately use Skype as it seems to be the consensus for best overall quality. I havent used them in years. Hopefully my account is still there. Thanks again.

hychamaz · Post by **hychamaz** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 5:28 pm

mCowboy wrote:- there's not much difference between a €30 webcam and €130 webcam, so as long as you don't pick the cheapest you're ok
- the choppiness is not up to the webcam itself, but the connection, and the connection is as good as the slowest bit between 2 points
- installing a webcam = install the sw that comes on a CD + plug it in
- the best quality video I've found to be on Skype as it seems to have dynamic compression based on varying bandwidth and it's p2p unlike MS, Yahoo etc

Now I am really confused as to webcams and I hope that you all could help. mCowboy gave me this response which makes a lot of sense but somewhat goes against what Skype and the guys down at Gigantti are telling me. I went out and bought a Logitech QuickCam Pro 5000 for 40euros. I hooked it up last night and used Skype to call the States where my mother said that it was a little unclear and got fuzzy at times. The guys at Musta Porsi and Gigantti were trying to push there most expensive webcams on me saying that they would provide better quality. It seems that this model is 640 x 480 pixels which seems to be standard for this price range. The more expensive ones were like 1000 x 800 pixels. I have read tons of google articles and it seems that many disagree on this issue. I dont know that if I buy a 140 euro webcam will it transmit better to the States.

On the Skype website it is saying that there are 4 criteria that need to be met for a high quality video connection. First, the latest version of Skype. That is fine. Second, a Logitech HQ Webcam ( I dont know if the Pro 9000 would be better). Third, Sufficient Bandwith which we both have here and in the States. Fourth they are saying that your computers must have dual core processors. I am a little hung up on this aspect as I have read so many different opinions. My computer here is new and utilizes a ual core processor but my mothers back in the state is about 3 years old and obviously doesnt.

So here is where I am confused. Would shelling out the big money for the best webcam be of any benefit or do you guys think it is pointless since my mother is using a 2-3 year old Dell back in the States. Thank you in advance for any and all help to show off the new guy here!!!

r3ddr · Post by **r3ddr** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 5:37 pm

not worth the trouble. skype + HQ logitech = marketing BS

just get a decent webcam that can do 320x200 + skype and you are set!

mCowboy · Post by **mCowboy** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 5:41 pm

the chain is as strong as it's weakest link...

if you have a HQ cam and a speedy connection, but your mum has a crappy pc on the other end, the picture quality is not that great... same goes with the connection... or your cam. Certainly you can get a HQ cam, but it won't improve the quality if one of the other variables is performing poorly. Get the point?

One of the things to do to improve the quality of the picture is good lighting. If you have those energy saving lamps, they might not be powerful enough to help to produce a decent cam video, so get a decent lighting done. Also try to adjust the cam lens and the settings on the control panel for optimum video quality.

Also the video is choppy if the connection is bad. I never had tv-type quality webcam streams to US and I've used MSN, Yahoo and Skype with a 8M ADSL connection. You won't get camcorder quality stream unless you get really lucky and both users have lots of bandwidth between each other.

Actually the higher quality video you're trying to stream, more choppy it will get if there's not enough bandwidth, so you're better off trying first with a cheaper cam and if the video is not choppy, then upgrade to a HQ cam.

Hope this helps.

r3ddr · Post by **r3ddr** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 7:13 pm

webcam, upload, CPUs is all that matters (should be in this order)

skype will scale down the resolution if *any* of the connections is poor (=packet loss) or if *any* of the CPUs goes above a certain threshold (85%-90%?!)

CPU usage goes UP with the volume/FPS your webcam is producing (unless you have a webcam + drivers that will dump already compressed video = very unlikely)
also CPU goes UP if your webcam is USB1.1 (or some cheap model that just dumps data to CPU expecting the drivers to handle the hard work)

(there used to be a way to force skype to a certain resolution, it was disabled for a while, then re-enabled (=users complaining about the HQ webcam PR stunt) but I'm not quite sure whether it works as it used to. you might get it working if you dig enough into the skype forums, or you can just forget about it: buy a decent webcam that excels at 320x200 (you won't need more) and hopefully skype will be able to keep up with it

)

hychamaz · Post by **hychamaz** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 7:28 pm

Thanks for the replies. I guess then probably that a 3 year old Dell computer back in the States is probably to blame. This webcam is 640 x 480 and plenty of bandwith. I am using a dual core processor new computer here.

Also, in addition to my above question this I guess will apply to anyone that uses Skype Video. When I was using it yesterday the video that I was broadcasting was shown in the Skype window so tiny that I could barely see it. Does anyone know how to make this bigger so I can see what I am broadcating to others??? It was so small and almost impossible to make out for me. Hope you guys know what I mean. Thanks

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