Microsoft LifeCam VX-3000 Web Cam

I try to write my reviews so as to cover ground NOT covered by previous reviewers, rather than re-inventing the wheel. There are a LOT of reviews on this webcam on the net, even if that is not reflected here (i.e. try Amazon).

In my research, I have learned information which may be useful to others on this product, particularly its drivers. This is to provide "techies" with information on the LifeCam VX-3000 drivers (and is probably applicable to all current LifeCam models).

WARNING: If you're not a techie, and are not interested in the nitty-gritty details of the LifeCam VX-3000 (or other LifeCam) drivers (whether to help your buying decision, or to ease installation/updates), your time may be better spent skipping my review, except for the paragraph immediately below.

Users on dialup or with very slow or flaky high-speed should know that Microsoft is not allowing download of the 'driver only'. You must download the whole installer "CD" anew each time. So for dialup, short of somehow getting a new driver CD sent to you by mail (good luck), you may be out of luck for driver updates, which could be a very bad thing. If you are on dialup or don't know someone with hi-speed and a CD burner, or you can't download/burn at work, I'd recommend against purchasing any LifeCam webcam, because a 120MB download would take days over dialup. (You may ask why someone without hi-speed would purchase a webcam, and the answer is to record videos and stills, or to use for security.) Broadband is actually listed in this cam's "system requirements", and I imagine that's why.


My story: I hate bloatware, huge drivers, etc, and unfortunately, the 'big 3' webcam manufacturers (Logitech, Creative Labs, and Microsoft) are known for their bloaty drivers/included programs.

Especially suspicious of Microsoft, since they have access to their own code and who knows what they could do to your OS or require you install/upgrade, I decided to download the web drivers to see the size. The latest as of this writing, LifeCam version 1.4, is 120 Megabytes! Yeowch! You need that much code to make a USB webcam work? I knew that the actual "driver" inside is very small. But wait--it gets more interesting.

I was able to change the lifecam driver download from an .exe extension, to .zip, and extract the files. To prevent use of not-techy-enough users, I won't provide the full path. But suffice it to say that the actual "driver" and .inf installer file is located in the "driver32" or "driver64" folders (depending on your OS). From there you have the choice of the four LifeCam models currently being sold by Microsoft. There are two inf's for each model, say vx3000.inf (apparently for the camera itself, not the mic) and vx3000m.inf (apparently "m" for "microphone"). I haven't actually purchased this model ('yet'/looks likely), but knowing I can try using it installing the driver "only", makes it more encouraging for me. I don't really mind downloading the 120 megs--it's 'installing' it which bothers me!

The direct source of Microsoft's LifeCam driver download (which may otherwise be difficult to find) is [at microsoft.com] /hardware/digitalcommunication/downloads/default.mspx . The directory structure of the downloaded LifeCam driver suite mirrors the CD... complete with "autorun.inf" in the root directory. You could just burn the unzipped archive straight to CD for a non-techie friend and they'd have a fully functional updated Driver CD, which they could install on their own.


About a quarter of the CD/downloaded drivers is taken up by silly "themes", or png's of, let's say, a cartoon butterfly 'flying' across your webcam screen, or cartoonish leaves falling. It looks like the animations were drawn in an advanced art class of a Chinese prison (the themes do have an Asian feel to them, but not cute like Japanese, just really cheesy/lame). You'd have to be extremely easily amused to find any of that useful.


59 of the unzipped megabytes is dominated by DirectX 9.0c, which has its own folder in the archive. It's ridiculous to force people to download this if they already have it, as this is available from Microsoft as a separate download.

Unzipped/unpacked, the drivers actually grow to 265MB. So between the 120MB for the installer archive and that, you now have 385MB used on your hard drive just for your webcam, not including the installation itself. Not a huge deal, but still brow-furrowing for a webcam.

Strangely enough, I can't find Windows Messenger in the drivers. That appears to be a separate download(?). I'm not sure yet if it's necessary to have that installed to use, say, Skype successfully. I'll report back if I find out. I'm also worried about whether the cam needs to have the latest Windows Media Player or any other proprietary OS components updated (which would be a dealbreaker for me), but it appears not at this point.

I've seen reviews which states XP users need SP2 to correctly run the camera, but that may be incorrect because the readme.txt gives a specific Microsoft KB update for USB driver updates for SP1 users which may do the trick if needing SP2 is a dealbreaker for you... your mileage may vary, but the readme.txt does imply that SP1 with that KB update should work. Lifecam v1.4 appears to have properly-updated Vista drivers. There were a lot of Vista issues originally with these cams. I would be surprised if that has not been all sorted out by now.

I keep seeing Windows Messenger as the best video client, closely followed by Skype, and though I hate windows messaging products, I might be willing to give it a spin if it's as smooth as people say it is, though I am a pretty good fan of Skype already.

You can disable the "LifeCam" button by finding and renaming "icepick.exe" in the program folder. And any further developments will be reflected here.


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***UPDATE***
I've had chance to use this webcam. The problem with most webcam reviews, is that the owner & reviewer of the webcam is not the one who actually SEES the camera. In my case, I chose it for a friend, for ME to view. So here's my take.

The way the webcam looks is, well, "webcammy". My only previous experience with webcamming is through my (and my friend's) digital camera--since I also chose my friend's digital camera. Sadly, the webcam function of digicams, while rare to begin with, seems to have evaporated. Vista is not compatible with my friend's camera's old webcam driver (XP only) (did I mention I hate Vista?). So she had to get a new webcam, just because Microsoft didn't feel like making their OS backwards-compatible with hardware drivers!

The 3000's image is no miracle, and is comparable to what you might expect from a webcam. It just does not measure up to the pristine old 2 and 3 megapixel digital cameras with webcam mode we use(d). However, this is going to be true for all webcams, or at least ones within any decent price range. I still don't think webcams should be as expensive as they are, considering the low quality of components even the "good" ones use. Which is why I refuse to pay (or let someone else pay) a lot for a webcam.

But now for good news. I can affirm that the VX-3000 does have good low-light sensitivity. Let's face it: the times people are most likely to use a webcam is at night, indoors, when both parties are home from work and settled in. You don't want to have to set the lights blazing just for proper operation. While not miraculous, the light sensitivity does what it needs to do, with no stupid software enhancement (ahem, Logitech). My friend's bedroom is poorly lit with only one bulb, and while there was some grain, for the low amount of light in the room, I thought it did a good job, and this is coming from someone who buys digital cameras on the basis of how well they do in existing light (I hardly ever use flash).

As far as sound, sound was adequate but not impressive. I think it's a better idea to wear a headset, but some people prefer a built-in mic, and that's what this webcam has, which makes it simpler to use. I did hear a high noise floor. But the mic was also sensitive enough to work adequately. It's probably the preamp, and not the mic itself which causes the noise floor, but there was no whine or screech or anything defective-sounding for us, which a few have reported. Both the mic and cam went in fine with Vista--I specifically directed my friend to NOT run the CD the webcam came with, but to download the drivers directly. She's lucky if she can download a file to a computer, and she was able to download & load the drivers without my assistance.

The camera supposedly has some kind of anti-echo technology. I'm not sure if this is hardware or software. Webcam mfrs put this in, because people are too stupid, cheap, and lazy to use earphones, not realizing that the mic will pick up the sound of their laptop speakers one foot away from the cam's mic. And my friend is in this bandwagon. I did hear some echo IIRC, but what can one expect--a mic will pick up sound from in front of it. A lot of this had to do with how loud I spoke, and how loud she had her speakers. I don't remember any pumping of noise gates or anything, which is good.

I like that the webcam is fixed-focus. I had directed my friend to pre-focus the camera using the focus ring before we talked. I thought the range of focus was good, because I had her put it up to her face so it would fill the screen, and I could also see background items, both with no blurriness. This is not true of all webcams. Again, nothing miraculous, just worked.

I insisted we use Skype, because I still don't trust Microsoft (Messenger) to be the intermediary of our private communications. Skype is also easy to use, with a very basic, almost toy-like interface. Again, necessary when dealing with regular folk. Skype also doesn't use any of the fancy-schmancy software enhancements webcams sometimes come with to try to compensate for poor quality. You're getting the camera and mic as-is--good for testing.

I can say that with this mic anyway, sound is clearer on a cellphone connection (we compared for testing purposes). The internet is capable of transmitting live sound far superior to any phone connection (so life-like, it can be spooky), but this requires good hardware and maybe an advanced setup. What I was most-impressed with is not the sound, but the lack of significant delay when compared with the cellphone. They were about the same--not what I was expecting (I thought the cellphone would be a lot faster). But that is less the webcam and more Skype and the Internet. Also, the mic sound was sync'd well with the video--which I can attribute at least in part to the webcam. If both parties have night-time cellphone minutes, you can always use the cellphone for audio (i.e. with a headset) if that sounds better for you, or is more convenient. I guess it depends on conditions (noise in room, etc).

On Skype, at 640x480 resolution, we got an amazing 21 to 27 fps framerate! That's almost TV speed of 30 frames per second (albeit non-interlaced). And this is halfway across the USA. I had to keep checking the stats, because I was somewhat in disbelief, or thought that maybe we were on 320x240/QVGA to get those rates, but apparently not, although Skype's stats are a little difficult to decipher. Skype's framerate automatically varies per conditions. Herkiness and hiccups were minimal. I would say this was my best surprise. We saw no need to use Microsoft's Messenger. And I was glad to see Microsoft not sabotaging a software which "competes" with one of its giveaway products (like IE used to sabotage Netscape).


OEM VS RETAIL
There is an "OEM" version of this webcam. NewEgg sells it; I'm not sure who else. NewEgg's return policy is worse than Amazon's, though. My friend bought the Retail Box version from Amazon, unsure what would be missing from the OEM. Turns out that there's only one thing you need in the box: the webcam itself. The driver CD is junk, and there's no significant documentations/instructions you'd think you'd get from purchasing a retail box--you only get a piece of paper with heiroglyphs. So the OEM has nothing substantially less than the retail version, but might not be valid for rebates. Preferably, for even less, purchase the retail box version on sale (it seems these babies have a rebate on them about once a quarter[?]). I'm not happy how NewEgg dealt with me on a return of a DOA video card, making me pay a restocking fee (much less reimbursing my return shipping), so I've not purchased from them since.