Photo gallery: Creative Live! Cam Video IMSo we have just gotten over Christmas, and some of us, well, those bank balances just aren't intact any longer. But we still want to keep up with friends that are travelling afar in the New Year, or maybe it is that you simply want to balance your time-poor life with some social interaction without blowing the budget!
This is where Creative Labs, the maker of the popular Zen MP3 players and other digital entertainment products -- including numerous Webcams -- comes in. With a large knowledge base in the area and a great software suite to back up its little cams, you can count on Creative to provide a good product at a relatively low price -- a la, the Live! Cam Video IM.
This Webcam is suitable for messenger users of all types -- MSN, Yahoo, Skype and more (though it does hold a bit of an alliance to Yahoo's Instant Messenger, with its service offered as an install during download).
In order to get the Live! Cam Video IM up and running, all you need is a USB connection (1.1 or 2.0), 128MB of RAM, 200MB of disk space and a bit of creativity!
Design
The Live! Cam Video IM is a relatively fuss-free model that has been designed specifically for use from the other side of your keyboard. It looks no different to a number of other Webcams on the market, however its white and silver plastic exterior will attract users of sleeker notebook and desktop models that are image conscious in their selection.
Creative has made this a good all-round offering for Webcam users, designing a stand that can sit on every model of computer. It can attach to the top of all notebooks -- large or small with an adjustable arm -- or it can sit flat on a desktop CRT or table-top surface.
The camera "eye" features a manual focus ring that can be rotated 360 degrees and move 45 degrees vertically. This does not necessarily make much difference to your picture quality (we suggest using the mouse and the interface provided on your computer for this instead as fingers do tend to get in the way when manually focusing a Webcam image).
The Live! Cam does have a snap button on top for fast picture taking, but this created similar problems to the focal tuner.
Like Microsoft, Creative has stuck with the older CMOS technology, which does help control light in bright conditions, and it has a power LED light that shows when the Webcam is connected to the USB.
A headset is provided instead of a built-in microphone but you can't expect much for this price. We suggest purchasing one of Creative's higher-end sets if you want to get serious about voice online (this is the same for most Webcam models unfortunately).
Features
Creative is ahead start on the market with its fun, easy, and customisable software suite -- you can tell these guys have been at it for years. Once you have gone through the very easy install option advanced users will enjoy being able to customise their Webcam settings (there is a lot of fun to be had just learning how to use this Webcam, and the options it brings).
Apart from being able to make the most basic of changes from saturation to hue, and brightness you can choose a range of creative options from the Live! Cam Suite.
Advanced Video FX allows you to change your backgrounds, morph your face, set yourself in a virtual snowstorm or map yourself on to another image all with the click of a button off the suite's dashboard. Creative also offers a number of free downloads on its support site for a range of image tricks.
The suite also allows you to manage your photographs, create picture calendars, edit images and print, email or send to your own PDA or notebook computer.
On the more practical side you can allow for remote monitoring -- for home security maybe, or for simply catching your little brother out using your computer, or you can set a motion detector which will automatically start recording when it senses something in the frame.
The 1.3 megapixel camera and video, which comes at resolutions of 1280 x 960 and 800 x 600 (with 15 fps) respectively, both use software-enhanced resolution (or interpolation -- which means over a certain resolution, as things start to blur, the software will fill in the gaps helping to stop image blurring).
The camera can also be set to time lapse, where it will take images at intervals then play them back as video, and the video itself can take advantage of face-tracking technology -- track your movements automatically as you talk.
Performance
Overall, for the price you are paying this little camera works quite well. Resolution is definitely not up with their with Microsoft's NX-6000, and its surveillance settings, while good, are nowhere near those of the AV Labs Ezy-Cam, but this model does come in at a lower price, and still has a lot of options to boot.
The Live! Cam Video IM produces good video images up until about 800 x 600 pixels -- which is where you start to get evident lag. With the focal and other settings right, however, you can get clear images that don't appear too pixelated.
Support
With a two-year standard warranty, excellent online support and an automatic update service as well as online and phone help, we think the Live! Cam Video IM is a great offering for those starting out, or those wanting a little extra control without the added price tag. Of course, if travelling, you would go for the NX-6000 by Microsoft (the three-year warranty is quite significant) but for home use, this little cam is perfect on the pocket, as well as the eye.
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