User Experience & Interaction Design

Creative Live! Cam - Chat is the basic Web Camera from Creative's stable. It has a unique three-log stand that looks cute and exudes a fashion statement for Professionals. The back leg is foldable and the camera is mounted firmly on its place.

Features
- VGA CMOS Sensor
- Can capture Snapshots and Video upto 800x600 JPG and 800x600 at 15fps
- Focus ring
- 2 year warranty

Installation
As the booklet says, install the drivers first and not the web camera. During the driver installation, you will be asked to plug-in the web camera. At that time, plug-in the camera in a free USB slot and the driver will continue installing further. Interestingly, the installation software attempts to hook a startup entry in windows boot so that when you restart the computer the automatic-software-update and program registration will appear. Many firewalls may scream at that hooking attempt. Just allow the hook. No issues anyway. You will be asked to restart the system once the installation is completed.



The drivers and accompanying web cam suite called "Live! Cam Center" software is pretty basic and very easy to use. The Live! Cam software allows you to take snapshots and video in multiple resolutions. It has a handy gallery in the right panel. The default video formats supports are AVI and WMV. The default still image formats supported are JPG and GIF. The camera software supprts two color models. The i420 and RGB color spaces.


Performance
Creative Live! Cam Chat features an automatic tuning feature (software based) which enhances the video according to the light and ambience that surrounds you. Infact you dont even need to adjust any settings like in any other web cams.

The video is perfect and clear. No noise is observed even in low lights. But if the room is overly bright then, bleaching (over exposure) may appear. Overall the quality is fine.

What to expect from this Web Cam?
Though the camera features a VGA sensor, it does not capture video at 640x480, 30fps resolution (only 15fps is possible). So that puts this cute cam in the basic camera category. But through software interpolation the camera can capture video upto 800x600 at 15fps. The camera's sweet spot performance for video is - 320x240 at 30fps. And for Still image is - 640x480.

Worth mentioning is the zero-noise in low-light and good focus. The focus is better than any other webcam in its level, and overall the cam offers better clarity with good color space handling.

Pros
- Zero Noise in Low light
- Good focus
- Auto Tuning works really good
- Good color space and clarity in video
- upto 320x240 video in 30 fps

Cons
- No 30 fps support for 640x480 and 800x600 video.
- No Integrated Microphone.


Conclusion
At Rs.650 on street, Creative's Live! Cam Chat is a value-for-money entry level Web Camera with Good video and image quality.