QuickCam Pro 9000: Skype in HD

Many friends and family members live abroad or just plain far away. In order to keep in touch, I frequently use Skype, and in the past few years or so, Skype Video. I was initially hooked by Skype's amazing voice quality (and the fact that it was free!), but Skype Video adds a whole new dimension to everything. Bandwidth speeds have gotten good enough (even across entire oceans and continents) that it's now feasible to have a full-screen Skype Video conference call and literally "hang out". For me personally, this must be one of the biggest and most profound changes that technology brought about in the past few years.

Up until recently, I've been using a Creative WebCam Live! for video calls. The camera does a pretty decent job, but it has two important shortcomings: the images are a bit darker than I'd like, and its field of view is narrow enough that it has difficulty fitting more than one person, or even capturing what I'm doing unless I sit pretty still. So I decided a few weeks ago to look for a webcam with a wide-angle lens. The two main contenders appear to be Creative Live! Cam Optia Pro and Logitech's QuickCam Pro 9000.

The reviews for the Optia are pretty mixed, and echoed some of the same issues I'd had with the current Live! model. In contrast, the QuickCam model not only has a wider field of view, but it also has an exceptional Zeiss lens, and a very good reputation in on-line reviews. Both cameras are labeled as "HD-quality" (probably to capitalize on the HD buzz that's going around). Off the bat, I'd actually consider this a bad thing since it puts considerably more strain on internet bandwidth, but I figured that there might be a software setting to dial it down if the video conference starts to stutter. The QuickCam is a bit more expensive than the Optia, but with some luck (a timely Amazon rebate), it came out cheaper, so I went for it.

Upon installation, the camera behaves very well. The image quality is very crisp (Zeiss never disappoints), the angle is nice and wide (it's able to easily fit 2 or 3 people in the picture). But the most amazing feature is Logitech's "RightLight 2" technology, which makes images far brighter and easier on the eye. In almost all light conditions (natural, halogen, evening, etc.) the camera delivers stunning, well-balanced images automatically. If you've ever had problems with webcams in low-light conditions before, you really owe it to yourself to try this camera, it "just works". The built-in microphone is a nice touch, it removed one more wire and device off my desk, and the noise and echo-canceling technology is very good as well.

When it comes to Skype, the camera's drivers auto-detect Skype and auto-configure it to use the webcam as its video and audio source (a nice touch). Unfortunately, the default software that comes on the CD is incredibly buggy, it crashes Skype reliably, and is very hard to get right. After an hour of frustration, I found an updated version of the software on-line that is far more stable and works as intended with Skype. One remaining mildly annoying tid-bit is that right after you start a video call, the camera occasionally "resets" a few seconds into the call (which really means that it skips about a second's worth of video), but after that it's solid.

Although the camera is HD, Skype doesn't miss a beat: the video calls are crisp, clear, and clearly feel more like "high-definition" than with the previous webcam. I imagine that Skype probably automatically dials down the video quality to keep up with network traffic, but if the bandwidth is there, it will use it, and what a difference it makes!

All in all, I'm very happy with this camera, and I highly recommend it, it will make video calls feel that much more real and enjoyable.