Microsoft LifeCam Cinema HD

Muso · 27 May 2011 at 16:44

Hey guys

I've got a Microsoft LifeCam Cinema HD for recording myself playing guitar and the performance of it seems quite poor. I've never really used web cams but it seems to not be in real time and lots of motion blur. The Frames per second seems to jump around which I find weird, I've got windows 7 64 bit on a decent spec machine. The higher resolution I run the camera the slower it gets. Does anyone know if theres some alternate software to use or are web cams just crao like this even the more expensive ones?

Cheers

Muso · 29 May 2011 at 08:35

Nobody know anything about webcams then?

kedge · 29 May 2011 at 11:25

Did you setup the LifeCam software ok?. 30 fps looks about average?.

What i am curios about is the following: Whenever the ‘actual footage’ frames are shown in the video, the material appears to ‘flicker’, which leads me to suspect that the camera doesn’t really record at 30fps. Is the assumption correct?

Hi CC, any of the new HD webcams are capable of doing 30fps. This said, it will depend on the lighting conditions. If the lighting conditions are bright, the webcam will reach 30fps but if lighting conditions are dim, the webcam will drop the fps to help provide a brighter image. We ensure that the fps are never dropped to a level that makes the video look choppy. You will see in the last part of the video that even when recorded in dim light the actress’ face is bright while the video looks smooth.

Webcams - Lights, Camera, Happy Birthday! - Microsoft Mouse, Keyboards & Hardware – Microsoft Hardware Blog

jax_5 · 29 May 2011 at 17:18

Have you tried using the latest drivers? (can be found here). There was a driver update that enhanced recording soon after initial release.

kedge said:
Hi CC, any of the new HD webcams are capable of doing 30fps. This said, it will depend on the lighting conditions. If the lighting conditions are bright, the webcam will reach 30fps but if lighting conditions are dim, the webcam will drop the fps to help provide a brighter image. We ensure that the fps are never dropped to a level that makes the video look choppy. You will see in the last part of the video that even when recorded in dim light the actress’ face is bright while the video looks smooth.

Lighting is vital plus FPS seems to increase when you record in lower quality.

Unfortunately, webcams currently are no replacement for camcorders. The two best webcams on the market today recording in 1080p seem to be the Logitech C910 and Microsoft Lifecam Studio.