LifeCam Show Goes to the Beach
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Product Test. Microsoft's newest 2.0-megapixel Webcam comes with some cool software. Move over, Apple Photo Booth. |
By the way, this is not a product review. That will come later on.
Yesterday, my family headed out with friends to La Jolla Shores, a beach north of San Diego. I couldn't resist taking along the HP laptop and new LifeCam Show, which isn't yet available (Amazon is taking pre-orders). Microsoft announced the slender $100 Webcam about two weeks ago.
I find lots of people just assume that because I work from a home office, the beach is one of my hangouts. How romantic and how wrong. I rarely see the San Diego sky, unfortunately. But it was the weekend, and since I was going to the beach anyway, why not share a little of that San Diego sunshine? So I taped the embedded video, to demonstrate some of the new effects featured in the LifeCam 2.0 software that ships with Show.
Some folks will say Microsoft is imitating Apple's Photo Booth. But I say not. Microsoft's effects are different, and the tight integration with Windows Messenger is more social and interactive than what Apple offers with Photo Booth and iChat. I should acknowledge, gulp: There's an error in the video. Photo Booth ships with Mac OS X, not iLife.
No shock, the software records in Windows Media Video—there's no MP4 for you. The 4:08 minute clip, just 61.3MB in size, was filmed at 640 x 480 resolution. The Webcam also supports 800 x 600, but I used the lower-resolution default instead. There is rumbling sound through parts of the video, which isn't a flaw of the Webcam or the software. It was the wind blowing against the microphone.
Microsoft's newest Webcams, not just the Show, are the biggest upgrades since the company entered the category two years ago. The designs are sleeker, yet with delightful ergonomics and functionality. There is some great software extension to Windows Live Messenger. Microsoft executives blather about software plus services, but the new LifeCams go farther: Software plus hardware plus services. But I want to save this bit for when I actually review the LifeCam Show.
I was hugely disappointed by the YouTube version of the video, so I uploaded another to MSN Soapbox. The original video clip was much better. I figured why test one piece of software when I could do two. So I opened the clip in Windows Live Movie Maker and there published to Soapbox. That process created an account from the watchtips at live dot-com e-mail address. The user is listed anonymous, so I clicked the option to edit the profile. But editing the user profile would also have created a Windows Live Space. That's a little too much integration and convenience for me. I don't need another blog.
I guess Windows Live Movie Maker is tagged beta for a reason. Somehow, Movie Maker got the audio and video really out of sync. So I uploaded the raw WMV file captured by LifeCam Show. That's the one embedded above. Speaking of audio, the YouTube version may have disappointing video but the audio fidelity is better than either of the Soapbox versions.
By the way, the glare I complain about in the video is the sun off the screen. There simply was too much sun on my test system: The HP Artist Edition Notebook—Pavilion dv2800t—with a 2.2GHz Intel Dual Core processor, 14-inch display (with 1,280-by-800 resolution), 128MB discrete nVidia GeForce 8400M GS graphics (shared to 767MB), 2GB of RAM, 250GB hard drive (5,400 rpm), multi-DVD burner (with LightScribe) and Windows Vista Ultimate Service Pack 1 64-bit. The Windows Experience Index rating is 4.0.
Processing the videos took several hours, in part because I made the mistake of choosing YouTube. I created a Microsoft Watch user account there, but there was a breakdown between YouTube sending the verification e-mail to my work e-mail address. I tried four times and only succeeded by using a different e-mail address.
While I worked on the videos and wrote this post, the same episode of "Mad Men" replayed on the TV. My wife had left the televsion on. I ignored the TV until "Hello, I'm a PC" filled the room. Both 30-second spots from Microsoft's new "Windows. Life Without Walls" marketing campaign aired during the TV show.
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at live.com].
Comments (6)
The audio is out of sync, kind of makes unwatchable.
Posted by Oleg | September 22, 2008 5:47 AM
The audio is out of sync, kind of makes this unwatchable.
Posted by Oleg | September 22, 2008 5:49 AM
I'm trying to figure out the takeaway from this piece.
Is it that Microsoft has released a video camera with cool software -- it's biggest upgrade since it entered the market two years ago -- that will render an unwatchable video in an obsolete format after several hours worth of work?
Posted by Chip | September 22, 2008 10:10 AM
Re: Your question, "What does the Microsoft Lifestyle mean to me?"
It means that I am to make a contribution, no matter how small, to the goal of helping Bill Gates get back on track to become the world's first trillionaire. That's what the Microsoft Lifestyle means to me.
(At one time, the Microsoft Lifestyle meant freedom from IBM and Sun and Apple. But now that Microsoft has reached market saturation, they're a lot less friendly to me than they used to be.)
And according to Microsoft's latest advertising campaign, I'm a PC with glasses, too! Of course, my PC came without Windows and is running its fourth version of Linux (FC3, FC5, Ubuntu 7.10, and now Ubuntu 8.04), all 64-bit. But hey, Microsoft doesn't require me to run Windows on my PC for me to claim that I'm a PC by virtue of using a PC. No Walls, but no Windows either! Just wide-open freedom!
By the way, without Walls, where the heck would the Windows go anyway???. Stacked in a warehouse somewhere gathering dust???
Posted by Philosopher | September 22, 2008 11:07 AM
Seems like web cams are standard equipment on all new laptops these days. I guess the question is how many OEM deals they have since I imagine most sales come from being built into systems rather than standalone. Nice that the format works with the software. I have a JVC camcorder which produces a format that MS MovieMaker can't read, seams to only work with the Pro version of the crippleware they bundle, a real pain. I think video is one area that really really needs an good open format that can easily be exchanged by devices and software (without lengthy multi-hour conversions). At least of digital photos everyone supports JPG, even if their proprietary RAW format is claimed to be better.
Posted by smist08 | September 22, 2008 11:19 AM
@smist08:
Thanks for sharing your experiences.
FYI: The combination of iMac and iMovie directly reads from my wife's Sony HD11 camera, even (especially!) in high-def mode, and the Final Cut Express directly imports it. All in all, importing, assembling into a movie with added background sound, and burning to a DVD was as smooth as silk and easy as pie (and all that). Never used any Sony-supplied software at all.
JPEG is generally a lossy compression, and RAW format is loss-less (and usually uncompressed). Which is better depends on how much loss you can tolerate up front. JPEG's loss usually doesn't matter, but again, it all depends on the user's intended application (and degree of purist leanings, which sometimes lead to overkill).
Posted by Philosopher | September 22, 2008 1:17 PM