http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/ Engadget Comments for FaceVsion ships its 720p TouchCam N1 to vowel-averse Skypers http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/May 25th 2010 10:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/I need a new webcam -- this logitech orbit AF is trash.
It will only do 5fps at the higher resolutions and the quality is just terrible.

What is the best webcam to get these days that has an H.264 hw encoder, has a decent framerate as well (30fps@720p), and will work with Skype HD, as well as 3rd party capture software?]]>May 25th 2010 10:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/There is a 720P camera out from Microsoft called the LifeCam. They claim it does 30FPS at 720P. I haven't personally tested it though. We bought several of them for our sales offices around the country and have been happy enough with them. The quality is great and it has several decent features. For $80.00 I don't really see you finding a whole lot better out there. As for the hardware encoder - your CPU is very much over the top for rendering 30fps 720P video. It shouldn't be an issue at all.

Check it out here:
http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/digitalcommunication/productdetails.aspx?pid=008
[Microsoft.com]]]>May 25th 2010 11:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/Thanks..I've seen the lifecam but I dunno about the no encoder thing.
Maybe I will wait for a better one that has an encoder and can do 30fps.
I have FIOS so I have very quick uploads, so that shouldn't be a prob.]]>May 25th 2010 11:46AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/
USB2.0 limits you to about 200Mbps sustainable bit rate, so at 2Mp you will only get to ~5fps. The Orbit AF does have JPEG encoding to get the frame rate up but Skype can't use that. That camera has quite a big sensor (relatively speaking) so I wouldn't expect you will find another more recent one will outperform it, unless you have a dud one...]]>May 25th 2010 1:40PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/Then how are all these new cameras like the ones in this article getting 20-30fps at 720p?
The logitech orbit AF can do 30fps but only at VGA resolution....
I don't think the USB 2.0 throughput has _anything_ to do with it...
480Mbps is plenty bandwidth for decent framerates...firewire is only 400 and people have been using that to do HD capture for years now.]]>May 25th 2010 2:12PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/
There are a small number of hd cameras out there which are all better than this due to the low framerate, avoid this at all costs! H264 onboard encoders arent needed unless you have an old pc so that should really factor into your decisions.

I'm sure in 18 months time HD cameras will go down alot in price and they will become alot more common.]]>May 25th 2010 10:20AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/Thanks for the specs...20fps is unacceptable for a camera that costs more than 100$. I am kind of on the fence about an onboard H.264 encoder -- it's a good thing today but CPUs are always getting faster. I don't have a nehalem yet tho, still running a Q6600, so I think as this point I would be better off getting a cam with an integrated encoder.

So..what's the verdict engadget...best 720p webcam that can do a
solid 30fps and works with skype hd and has integrated h.264 encoder?]]>May 25th 2010 10:32AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/May 25th 2010 10:33AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/May 25th 2010 10:39AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/
What is this site, some kind of "walled garden"??
It's not very "open" of you to do this. ]]>May 25th 2010 11:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/I'd like a camera w/ onboard hw encoder,720 and 22fps+.

If none, then I'll buy MS.

(I agree w/ Gazoobee... "Again, Engadget prints a whole article about a product without a link to the product").

]]>May 25th 2010 11:55AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/I want that.

I am back to the facevsion. (unless someone has better one plz).]]>May 25th 2010 11:56AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vgdorsUFEI]]>May 25th 2010 12:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/A fast PC wont solve the problem that you are trying to get HD video over USB2.0, which is (in reality) limited to about 200Mbps (you can't reach/sustain the 480Mbps theoretical limit due to protocol overheads).

1280x720 image x 30fps x 16bits/pixel = ~440Mbps

...that is why you need in-camera compression to get to 30fps at HD resolution.

Of course once you get the video over to the PC then your processor is the next limiting factor (along with your ISP :-) H.264 encoding is still very, very heavy lifting for most PCs and you probably need a quad core processor to handle that plus all the heavy duty audio processing and encryption that Skype uses (if you want 30fps).]]>May 25th 2010 1:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/
Your math is off. It's not 16 bits/pixel. It's 16 (or 8) bits per channel (RGB) for a total of 24 or 48 bits per pixel.]]>May 25th 2010 2:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/25/facevsion-ships-its-720p-touchcam-n1-to-vowel-averse-skypers/May 25th 2010 5:04PM