Microsoft LifeCam VX-6000. A Major Upgrade to Your Webcam Expectations!

I have for some years been happy with the performance of my Logitech Quickcam Communicate. It sent rudimentary video, the sound was good, the low light adjustment was acceptable, and it was cheap. Well, you know how it goes, after a while the technology improves so much, and so many more contacts are using the technology these days, we thought we ought to upgrade.

I won’t lie about it and pretend I made a big research out of it…we bought this webcam because it was the first ad that popped up when I installed Microsoft Windows Live, and we thought the styling, specs and guaranteed compatibility was worth having.

The device comes with cam, cradle, 6 ft USB cable and installation disk. Installation was a ridiculous snap, it took maybe six or seven minutes from inserting the disk to vid chat online , no complications. Installation includes selecting your chosen settings, an option to install windows live if you don’t already have it, as well as other effects and settings.

The hardware that comes with is pretty straightforward. A universal cradle permits you to mount your cam either on a hard surface, or on the top of your monitor screen. It has a front “claw” which locks it in place over the monitor and it is reasonably secure, without being obtrusive.

The blurb goes on about the cable being high speed USB. I am not entirely sure what they meant by this, I can only report to you that there is no detectable lag between the action that occurs in the room and the action, both video and sound, that appears on the monitor screen. Enough said.

The cam itself has a button on top which will instantly cause your windows live video connection panel to show you who is currently online, and give you the option of opening a video chat with them. This works, but I don’t think I will ever use it, and it seems more than a little gimmicky to me. I mean, how did you add these people as contacts unless you are at least reasonably au-fait with how windows messenger works?

On the subject of windows messenger, I thought it would probably be worth mentioning in the interests of fairness that you HAVE to install it to get this gadget to work properly. That might be an issue for some people, I can anticipate. It doesn’t bother me, but it seemed worth putting in a review,.

There is also a focusing ring on the webcam. Focusing is manual only, you can’t adjust it from the control panel, although I haven’t found any problems with this. I have used the cam from maybe one foot to maybe 12 feet, and got clear images from all, even when moving from one range to another.

Talking of moving from one range to another, one of the other touted features of this camera is the slightly spooky face tracking feature. This webcam has tilt and pan, and the software is set up to track a human face, so that if you tend to bob and weave whilst having a video chat you won’t disappear off the screen, the camera will follow you. This works very well in full light but is fairly unreliable at low light levels. Besides when and where it works, I know few people who are fussy about such things…again, a little bit gimmicky for my tastes but it does certainly work. Very interesting.

Actually there are no end of gimmick features come to think of it. If you so desire, you can put some beachfront into the picture with you, or a bunch of cartoon flowers, or a UFO. Hmmm. These are “try it once, never use it again” features in my world, but should you like such things, I felt duty bound to inform you of their presence.

The microphone on this cam picked up my voice (which is not loud) at monitor distance easily. When recording video segments the quality was very good. Once in a video chat however, the noise cancellation that I was informed is builtinto the microphone system did nothing to prevent feedback occurring between myself and several of my normal contacts, just as it always has with my Quickcam. Perhaps this is not something noise cancellation can help with, but it sounds to me like it should!

So, anyway, enough about the features that were incidental to my liking or disliking the camera. To that list you can add a wide angle (71 degree) lens I will never use, and a 3X digital zoom I will never use. The digital zoom costs you a lot of image quality. Simply move closer to the lens, people. I’d like to talk now about the truly rocking awesome video quality of this cam!

Well, it is the quality of the video imagery on this webcam that really ensures I will keep it, like it and use it a LOT more than the Quickcam on my other computer. Image resolution for the camera can go as high as 1.3 megapixels. So ridiculously superior is this to my previous webcam that I can barely stand to use the Quickcam at all now, the image on the Quickcam now looking blocky and cruddy. The VX-6000 has clear colors, crisp lines, crystal clear images in good light and just looks great! Friends who have received videos from me made with it were suitably impressed, and had never received a video email of that quality. The low light images are clear on the face of the subject, but the colors go to pot, and the background fades into invisibility, just as it always has. The cam self-adjusts to low light modes, but is nothing more than “acceptable” in this regard.

If you want a webcam that gives you really good video camera quality imagery on your webcam sessions, or want to send crystal clear video emails, this is the way to go. I am completely satisfied, since that is exactly what I bought this gadget for. This cam comes with an impressive three year warranty, and support can be reached by phone or online.

Specs:

Length: 2.10 inches (53.3 millimeters)
Width: 2.16 inches (55.0 millimeters)
Depth/Height: 2.92 inches (74.1 millimeters)
Weight: 3.36 ounces (95.3 grams)
Call Button Life: 10,000 actuations
Sensor: CMOS SXGA sensor technology
Motion Video: 1.3 mega pixel (1280 x 1024 pixel) video
Still Image: 5 mega pixel (2560 x 2048 pixel, interpolated) photos
Field of View: 72° diagonal field of view
3x digital zoom