On Wednesday 08 November 2006 06:29, Tim wrote: >Gene Heskett: >>>> even a $70 dollar webcam is, photographicly speaking, a POS. > >Tim: >>> I'm not surprised. That's still damn cheap. And webcams are >>> generally designed to manage to get some sort of picture in bad >>> lighting, rather than be very good. > >Anne Wilson: >> Tim, I know my Philips webcam was cheap, but it used to work with >> GnomeMeeting. The picture was clear and the colour not too far out. > >My "I'm not surprised" comment was about the photographic ability... >Sure, you can get some interesting features in a webcam, but they're not >a patch on a real camera. > >I have this rather awful "WonderEye" camera, which doesn't have a mic. >It works with FC4 and FC5 (I haven't tried FC6, yet). I notice that FC5 >crashes if I unplug it, whether or not the camera was in use. FC4 >doesn't do that. > >I can't imagine an OS having any affect on the sharpness of the picture. >That's an optics and electronics issue. Though computer contol of video >gain might add noise and that could smudge things if there's a poor >attempt at noise reduction. And trying to use a low-res device on >something that wants more pixels, which doubles up to simulate things, >can make things look even worse. Colour is yet another thing, as white >balance (tinting) is controlled by the computer. > >I'd be quite surprised at any USB camera doing what I'd consider to be a >good job. They're designed for a rather low-spec job (low-res, and >heavy compression for a low transmission bandwidth). High-res wouldn't >be of much good over the internet, anyway. Especially with the common >compression protocols being used. All moderately true. My main bitch about the $70 webcam wasn't sharpness, but the absolutely atrocious color rendition, as if there was zero contrast in the vectorscope axis that represented skin tones. I don't look at all good in a chartruese tee-shirt that looks as if it bled over into my face, particularly when its a brand new white one I'm wearing. Under around 250 watts equ in ccfl lighting from 5 feet away. It makes me look like an escapee from a grade C haloween movie. I may be an old fart, but I'm still activated. (yet) >-- >(Currently testing FC5, but still running FC4, if that's important.) > >Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. >I read messages from the public lists. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Yahoo.com and AOL/TW attorneys please note, additions to the above message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2006 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.
