I bought this webcam from amazon in December 06 and was really pleased with it. You can use it either with a standard desktop or clip it onto a notebook/flatscreen monitor with the rubberised clamp which i find useful as i can look at the screen/into the camera at the same time. The camera ... Read review
Creative Live! Cam Optia AF is the world's first webcam to offer auto focus technology and ... more
a true 2 megapixels sensor! With its precision lens it's the reference standard for clean, high-resolution still images, movie clips, video blogs and Internet
Postage & Packaging:
Free Delivery Availability:
3-7 days
Getting closer to your loved ones has never being so easy! You can now enjoy 1.3-megapixel ... more
high definition quality videos with a wider field of view along with crystal-clear audio. There's no need to bother with driver installations or fumble with a
Postage & Packaging:Free Delivery Availability:3-7 days
Creative Live! Cam Optia AF is the world's first webcam to offer auto focus technology and ... more
a true 2 megapixels sensor! With its precision lens it's the reference standard for clean, high-resolution still images, movie clips, video blogs and Internet
Postage & Packaging:see site for shipping costs Availability:3-7 days
Getting closer to your loved ones has never being so easy! You can now enjoy 1.3-megapixel ... more
high definition quality videos with a wider field of view along with crystal-clear audio. There's no need to bother with driver installations or fumble with a
Postage & Packaging:see site for shipping costs Availability:3-7 days
Advantages: good picture qualtiy, lots of feature included with software and looks great Disadvantages: Lack of side to side adjustment, cable too long laptop use
I bought this webcam from amazon in December 06 and was really pleased with it. You can use it either with a standard desktop or clip it onto a notebook/flatscreen monitor with the rubberised clamp which i find useful as i can look at the screen/into the camera at the same time. The camera itself has a glass lense and a manual focus by twisting the silver ring on the front of the camera, the camera can tilt or swivel up and down but unfortunatly ... ...would have been a good simple improvement. The cable is about 1.5m long which i found for a laptop can be a bit annoying but i guess for a desktop it would be useful and there is a velcro cable strap attached anyway so it isn't too much of a bother. One handy function is that when the camera is swiveled all the way down it cuts the video which i found useful if you want privacy for a few minutes. This camera is plug and play at least on the systems ... more
I bought this webcam from amazon in December 06 and was really pleased with it. You can use it either with a standard desktop or clip it onto a notebook/flatscreen monitor with the rubberised clamp which i find useful as i can look at the screen/into the camera at the same time. The camera itself has a glass lense and a manual focus by twisting the silver ring on the front of the camera, the camera can tilt or swivel up and down but unfortunatly there is no side to side rotation which i think would have been a good simple improvement. The cable is about 1.5m long which i found for a laptop can be a bit annoying but i guess for a desktop it would be useful and there is a velcro cable strap attached anyway so it isn't too much of a bother. One handy function is that when the camera is swiveled all the way down it cuts the video which i found useful if you want privacy for a few minutes. This camera is plug and play at least on the systems i've used it on (1 HP pavilion laptop with AMD athlon 64bit 3200 processor, 512Mb ram 40Gb HDD and 1 Dell inspiron 640m with pentium dual core 1.7Ghz, 1Gb ram, 80Gb HDD Both with XP home service pack 2 and USB 2.0 ports). The software included with the optia is quite good as well with several features including photo capture, video recording, motion detection, remote monitoring and time lapse video. The photo capture is pretty normal with some fun added with various effects that can be added (masks, hats glasses, mirror image liquid etc i did have some fun with these when i first got my optia) the video recording function has a highest quality setting of 640x480 which is ok for video chat but not really that useful for recording video and can again use the special effects. The motion detection i found quite useful as i ssometimes use it to 'watch' my room when i'm at university and has the ability to email pictures to your email account when motion is detected(so even if your computer is stolen you can still catch the person who did it), you can adjust the area that is monitored as well as the sensitivty so if you just want to monitor a particular section of the image for very slight movement you can do that or look for general movement that covers the whole image or anywhere in between. i haven't persnoally used the remote monitoring but it can be used to upload images/video to a webpage/ftp. Finally the time lapse video is quite a nice function to have you can set everything you might need including the time interval, how long it should record for, whether you want to time/date stamp each image and the frames per second you want the output video to run at. I used the time lapse to record the sunrise but unfortunatly the white balance wasn't quite up to the job but indoors it is great. The optia also has automatic face tracking which i thought sounded great but it turns out it means it uses a digital zoom which zooms in and tracks the face while the camera actually stays still but useful anyway. Taking everything into account i think this is a great webcam although there are newer models with autofocus, the picture quality is good its compact and looks great. Some improvements could be made such as side to side rotation and shorted cable but thats only because i use it with a laptop and there is a lot of excess cable but is probably ideal for a desktop.
Advantages: Excellent value for money. Excellent design. Disadvantages: None so far.
Creative Live!cam Optia is neither the cheapest nor the most expensive webcam on the market. It's somewhere in the middle but expensive does not always mean better. It's a reliable webcam with excellent (almost crystal clear) picture quality. The video capture rate is very good. No delays when using with programme such as Camfrog. It's easy to install. It comes with an Installation CD. Should you be unlucky ebough to loose or damage the CD, it's ... ...website has everything you need, from drivers to updates. The design is also a good selling point. It's attractive and the cam itself can be adjusted in pretty much every position. It's ideal for laptops. Overfall the webcam is brillant, robust and good value for money. ...
amdonewithlondon 17.03.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Creative Live! Cam Optia
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If you're a frequent user of a web cam, then this is the kind of camera you should be thinking of getting. The camera has a whole lot of features, looks great, has excellent build-quality and the pictures it produces are nothing short of excellent.
O.k, lets go in to some detail.
The camera is jet black and sits on a clear stand. You can swivel the camera up and down by up to 270°. You can even move it slightly left to right. When the camera is plugged in via USB or when its capturing an image a funky blew LED light comes on around the left side of the camera. This one of the main things I really loved about this camera. It looked fantastic.
The web cam comes with two built in microphones giving you brilliant background noise cancellation. You are able to turn the noise reduction off and you can also add effects to your voice ...
Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition, Microsoft Windows XP 64-bit Edition, Microsoft Windows 2000 / XP
Peripheral / Interface Devices
CD-ROM
System Requirements Details
Pentium 4 - 1.7 GHz - RAM 256 MB - HD 500 MB
Manufacturer warranty
Service & Support
2 years warranty
Service & Support Details
Limited warranty - 2 years
Manufacturer's product description
Creative's Live! Cam Optia combines highly sophisticated style with true plug and play simplicity. Its translucent white design complements modern LCD screens or notebook displays, and lifelike images are assured by the high-quality precision lens. Fast, smooth video is maintained by the high-speed connection to the PC.Installation couldn't be easier - the Live! Cam Optia simply plugs into a USB port, without requiring drivers! It supports video messaging with services such as Skype, MSN Messenger or Yahoo! Images are automatically adjusted for quality by the Auto Tuning feature. Each speaker is kept automatically at the heart of the video action with Smart Face Tracking. This stylish web cam also captures still images and mini-movies.