Webcam advice/help please

[verytalldave]

Firstly, please understand I am not particularly PC wise - I would consider myself a very Mr average in this field.
My PC is now quite old and low spec (like me) - although it does for my requirements more than OK. It only has 512 RAM and a 515 Pentium4 processor.
Bearing all that in mind, can somebody recommend a reasonable webcam (with a built in microphone) for me please. Some webcams seem to give a very jumpy image although the sound is OK. I would like a webcam that gives as smooth an image as possible. If that can be achieved with my old PC ? ?
My son is going globe hopping (mainly Thailand) in a weeks time and his mate is taking his laptop fitted with a webcam.
To pick your brains even further - what it the best way for us to ACTUALLY communicate between home PC to beach laptop ? ? ?
I will also be opening a facebook account as well - does that help ? ? ?

You may have guessed by now I am a bit of a dimwit when it comes to this kind of thing - so try to keep any/all explanations in reasonably understandable english please.
Thanks very much in advance for all and any advice.........................

 

[kwakdonut]

Don't know much about webcam's either but I would have thought something like Skype would be good as it is free for Skype-to-Skype calls and may well be very useful for your son to be able to 'phone' home.

Am sure others have similar ideas about this?

 

[Benzowner]

I too am in the market for a webcam, my daughter has just started working in Belgium. We have dowloaded skype onto our PC and she already had it on her laptop. Spoke to he last night and her webcam image looked very good. This was the built in webcam which came with the laptop, we will be adding ours to the PC.

 

[Mark300SL]

You can just use MSN live messenger too, this is very effective for live chat

I use it when I stay away to keep in contact with the family, webcams are variable quality but if the bandwidth is limited it wont matter anyway!
Generally the super high quality webcams don't have the required bandwidth unless the remote location is fixed.


Look for a webcam with a microphone if the laptop/pc doesnt already have one! 1.3mp should be more than enough for most applications


Mark

 

[grober]

This gets good reviews but not cheap. around £60 from amazon
Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 Full Review, Page 2 of 2, Accessory Reviews on CNET UK
However I think you may struggle with your computer processor speed [515Mhz???] to get good video.

 

[Beetnik]

My daughter's just back from a year travelling in the far east, including Thailand. There are dirt cheap internet cafes all over so your son's mate may regret taking the laptop and hogging it around with him.

Skype proved the best answer for us and, whilst I have an inbuilt webcam and can't give you advice on what you might purchase, the 'newness' of video calling soon wears off and you may find yourselves not using it but sticking to the written word.

 

[BTB 500]

Some webcams seem to give a very jumpy image although the sound is OK. I would like a webcam that gives as smooth an image as possible. If that can be achieved with my old PC ? ?

I don't think it can. You need a powerful PC and a high speed internet connection for smooth video.

We use Skype for the kids to video call their grandparents in Germany, using a £9.99 webcam. This works fine, and is very easy to set up.

I looked at Skype's high def. service but it was a non-starter for the reasons above.

 

[Sp!ke]

As others have said, you'll need a faster PC.

God knows how and why you are still running with 512mb when you could quadruple it for £30 or something and see mahoosive performance gains.

Not sure how well a webcam will work on a Thai dialup connection will work either. Suspect taking a laptop travelling might not be such a good idea at all. If they are going to be using hostels and other travellers accomodation then they should travel light and take nothing they arent prepared to lose. Leave the laptop at home and use internet cafe's instead.

 

[Shude]

IMHO it doesn't matter what spec the PC is (within reason), the problem will almost always be with the network connection.

This is why dispite running the LAN/WAN over high bandwidth leased lines etc video conferencing is normally carried out over weedy ISDN connections - might not be that quick but it's a dedicated link for a time-critical application.

 

[Chrishazle]

+1 on leave the laptop at home. Our daughter did the Thailand etc 5 month gig - God it's over 5 years ago now. Had her purse etc lifted on an overnight bus ride! She had no problem keeping in touch using the many internet cafes scattered throughout the area, even Vietnam and Laos! We used MSN Messenger for typed communication rather than trying for voice / video, although she did get a cheap call card and phoned us a couple of times from Thailand.
One point - get your son to get you authorised on his credit card / bank accounts - so when something goes pear shaped (eg credit card nicked) you can speak to them on his behalf, stop the card and get a replacement delivered to you. It's fun finding a courier company prepared to carry an unsigned credit card, but I did find one - I'd arranged with the CC company that the card would remain locked until I phoned to confirm its safe receipt in Thailand.
Also tell him to watch the mobile phone use - daughter's travelling companion racked up £150 on her mobile in the first month, calling her boyfriend - ran out of money a month before the trip was supposed to end!

 

[Frank O' Phile]

Many digital cameras can act as a webcam. Assuming you already have one, plug it in and try it, or read the manual.

 

[timskemp]

Logitech Pro 9000 or Pro for Notebooks is the webcam to have, works at all resolutions, very smooth and good quality microphone built in too.

If you want a demo PM me and I'll send you my skype ID.

 

[Stratman]

+1 on leaving the lappy at home.

It's a little-known fact that laptop bags have "Please steal me" written on them in ink only visible to the natives.

As to your lappy, treat yourself to a new one. You know you deserve it.

 

[verytalldave]

Thanks very much to everyone for their input.
Have just bought a MS VX-5000 webcam and am now fully Skyped up as well.
Everything seems to work OK.
The reason I went for the VX-5000 is that according to the system requirements printed on the box it will work with my low spec PC.

 

[BTB 500]

IMHO it doesn't matter what spec the PC is (within reason), the problem will almost always be with the network connection.

This is Skype's minimum spec. for their High Quality video service

High Quality Video calls require at least 2 GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, and 300kbit/s up- and download speed.

They also specify it must be a dual core processor (minimum Core 2 Duo or a similar).


For standard video calls

Video calls require at least 1 GHz CPU, 512MB RAM, and 256kbit/s up- and download speed.

So the difference is largely in PC spec. You do obviously need a higher spec. camera for HQ as well.

 

[Sp!ke]

Thanks very much to everyone for their input.
Have just bought a MS VX-5000 webcam and am now fully Skyped up as well.
Everything seems to work OK.

I suspect you got lucky this time. It'll remain unsatisfactory with only 512mb of ram in fact your whole pc will be a PITA generally.

 

[IanT]

Yes, I've got at agree that unless your son is going to be staying somewhere with a half decent internet connection, it's not likely to give a good experience. The speed / performance of your own PC (and his laptop for that matter) will have a bearing on the frame rate (how jerky) that the images appear, but the network performance will give the ultimate go / no go.

Slow PCs can normally be worked around by resizing the window that the moving images are displayed in - make it smaller and the PC isn't working so hard drawing it, so it doesn't take so long and it gets smoother.

You asked about how to get his laptop connected to the internet while he's away - this is something that's worth doing some homework on, as I've no idea how advanced their mobile phone networks are out there, or what coverage will be like where he is travelling. Taking a UK 'data dongle' - a mobile phone that is built into a USB stick or into the laptop directly (with a UK subscription) is going to be very costly. Other options exist, like buying one at the other end. Without the mobile network option, and I really wouldn't expect that to be useful, he's going to be stuck with dial up (modem) or whatever the hotels / hostels provide.

I love my gadgets, but I think on this occasion I'd be much more inclined to open a www.gmail.com account (free) for email and use that and MSN Messenger to communicate from internet cafes. Leave the laptop at home and if taking a digital camera out there, take the photos and then connect the camera to a PC in the internet cafe, download the photos and either email them to you or store them on the Google email account so they're kept securely somewhere.

I do use a webcam to keep my (nearly) two year old son in touch with his grandma up in Humberside, it works really well and that's where the difference between a good and bad camera shows, because we're both using reasonably high spec PCs over reliable broadband internet connections.

Sorry, this wasn't going to be long winded...

• Aged PCs can be made more usable by shrinking the picture window
• Network speed will impact performance hugely - don't expect it to be good via a dial up connection or mobile phone and the latter is going to be expensive even if it does work
• No laptop = less of a target for thieves and communicating where there aren't internet cafes anyway is going to be pretty hard (getting a connection)
• It's viable to email photos to you from wherever to remove the 'download to hard disk' requirement I'd have for a laptop while travelling, or better still, but lots of memory cards, shoot in lower resolution, etc.

Saying all that, it's great to see a face.

Ian.

 

[Sp!ke]

Could take the webcam along to plug into the internet cafe PC's and leave the lappy at home.

 

[verytalldave]

This is Skype's minimum spec. for their High Quality video serviceThey also specify it must be a dual core processor (minimum Core 2 Duo or a similar).


For standard video callsSo the difference is largely in PC spec. You do obviously need a higher spec. camera for HQ as well.

Just connected up locally between his laptop and my PC and the quality of both video and sound are fine.
Internet connections in the far east are good enough to expect similar returns - according to those who have been out there before and done similar. So fingers crossed.

 

[verytalldave]

I suspect you got lucky this time. It'll remain unsatisfactory with only 512mb of ram in fact your whole pc will be a PITA generally.

Is it easy to upgrade the ram?
Does 4GB sound enough to aim for? or more?
Is it just a case of by a new card to replace the old one? Or is there more to it than that?
I would like to think it might be as easy as plug'n'play otherwise I will need to get someone in to do it.
As I said, I don't feel confident digging around inside the box of tricks.