Original URL: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/06/13/review_creative_live_cam_optia_af/
Review The Optia AF is Creative's 13th webcam branded under its Live! banner, but the first to feature both an auto-focus lens and a two-megapixel image sensor.
Aesthetically, the Optia AF is a handsome piece of kit. The webcam's main body is jet-black with a multi-axis swivel that allows it to be tilted up and down by up to 270°, and turned to the left and right to a smaller extent.
A blue LED band lights up around the webcam's left-hand edge to indicate when it's just been plugged into a USB port or is capturing an image. The camera clips onto a clear plastic stand which functions as monitor clip or base depending on where and how you wish to place it. A hinged clip folds out from underneath the base, but its 6cm depth and loose fit meant it sat uncomfortably on our Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop's screen and was prone to falling off. However, the rubber grips on the base meant it stayed securely on tables and CRT monitors.
A long USB lead - around 1.7m - exits from the back. The USB cable's length did become annoying after a while and so a Bluetooth version would be a huge connectivity improvement in our minds.
Clever software means that the image displayed on screen is always the right way up if, for example, you flip the camera around while it's clipped onto a laptop screen - provided it doesn't fall off, that is.
We liked the privacy mode, which lets you rotate the camera so that the lens faces downwards and slots into the stand. This deactivates the lens without the need to quit the software and also protects the lens should the webcam fall off the screen again.
The Optia AF has two microphones to the left of the lens. According to Creative, this "adaptive array" of microphones should provide "superb noise cancellation" to give us "clean and clear voice communication". But in tests we had to speak very closely to the webcam for it to pick up clearly what we were saying, but it did seem to filter out London's traffic noise when we used it near open windows.
You can turn the noise-reduction off and you can apply audio effects to your voice, such as duck and robot sounds, which kept us amused for a few minutes.
Creative bundles the Optia with its Live! Cam Center control panel, which works with Live! Cam Console - an instant messaging app with two modes: Live! Audio and Live! View. Live! View lets you control exposure levels, brightness, contrast and colour and to swap between the auto and manual focus. However, we found the auto-focus to be very effective. There are also options to pan and tilt the lens from within the software, but doing this manually is more effective. We could also apply video effects to the image on screen, which tracked us around the page and were pretty funny really.
Jim, what were you thinking?
The software's Smart Face Tracking feature is supposed to track facial movements automatically around the screen to keep the face constantly in the video frame, but instead it just messed up the expose level and made the onscreen image unclear.
Back in Live! Cam Center there are four main options: photo capture, video recording, motion detection and remote monitoring. And you can password-protect it, to stop the kids embarking on long video sessions.
Photo capture allows you to capture impressive eight-megapixel - 3200 x 2400 - images from the webcam, though you can grab a range of smaller sizes down to 320 x 240 to make the pics easier to email. You can set a timer to wait for three, five or ten seconds before the pic's taken, should you wish to organise a group shot or get your own pose just right.
Sadly, the Optia AF has still not quite overcome that juddery feeling . Live! Cam Center's video recording options are much the same as the photo capture mode's. With a Hi-Speed USB 2.0 link, the raw image data can be sent from the webcam to a PC or a Mac without compression, at 30 frames per second.
While this may sound smooth and the two-megapixel lens helped considerably, it still resulted in frustratingly jerky videos on screen. During tests, we found there to be about a 1-2 second lag when moving around in front of the webcam.
The Optia AF's motion detection and remote monitoring functions are much the same as one another. Motion detection will capture a video for a pre-defined period of time whenever it senses movement and then post that video to a pre-defined email address. To test this, we hooked the webcam up to our test Dell laptop and put it and the webcam into the stationary cupboard. No sooner had our Phantom Biro Thief turned up to repopulate his red pen reserves, than we were emailed a WMV file - the only option available - of his sticky fingers. Unfortunately, we only captured his hands though, so he's still at large...
Remote monitoring captures still images at predefined intervals, say every 30 minutes, and uploads them onto a customisable FTP site where each image is listed according to its time stamp. Of course, the major drawback is that because the webcam is not wireless you will most likely only be left with the pictures of a thief stealing your laptop and webcam while you're away on holiday.
After spending several hours becoming familiar with the Optia AF's capabilities, we set-up a scenario in which to test its ability to capture and transmit video across Skype, though Creative claims it's compatible with both MSN and Yahoo Messenger too. We had problems getting MSN to work, but with Skype we managed to initiate a video conversation in a little under 30 seconds.
On the remote machine, we found though that the video captured by the Optia AF was very washed out and jerky, while the sound quality meandered between good and not so good - although it managed to filter out the background noise of espresso machines in the Wi-fi equipped cafe at the other end of the link.
After tinkering around with exposure and colour levels through the Live! Cam Console, we managed to get a half-decent video displayed on the Asus laptop in the office. However, the quality was still not as good as that displayed by the Optia AF when being used to capture an photo or video of the person sat directly in front of it. So, no matter how good the webcam, it's the network that's ultimately going to determine the quality of video calls.
The Optia AF is a solid webcam from a vendor that certainly knows its business. Impressive-quality still images and rich software functionality combine to make this a firm choice for taking pictures or securing an empty property. Unfortunately, a juddery performance as a webcam means that the Optia AF doesn't stand out from the crowd here and will only win sales based on its two-megapixel ability and good looks.
 | Creative Live! Cam Optia AF |
| Summary | A good choice to take still images at your computer, but a mediocre attempt at an innovative webcam... |
|---|---|
| Rating | 65% |
| Price | £50 (€74/$98) |
| More info | Creative Live! Cam Optia AF page on Creative's website (http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=218&subcategory=219&product=16425) |
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