Web Cam information please

Legacy_user

My daughter-in-law's brother emigrated to NZ last week and already they are looking into using web camera's, and above all, they are asking ME for info, a silver haired retired gent approaching 65. The reason they are coming to me, is that "I have all the time in the world to find these things out, especially on "that site" I'm always raving about" !.

Does it matter about the price you pay ?
Do they have to be compatible with anything?
Do some flicker whilst others do not ?

Please, let me be the bearer of good tidings.

Edinburghlass_2

Me again ;D

My daughter uses the little freebie digital camera that I got from signing up for Which. Works quite adequately on MSN, but I am no expert

chalky_bertie

We bought our web cams from Argos ages ago when they were BOGOF - we decided we were not going to pay a fortune for one. Works very well with Messenger from Microsoft and not sure if this is the case but it seemed to work alot better when we got broadband.

There is also a microphone option on messenger to talk to people but if anyone could help i cant get it to work - it allways says there is an error.

This could be useful if you could get it to work.

Allexie

It could be your firewall interfering with the microphone option...it happened to me. Works just fine when I turn Zone Alarm off. Trouble is remembering to turn ZA back on again sharpish after the conversation! :-/

scheming_gypsy

one the flickering issue i find it's usually down to your connection. Trying to send and receive streaming video on a 56k dialup (running at around 42k) is going to struggle compared to a decent speed broadband connection

Edinburghlass_2

Island_Man, if you read the thread on Serious Bargains at PCW in Grab it While You Can, there is a webcam there for £2.99. Aiptek webcam code number 991829 but when I enter the code number in PC World's website nothing comes up so not sure what it is like.

I am going to have a look today so will let you know later by pm what its like!

Edinburghlass_2

Thanks for that Sheel, I was all round the web last night trying to find if that was the correct one! Saw it in Dixons but didn't notice the product number. Off to PCW now, lol.

System

Since my original posting, I've found the webcam THEY bought me one Christmas, never been used. It is a Labtec and says its for windows XP (which I haven't got, mine is '98, mind you HIS is XP,do you think he was telling me something?)

Joe_Bloggs

You may well have Win98 drivers and application software on the CD that came with the the webcam.
They splashed XP over the box to make it seem up to date. I'm sure there is a directory on the CD for your PC.
operating system.
They also do drivers for Win98 here
http://www.labtec.com/
They are rather large at 32Mb for dialup users.
J_B.