UKC

Hi folks, I'm looking to get a webcam with built-in mic for Skype use. Any recommendations out there from the great UKC masses?

I had a look at Amazon's offerings but am a bit bewildered. Some have a number of LED lights round the lens, which seems a bit overkill, or is that a 'must-have' feature? I don't have a mic at present, so that and the webcam in a single unit seems sensible. From the quick bit of research I've done, I'm guessing £20-30 should get me something reasonable.

Anything I should seriously avoid or definitely go for?

Cheers for any advice.

F

In reply to Fraser:

I bought one of these recently for about £10, HP Pro Webcam AU165AA

Works with linux and Skype, too

In reply to Dominion:

Thanks for this. How do you find it performs as the amazon.com reviews don't seem very encouraging? (nothing on .co.uk) Also, have you run it successfully on Windows (7?)

In reply to Fraser:



It's not brilliant, but unlike the majority of reviewers on amazon.com, I know how to focus a camera!






Just tried it, and it worked straight off.


But, it is cheap, and fairly low res. (640x480)

I got mine in ASDA, and it was reduced to £10. So not Amazon prices, and no delivery costs either. Not sure I'd pay more than £10 for one, but I didn't want a high quality web-cam, I wanted a web-cam that worked with Skype and linux, as my brother-in-law - who is totally non-techy - has a linux based computer and needed a webcam for Skype, and my task was to find one that just worked with linux.

In reply to Dominion:

Thanks for clarifying....and I had wondered about the focussing issue! Is this the one you have though:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-AU165AA-ABB-Pro-Webcam/dp/B00352MEJ0

...as the tech. info. lists max resolution as 1280 x 1024?

I'll check out Asda & Tesco.

my first webcam cost about £40 10 years ago! Nowadays to be honest there isnt that much difference, they all do a good job and you can pick them up on ebay dirt cheap.

In reply to yorkshirerose:

Ok, thanks - will check out "that place".

In reply to Fraser:



Looks identical to that certainly. The box on mine does say it is only 640x480 max resolution, but mine is also only a AU165AA, not a AU165AA-ABB

640x480 is fine for Skype, and to be honest as longer as you can hear the other end it's fine by me. I don't need to see the person at the far end, but 640x480 is enough for that, anyway.

In reply to Dominion:

The other thing to note about resolution is that the more resolution you have the more information you have to squirt down the phone line. I've always found VGA resolution challenging enough for our phone system I'd hate to think how a megapixel camera would perform unless you reduced the resolution back to VGA.

In reply to Removed User & Dominion:

Cheers guys, I'd wondered about what was best res. but as you say, VGA would be fine. I think the one time I tried someone else's it was even lower res. and that was sufficient.

In reply to Removed User:

Blimey, yes, I had to set up some Video Conferencing stuff up, back in the 1990s, using ISDN (64Kbps or possibly 128Kbps, I think) and back then 320x240 was what you used, and it stuttered.

Nowadays computers have enough processing power to deal with it, but 640x480 is 4 times the quantity of data...

If you want a high-end webcam for recording stuff to put on youtube at HD then fine, but for a live Skype call, you want to minimise data transmission in order to reduce stuttering and lag.

if its a HD cam it will use loads of data in the transmission and if you or your receiver pays for data by the Meg (like some people abroad do) then it soon chalks up.