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StarCam Clip è Racer - MSI webcams |
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Written by Stuyo
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Tuesday, 04 March 2008 |
Page 5 of 6
Page 5 - StarCam Racer testing
Well, it is the time to begin the tests of the webcam itself. Below is a picture of the camera in night shot mode:
StarCam Racer has two buttons on the side – one is to turn on and off the night shot mode, the other is for quick shot. Interesting feature is the IR remote – you can take shots form everywhere in the room provided you have direct visibility using any IR remote control (we tested with a computer remote and a TV remote).
The True Plug&Play function also is an interesting detail. We only had to plug the webcam and start using it for videoconference (we used Skype). The microphone also doesn’t need any installation. The camera software gave us no trouble. It offers twice the fun effects of the Clip software and also some additional settings. The autofocus function is a big advantage. Interesting additional function is “Autoface” –the camera follows your face which makes the image less smeared when you move your head and also uses the “Zoom” function to focus the picture on it. This function you can see in the videos below. In the bundle we again have the My Guard Video security software, which as mentioned before turns your webcam into video surveillance and motion detection unit.
MSI StarCam Racer has 1.3 MPix sensor which allows 1028x1024 resolution in hardware. Everything above it is achieved through software interpolation and degrades the quality. The pictures below are taken at normal room lighting and at the absence of any except from the computer screen. We used the following resolutions for the pictures (for original resolutions click on every image):
640õ480
800õ600
1024õ768
The video quality is visibly better than the Clip model but is still far from photographic or professional videoconference quality.
We recorded some videos to demonstrate the abilities of the device. The first one is made at normal room lighting, the second is at absence of such. We used the Autoface function which presented more clear image when moving:
The quality as you can see is better here than at the previously tested webcam, but still is not enough for professional purpose (the webcam sensor there is up to 2 MPix). The night mode is pretty strong, as you can clearly see. At the time of recoding we played background music to test the microphone sensitivity. The music is clearly heard in the video. Also speech is very clearly heard, on the whole the microphone is sensitive and very suitable for its purpose.
Here are some screenshots of the special effects provided by the software:
