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Intel leaving the webcam business...

S

Sir Fredrick

Guest
I don't know if this is common knowledge or not, but I thought I'd share with you guys. This is information I received from an intel official, so there's no link for me to point to.
Anyway, as the title says, Intel is pulling out, which means that they will probably be dropping support for their webcams. So if they don't already have working drivers for your webcam available, they probably never will...same goes for software; I know the software isn't compatible with Win2k...they'll probably never change that.

So if you're in the market for a webcam, I suggest that you get something other than an Intel.
 
Too bad, the pictures and video clips I've seen from Intel cams are very decent.

Who's left in the "tethered" cam biz now? Just logitech and a handful of taiwanese manufacturers?
 
I bought my logitech pro 3000 over the Intel solely because of the Intel's crappy win2k support...and it looks like that paid off
 
heh, funny you mention that. I have their original Quickcam Pro and found out after I installed win2K that all Logitech supports is Win98... 😛
 
The Logitech QuickCam Pro 3000 is a very good camera. However, I've said this before and I'll say it again: the Philips TouCam Pro blows the doors off any other webcam out there. The Intel came very close in quality, but could not keep up with the superb framerate....or the ~$70 price. 🙂 I have access to all three cameras.
 
I see that the TouCam lineup offeres both CCD and CMOS sensors. What's the difference? Most new digital cameras I see use CCD...
 
I hope I'm not getting these mixed up.
CMOS sensors are cheap to manufacture, so you will usually see them in low end applications. They CAN be high quality if manufactured correctly, but CMOS is usually used when cost is an issue, so they cut as many corners as possible, meaning almost everything using CMOS sensors is going to be low quality.

CCD sensors are a more traditional and more expensive route, but it's easier to make a high quality CCD sensor. However, even though CMOS almost always implies low quality, CCD does not always imply high quality...there are lots of lousy CCD cameras out there.

The Philips TouCam Pro is a great camera, but its little brother that uses a CMOS sensor is a complete piece of crap; don't bother with it.

Edit: There also seems to be more variability between CMOS sensors, meaning that you could get one camera using a CMOS sensor, and get a great picture from it, but if you take another camera of the same type/brand (even from the same shipment), it may be awful - a lot of it ends up being luck of the draw, although I'd say you're more likely to get a lousy one than a good one.

These statements are based on my experience of testing a bunch of different webcams for my business, including (just the ones I can remember off the top of my head):

Philips TouCam Pro
Intel PC Camera
Intel Easy PC
Intel Digital PC Camera
Creative Webcam Go ES
A couple IBM Cameras, including the higher end one (they all suck)
Logitech QuickCam Pro 3000
3 Logitech QuickCam Web cameras which were all very different from eachother in terms of quality
IREZ Kritter (stay away!)
etc.

Not exactly a scientific study, but it gave me a pretty good idea of how this stuff works anyway.
 
How about the Vesta cams? This one has nice specs, but uses a CMOS.
This one apparently uses a CCD, but looks like a lower-end model...

[edit] Weird, the CMOS/CCD specs given at Philips' site is opposite the vendors...
 
Alright, I might have my terms backwards then...dammit, I can never keep them straight.

The Vesta Scan Pro is a pretty good camera, but more expensive and not as good as the TouCam Pro...Philips is also in the process of phasing out that line and moving over to the TouCam line, so they probably won't be supporting it much longer.
 
Yeah, I just checked the boxes of the TouCam Pro and the Vesta Scan, they're both CCD. Kind of odd that Philips couldn't get it right...it's their own camera! Oh well. 🙂

edit: oops, didn't even realize that wasn't a phillips site. I guess they probably did get it right, the vendor was just confused. 🙂
 
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