Creative PC-Cam 600
- — 30 April, 2002 09:32
Webcam
Half digital camera, half camcorder, webcams are versatile devices. Nonetheless, few actually allow you to capture both video clips and stills on the move and transfer them to your PC with ease. Some webcams can act as stand-alone digital cameras, but only capture video when they're connected to your PC. However, Creative's PC-Cam 600 can capture video when it isn't connected.
Creative favours smooth designs and this stylised nautilus shell is no exception. The PC-Cam is also smart on the inside, packed with features offering sharp, colourful images.
The camera has four resolution settings, from 320x240 pixels to 1024x768 pixels, but can take snaps at 1.3 megapixels with software enhancement. What's also impressive is that the PC-Cam 600 stores short video clips with audio when the camera is not connected to your PC.
The generous 16MB of memory allows you to store 200 digital stills at 640x480 pixels and 2 minutes 24 seconds of video at 30fps.
You can also use the camera as a dictaphone to record - around an hour of audio.
Creative has thrown in a great software bundle, including Creative PC-CAM Center, Creative Webcam Monitor, Creative WebCam PhotoEditor, Microsoft NetMeeting and Microsoft Internet Explorer for video conferencing, Oozic Player PixMaker and PixScreen by PixAround (Creative Edition). The price tag of $399 isn't cheap, but this buys you pretty much everything you could ever want from a webcam, and more.
Creative PC-Cam 600 ****1/2
The sharp image quality and excellent software "bundle plus the comprehensive features set and innovative design that sealed our high opinion of it.
Price: $399.
Phone: (02) 9666 6100.
URL: www.australia.creative.com.
