Show-stopper for me

[Tim]

Gene Heskett:
>>> even a $70 dollar webcam is, photographicly speaking, a POS.

Tim:
>> I'm not surprised.  That's still damn cheap.  And webcams are generally
>> designed to manage to get some sort of picture in bad lighting, rather
>> than be very good.

Anne Wilson:
> Tim, I know my Philips webcam was cheap, but it used to work with 
> GnomeMeeting.  The picture was clear and the colour not too far out.

My "I'm not surprised" comment was about the photographic ability...
Sure, you can get some interesting features in a webcam, but they're not
a patch on a real camera.

I have this rather awful "WonderEye" camera, which doesn't have a mic.
It works with FC4 and FC5 (I haven't tried FC6, yet).  I notice that FC5
crashes if I unplug it, whether or not the camera was in use.  FC4
doesn't do that.

I can't imagine an OS having any affect on the sharpness of the picture.
That's an optics and electronics issue.  Though computer contol of video
gain might add noise and that could smudge things if there's a poor
attempt at noise reduction.  And trying to use a low-res device on
something that wants more pixels, which doubles up to simulate things,
can make things look even worse.  Colour is yet another thing, as white
balance (tinting) is controlled by the computer.

I'd be quite surprised at any USB camera doing what I'd consider to be a
good job.  They're designed for a rather low-spec job (low-res, and
heavy compression for a low transmission bandwidth).  High-res wouldn't
be of much good over the internet, anyway.  Especially with the common
compression protocols being used.

-- 
(Currently testing FC5, but still running FC4, if that's important.)

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
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