Creative Webcam Live! Pro USB 2.0 WebCam

Overall a high quality webcam that produces excellent image despite the poorly lit room where it is located. The smart tracking that suppose to keep you in the center of the frame regardless of your movements does not work always as expected. I don't care about that feature that much as the ability to produce a high quality image is more important to me.

This is a great product, good features, sleak design and easy to use!

This camera enables me to chat with a friend verbally as well as visually. Beats the heck out of typing IM's or a huge phone bill! Picture and audio very clear.

I had seen others criticize the low light capabilities of this camera, so I was not disappointed when I got mine set up. Since our main use for the camera is video conversations with the kids and grandchildren, the quality of our picture is not a big issue; we just turn on some more lights if we want them to get better definition on our wrinkles and grey hair. The separate microphone is a little less convenient than those with the built-in mics, but I think we are not having the feedback problems our kids have with their's which have the built-in mics. Overall, this set up works just fine for our purposes.

Very-very simple to setup and use. The quality may not be quite HD; but is is certainly adequate, even in the low-light conditions of my office. Does exactly as advertised.

This webcam is great except for the fact that if it sees something bright somewhere in the background, it will try focusing on that. Other than that this is really great.

I think the picture on this camera is better then the Logitech Quickcam Pro 5000 and I like the othe features for capturing images triggered by a motion sensor. The picture quality is just brighter, more colorful and better.

I'd also prefer a integrated mic, as opposed to a totally separate one. The Logitech camera has better inter-operability with messaging apps, ie Skype, Trillian, etc.

I kept and use the camera in my kitchen where I might use the motion sensor to record images when I'm away and video messaging use when I'm in that room. I ended up getting 3 Quickcam Pro 5000 cameras for use in other places.

Easy installation, great picture and video quality. Great way to communicate with family and friends. Works very well with yahoo messenger and skype.

The camera had a poor picture that lacked any sharpness. Installation was easy though. I may have just received a model that got damaged during transport.

I purchased this product to enjoy the adventure of live broadcasting. I received it, and proceeded to use the CD to install it on my computer, using Windows XP Security Edition. The instruction manual was not very clear, and it took 4 attempts of deleting the install, and reinstalling it until it finally worked. There is no clear way of telling the user when it is installed properly.

Additionally, there is no tutorial with the product, so you have to self-teach the user on the various tasks that the Cam can do,

I finally got it working, and have discovered all the points, so I am now happy with the product.

During the install and self-teach episodes, I was very tempted to send the product back, and to buy a different product.




We bought two of these, one for us and another for our daughter in MT.
They were easy to instll and use. They take great snap shots as well.
Great little camera at a little price. I will be getting one for my son in Washington DC.

I got this web cam so that my husband I could stream video to each other while IMing each other(he's in Iraq). It was easy to install and I haven't had a proublem with it since. It also has great features, like motion detection. It kicks in when something moves in my house and sends me an email of it. So far its been my cat that sets it off. Plus the face detection is great as well, just make sure that theres nothing moving more than you behind you. It will focus on it rather than you. I recomend this to any one thats not Tec savy, because its so easy to use. I think my youngest one could figure it out on her own.

This is the best webcam i have ever used. I bought Creative NX Pro, but this seems better than that. I strongly recommend buyers to buy this product.

I was both pleased and disappointed by this product. I chose it from a wide field based on the reviews describing its low light performance, higher resolution, etc., but despite that, it is only marginally better than a very old IBM camera I had been using. Sure, color accuracy is by far better, but these CCD sensors have improved markedly in recent years. The software is very good, however, and very easy to use, with some novel and useful automatic features that many people will like, such as time interval snapshots. movie recording mode, time lapse mode, etc. Be prepared for your computer to to take a slight dip in performance, however, when the cam is running, as it like to use up a lot of resources. I would not recommend using this camera on a computer with less than 1 GB of memory. Otherwise the general features and quality are quite good. I just expected better, sharper, resolution in lower light. In bright light, the clarity and detail are excellent. No, I am not a mole living in an underground tunnel. Just wanted natural lighting to suffice.


I do video chats often, so I like to update and buy new webcams every two or three years. Even though according to the specifications this webcam is superior, its quality doesn't come close to my old Logitech QuickCam Zoom. I've played with its configurations but it made little difference.

What's nice about Creative's webcams is that unlike Logitech's, you can download and install only the driver (that includes the advanced features like face tracking) without the applications and useless integration with Windows Explorer. But this advantage does not compensate for the poor quality.

I use my webcam in the evenings, in a well lighted room. It is possible that in daylight it would perform better, but I believe that Creative should have done better.

Now that I have higher appreciation to my old Logitech, I'll return this one to the store, and maybe buy a new Logitech when I see a good deal.


great quality, works in all sorts of light conditions, great features... have nothing but great things to say for this webcam right now. let's hope i just didn't jinx my cam...

I bought this camera recently and found the picture to be really grainy and out of focus.I would never suggest this camera to anyone.I would recommend the Logitech QuickCam Communicate STX.I've used this webcam before and it has excellent picture quality.

Don't buy this webcam if you ever intend to use with Linux. As of Nov, 2006, it won't work under Ubuntu 6.10. Works OK in Windows but the face tracking software is useless. As usual, don't use Creative's bundled software. It sucks. Installing the driver suffice.

My brother in Germany keeps commenting on how nice the picture quality is compared to his webcam. I don't use any of the fancy features or the software that came with it, just for Skype video phone conversations. In low light situations when there's a good deal of background light (ie a no lights in the room, just a window) it's a pretty bad image, but just turn on the lights and it's great.

I bought this camera around a month back ... it does the job of streaming pictures over messenger .. but the software is crappy ...
i tried installing the software 3-4 times .. some issues with Quicktime player they say .. but never managed to click stills .. or record videos .. which should have been possible ..
the interface to their software is not very good either

all in all . it does a good job of a simple web-cam though .. nice n clear pic quality .. just that it freezes sometimes ..

I bought this webcam couple of months back and it works fine. Infact, the gace tracking feature works as it is supposed to. Also, quality is very good wneb there is sufficient light. Does not work as well as it should in dim light though.

I would recommend this webcam.

I bought it Aug 2006. After 3 months I am very satisfied with its image/vedio quality. Liked its auto-zooming feature.

I have not used this device all that much but it seems to work well.
It lives up to its claims. The "face tracking" feature is not always fast and accurate, but generaly works (in good light).
This camera does require a significant amount of light to give good results, but then again what camera doesn't.
Image quality is about as good as you will get from this type of device.

My opinion on web cam got changed with this creative web cam. The picture clarity is excellent and the aduio quality is simply supurb. Making long line short, i canot imagine my chat (with family members in INDIA from USA) without this webcam.

Thanks
ravi

excellent video on web chat, very good pics on real 1.3mpixels not with software to enhacement, I think the only bad is that yo can't place it easy because its mountig is not very stable i used a piece of velcro not included to attachit to my monitor

I have this since August, had to literally switch off the face tracking by reinstalling the camera. Face tracking is of no use while chatting as the image quality decreases with the zoom level. Its like I paid $ 7 for the mic which is handy atleast. The software took ages to load, but the quality of the image always beats anyone. Overall I would suggest to go for one version below this.

At first when I received this webcam I was a little disappointed. It seemed a bit blurry and I wasn't sure why. After adjusting the lens a little bit I could finally see everything clearly.
It's not a great deal. But it worked out for me. =D I used the Webcam Live! at first, and I can definitely notice the 30 fps.

The quality is good and conveniently fits laptops of various thichness screen sizes

For those who blamed it for blurred or jumpy motion - make sure you have a high-end computer and a USB 2 port for this webcam. I used it on my T60 and it worked great: true 30fps, as clear as what you see in movies. The color quality has room for improvement, but for this price, I will not ask more. For lighting issues, fine tune all the parameters and usually after a few minutes of trying you can get good results under both incandescent or fluorescent lights.

This is my first webcam I've ever owned and I have no complaints with this product. I mainly use it for video messaging and it works out great. I have yet to have a problem with it and it provides high quality video and pictures. The software that comes with it also is very good.

I love this webcam it is very clear, the software is very easy to install. My husband and I both have one, and I purchased one to send to my family in Scotland. You will not be disappointed with the results, I believe it is the best webcam out there to date.

You know what, I'm a person who mostly crticizes a lot of things, but this camera is indeed great.
It's very easy to setup, the camera works very well, the picture is clear and bright and the microphone sensitivity is awesome. I'm using this through Yahoo! messenger and people several thousand miles away compliment the great picture and sound quality.
The additional s/w itself has so much, that itself pays for everything. The remote monitoring s/w included is awesome. Not to mention the great other picture s/w like collage creation etc.
Overall, a great camera, I love it and will buy a few more.

The Creative Webcam Live! Pro is so much better than the Creative Webcam Live! Motion- Titanium. The picture and video recording capabilities are outstanding. It works well with Yahoo messenger. The price is reasonably cheaper. It is a very good product to use for communicating your family.


While no consumer level webcam will ever deliver the quality of a professional grade cam or even use of surveillance cameras, the Live! Pro USB 2.0 flavor of Creative's webcam does remarkably well for itself. Several different recording resolutions for the camera and use of stillshots with fairly high resolution option is excellent to have if you want to take snapshots. Installation of the webcam was a simple and quick task. Overall, I would recommend this over most other webcams on the market at this time.

I researched several video cams as I always do before I buy anything. I checked pro reviews AND customer reviews before buying the camera.

I looked at video cams of various prices & I found the Pro USB 2.0 WebCam from Creative to be an excellent buy, especially since it was on sale at a great price.

I wondered how good it would be, & it is excellent!!! It was quite easy to setup & get working right away. Shows well on the computer & of course you have to have proper lighting on yourself, as you should with any camera. Prints out quite well also.

I am quite satisfied & it didn't cost an arm & a leg like some do.

Buy it...you'll be happy you did!!!

Jerry


I purchased this item as a gift so that members of my family and I can communicate visually. It is working beautifully and now, I can share a small grandchild's special visits with her long distance Gramma! It was easy to set up and easy to use, even for a technology challenged older adult like myself.


This is a very disappointing webcam, even at a low price, for the following reasons:

- VERY POOR LIGHT SENSITIVITY. The camera is pretty much useless in ambient room lighting. If you plan to use the camera by anything other than sunlight or bright office lighting, your frame rate will drop to the 5-10 frames per second range and the image will be very red and blurry. In order to get anything close to 30 fps, you need very bright light, such as a photographic spot light or direct sunlight. This camera is simply not suitable for indoor in-home use.

- DUSTY SENSOR. The image from my camera contains numerous static white specks, probably caused by dust on the sensor, including two very annoying specks in the center of the image field. While cameras do sometimes get dust on their sensors after time, it's very unusual to see this on a brand-new, fixed-lens camera. It's suggestive of very poor quality control.

- BUGGY SOFTWARE. I installed the Creative software, which allows you to take time-lapse or motion-triggered images or movies and to transfer them automatically via a website or email. From that moment on, my computer kept freezing up and crashing until I uninstalled the software. When I did uninstall it, it apparently also uninstalled Creative files needed by my SoundBlaster sound card, because I lost all but the most basic sound functionality afterwards, forcing me to reinstall my sound card drivers and software. Major pain.

- NO LENS CAP OR PRIVACY SCREEN. I guess I'm paranoid, but I fear the possibility of getting some sort of virus that would send pictures from my webcam without my knowledge, or that I might accidentally activate the camera myself. Since there's no mechanical cover on this webcam, your only options for privacy and security are to unplug the camera when not in use or to cover it with masking tape or a sock. (You can't just turn it toward the wall either because of the one-way design of the monitor attachment.)

- INSECURE BASE. The camera's base may look like a clamp that would secure it to the monitor, but it's actually just a little tripod-like stand. It sits on the top of the display, but the only thing holding it there is its own weight. It doesn't clamp, so when you adjust the camera, it easily moves or falls.

- FACE TRACKING IS A GIMMICK THAT DIDN'T WORK FOR ME. The face tracking is implemented by having the camera follow an area of "skin tones," as the manual describes it. The instructions actually say that face tracking won't work well if you wear short sleeves, because the camera won't be able to tell the difference between your face and your arms! In my case, it also apparently could not tell the difference between my face and my tan walls. (That makes me wonder how well this design will work with people whose skin tones don't happen to match my tan walls.)

- NO BUILT-IN MIC. The box includes a cheap-o little microphone that plugs directly into your sound card, meaning you have to activate it separately each time you want to use it. Because there's a slight delay in the video stream from the webcam (~1/4 sec, depending on the lighting conditions) but no delay in the audio stream from the sound card, the audio and video are a bit out of sync.

- IMPOLITE INSTALLATION. Without asking permission, the setup program litters your computer with AOL and Yahoo promotions, including adding bookmarks and shortcuts.

I had bought this camera to replace a very outdated Intel PC Camera Pro from 5 or 6 years ago. I was hoping for a huge improvement, given the old camera's USB 1.1 connection and its age. Disappointingly, the old camera actually performs better than this camera in room lighting, giving much better color and a faster frame rate!

I am returning this camera and would strongly recommend against it.

I love this camera! It brings my son much closer to home. The picture is so clear. I have a little problem with the auto tracking so I turned that function off. Otherwise, it's worth every penny!!

As some of the other reviewers pointed out the Smart Face Tracking isn't so "Smart". It works sometimes, and at other times it doesn't. I do regret it not having a manual zoom control option which would be helpful. Other than that, the camera quality is very good, and the included mic is a very useful feature too. Great for use with a laptop with the included adjustable arms and tilt feature. For this price, I think it's a very good deal. I even got one for some of our family overseas and they found it easy to configure and use as well.

I bought this web cam in March in CC for $20 after rebates (rebates came through without issues). I am very happy with this web cam. Quality of pics is pretty good. I would like to give it around 4.5 stars for this one. The only reason I did not give 5 stars is that sometimes it auto adjusts the light - which does not give the best light quality in the video, but is still good. I would definitely recommend this one.

Easy to setup, easy to use, reasonably priced. What else could you ask for?

Excellent images. Getting the image in focus for recipient is tedious. Setup was routine.

We like this camera. No problems. So far so good.
Buy it !

The product is worth for the money paid. But it should have built in microphone.

This camera has great capabilities and great picture quality. It adjusts to all kinds of lighting without any problem. The software has features that you can't find anywhere else. It can watch the babysitter or the house and do all kinds of other good things. But it had a huge incompatibility with my system. It kept taking pictures for no reason every 1 to 2 seconds. It was filling the hard drive really quick. I contacted the manufacturer and at first, we concluded that we had a hardware problem. I exchanged the camera but unfortunately I had the same problem with the second one. I ended up sending it back and buying a Logitech instead.

After much research, I picked this camera because it wasn't too expensive and had the specs I wanted. I am very pleased with it. The picture quality is good and not jerky depending on internet connection and speed of computers involved. Good deal for your money.

This webcam has very good pic quality as well as excellent sound quality. The only drawback is with Yahoo or MSN messengers which seems to slow it down to only 320X240 resolution. If you use Skype messenger, the webcam works really fine.

Excellent buy. Great picture quality. Easy to install and adjust. Have to adjust the lighting to night time use and day time use, which is easy to do. Will highly recommend this product.

I do not have experience with many web-cams but for my needs I like this camera. Quality is great. I like the face tracking functinality of this camera.


To tell in short it is worth for money you are paying and fullfilled my purpose of webcam chat. I didn't come accross or had to use all the features of it in last one month.

(...)

Rgds
Raghu


This is perfect for Home and Personal needs. The picture clarity is too good. But the zoom is not that much effective. But overall clarity is too good

Installation was breeze, picture is good as expected.
Based on my experience with other web cams and this one. Bandwidth from either side is what controls picture.

this is a good web cam. I bought it one month back and I am using it since then. the best part of it is that, you do not need to set the focus each and every time when you change your position. the smart image sensors catches your image even while moving. Creative has done a good job. Along with the camera, I got one extra mike as well, which is an addtional feature.

I am satisfied with the web cam. It has good video quality and very useful for online webcam chat. I ve been using it to full effect. Only disadvantage , hinge to the monitor is very poor.

I am very satisfied using this camera. Quality of video is very good, picture is smooth and bright. The only problem - with microphone which is included with cam - you wont hear anything that is far than 50cm from it. So, better is to buy separate mic and enjoy the cam.

I travel a lot and I purchased this model for my desktop and the Creative Live! Ultra for Notebooks camera for my laptop. My intention was to use the two, in conjunction with MSN Messenger, to talk to the wife and two little ones while on the road via a high-speed internet connection. I won't get into every little detail, rather I will hit on the major items. These apply to both products unless otherwise stated;

PROS

- Software installation was simple
- Hardware installation was simple
- Unit worked perfect right out of the box
- Configuration took about 2 minutes
- Sync with MSN Messenger took about 30 seconds.
- Picture looks good, just as expected.
- The notebook cam comes with a decent little headset and a little carry bag for travel. The desktop version comes with an attractive little black microphone to tape to your monitor.
- The unit is very wife friendly
- I was able to teach my wife and 7 year old son how to make and receive calls on MSN Messenger in about 3 minutes.

CONS

- None noted........really!

NOTES

- I have a brand new laptop and a 1 year old desktop
- I am using USB 2.0 ports
- I am running Windows XP Home on one computer and PRO on the other. SP2 on both
- I am using only high-speed internet connections, one end is from a hotel.
- I am running the latest version of MSN Messenger
- I use my personal MSN Messenger account (the free hotmail one) on the laptop, and I setup a new account on the home computer
- My wife can barely turn the computer on and she was able to learn how to make and receive a call in a few minutes
- The camera came with a headset, but I use my laptop's built in microphone and speakers - works great. I use my desktop speakers and the supplied mic with the desktop version.
- I am very impressed with both these products. They work just as I expected and they are simple to use.

Very satisfied with this purchase. Got it two months ago, and enjoying it ever since. It is USB 2.0 camera, and in cooperation with Skype video is very smooth. Very nice surprise was the very thing that was the biggest problem with older webcams I used... low light conditions.

With this camera you get a clip on microphone. finally I could stop using tiresome headsets. I had some echo when I tried it with MSN, but with skype it is totally non existent. Finally I ordered two more, for my sister and for my parents.

I've had no problems. Installed using the supplied CD, plugged it in and had video. I can't rate it against other webcams since I haven't seen or used other models. The webcam mounts better on my flat panel monitor than on my CRT monitor. The included microphone is working OK also.
Got this model at a very good price also, so I'm very pleased.

Nice camera, but too expensive. Tracking software is basically fluff. Even though this is a 1 meg camera, the best you can do with free IM software (AIM, Y!M,) is 1/4 VGA.

Never knew we'd have so much fun! First time owner of any webcam. Roadrunner internet, by Time Warner, suggessted this webcam, after we asked them if this brand was supported, they said yes.
Very good product, very satisfied with our purchase.

No hassle installation on My XP based System. Fast video thanks to USB 2.0, no lag time. Just make sure your PC has USB 2.0 to take full advantage of this webcam. Nowadays all PCs have USB 2.0. After mail in Rebates it's a very very good deal.

be prepared to spend sometime how to use it!

1. The manual was useless! You need to play around with the settings to figure out how to use some of the features.

2. The installation to get it up and running was fast and easy. The webcam control center was simple to use but lacked some information that was needed for remote monitoring and motion detection.

3. Go to the capture catagory to turn on the audio. Otherwise, no voice/audio for your videos or when used for instant messaging. Strange why that feature was turned off from the factory.

4. Go to your firewall/virus protection to turn off scans for outgoing emails with attachments. The motion detecting feature sends emails to your email address and adds a picture as an attachment to show why the motion email alert triggered. A nice feature when viewing from a remote location but your virus protection may believe some virus invasion has occurred and will block the emails. Blocking the emails will also delay the motion detection/scans from resetting after the initial alert and will disable the entire feature indefinately.

5. I am still figuring out how the remote feature works but that is a challenge that lies ahead. Not enough background information here to help guide you along smoothly. You need to enable a webpage for yourself so pictures can be uploaded to it by the webcam control center at specified time intervals. You can review the pictures from a remote location by accessing the web page. Another nice feature.

6. This is not a $500+ remote surveillance camera with pan/tilt/zoom features with outstanding imaging but it is good for a $50 webcam that has some security features along with standard webcam features.

I consider this webcam a keeper despite some shortcomings.

Ok first off this is the pro and not the basic model or the ultra some reviews have been for the basic models.Another thing is that this cam and many others do not work with all systems so do a google search before you buy...I rate this a 5 start because its wonderful I had a labtec and well it sucked. I was skeptical of purchasing this cam yes but I bought it and everyone says the quality is wonderful.Face trackign is by default off i wouldn't recommend you having it on cause it does get annoying but I have no reason to use it.The Mic that is included is also excellent in quality having been using a build in mic on my monitor this one actually sounds better than the one in my monitor.As for annoying features I don't think so lets get this right here.There are 2 cd's for it 1 is for the drivers and 1 is for an add on from arcsoft I have them both installed and I think they are nice.The webcam center can also be disabled if you want it to.I have been on a computer now for over 14 years and I will tell you that even tho this is my first creative webcam I really do like it I've had logitech and labtech and a few other brands but this one does the job really well.Also as for the reviewr who said something about bad night time images I use this is the day time and night time and I dont need to adjust the settings there is a box called auto in the cam settings that will adjust to the lights on it own.My opinion is if you want a cam get this but before you buy read about your operating system too this is compatible with 1.1 and 2.0 usb ports I am using 1.1 and the quality is excellent.Also remember if you buy this and you dont like the default settings you can change them however way you want them.ANd yes for those wondering if it will work for yahoo with people overseas it does my uk friends are amazed at the difference between this cam and labtech and a few other cams I've had and they agree creative is the best one ive had so far.So give this cam a try

I bought the webcam aroung $25 after rebate (it took 2 months to process). For this amount of money I am perfectly satisfied with what I got. A nice webcam that gives crisp clear picture for web conferences. The settings available are not many, but enough for the average user. It does have some hard time at low light conditions but not that many to call it useless.
Now I'm waiting for another rebate offer to buy one for my brother :)
One last note though: I tried to make it work under linux with no success. I tried Fedora, Suse and Ubuntu with no luck. Maybe it was me who did something wrong. I didn't dig it too much.

I got it on rebate for 20 bucks and liked it. Value for money. Picture quality is fairly good. Not many options to adjust. However Creative is too slow at processing rebates.

I had a terrible time installing an entry level web cam from Logitech so I thought I would try Creative's alternative, but this middle level model not the cheapo. Of course its an outstanding improvement over the cheapest ones out there. This seems to be a product category that is fairly competitive so buyers get what they pay for, nor more and probably less.

The software is way less intrusive and uses minor resources, which is great. It even has an automatic function that can change the zoom if I decide to stand up or walk around

I been using this camera for a month. I think picture quality is very good; both motion and still image. Amazon delivered me this product on time. I gave 4 star because of the size of the camera. Yes you can use both for desktop and notebook. But for notebook it is big and you cannot attach to your notebook just hang on it.

I tried to set up remote monitoring and had a question on two fields in the set up. The manual didn't have the answer so I logged a question via email. I tried it twice because both technicians just referred me to the manual or provided a small amount of information that was completely unrelated to the question.
I opened a call and after being on hold for 10 minutes was told that they don't support remote monitoring even though it's part of their product. I asked to talked to a supervisor, was put on hold for another 5 minutes, and then was told by the same person that the supervisor is just going to tell me the same thing. When I requested a call back he agreed and started to hang up. I asked what phone # he was going to use and he gave some # that wasn't even close to mine.
This product may be good once you get it set up, but I'll never buy another product by this company due to the extremely poor customer service.

Install and sets up easily. However the supplied lapel mic is not sensitive enough. You must hold it up to your mouth or nobody hears you.


I only used this product one time. I felt it is pretty good camparing with my previous used Creative Webcam with USB 1.1. I am happy with the product with its cost.

I was looking for a good webcam and settled on this.
If there is any con, it is only that it cant be used on a mac.
Other than that, the install is very easy. Just plug it onto ur notebook screen, push in the USB connector, and install the drivers when XP asks for it.
The quality of the image even in the fastest speed mode is photoquality when made large size. No dots or noise visible. At night, quality does go down, however only if there is not enough light. If its a well lit room, you will not have visible distortion at all.
A really worthy and great buy.

Good and effecient. Product received in good condition and in timely manner.

Well i am pretty statisfied with the webcam, althought the performance is not the best in low light but i think its the same case with all webcams in this price range.
the Face Tracking and Motion Detection feature is real nice and works pretty good. The webcam clips nicely to any laptop or desktop screen.
U must install the software that comes with this webcam to see an image that is good in brightness and contrast by adjusting the brightness and contrast in the software otherwise the image would be dark.
Overall a nice webcam.

I tried another cam before this that was much cheaper. You get what you pay for. This cam installed very easily and fast on a Dell w/ WinXP Media Center and 528mem 40gb hd, usb2. The s/w it comes with can be used to take photos & video w/ the cam. It saves photos as jpeg & movies as avi. If you have the right lighting & distance from the cam, it has decent quality. For the price, don't expect the world of quality here, it is afterall a midrange priced web cam & not a million pixel digital camera. It worked fine with Yahoo Messenger, Hotmail, and couple other apps that I use it for. Others on the other end, said the quality was as good as most other webcams used for casual use...even with a 56k modem. The review about only good in daylight isn't 100% correct. You just need good lighting esp behind the cam lighting up what you what to appear. I haven't tried the motion detector functionality much but it seemed easy to use w/ the software provided w/ installation. I haven't tried the email feature in the software yet. With the software running I could easily use the button on top of the cam to take pics. All in all, this cam is worth the price. I did get a $20 rebate from the maker which made it all the better.


After looking around at different webcams and then seeing the deal Amazon had on the Creative Live! Pro ($42 after savings and rebates), I gave this one a shot. I was not disappointed. I had no problems installing the software and was quickly able to get the Creative WebCam to work with Yahoo IM. I have been very pleased with this product.


In short this camera delivers the goods. Perfect picture in low or bright light. 1 hint with all webcams make sure you don't have a bright line on behind the subject, it should come from behind the camera.

"Moreover, its 640 by 480 VGA resolution is double that of a traditional 320 by 240 webcam."

Whoever wrote the product description needs to doublecheck his/her pixel math. It's actually "quadruple" the resolution.

I was amazed at what this Webcam can do... it has a perfect
picture on my PC and my deaf Mom Loves it!! My Mom is Deaf
and I use this WebCam to communicate with her over the Internet
and we can sign for hours and even though she is in New Jersey and I am in Georgia, its just like being there live in her
living room and we are SOOOO happy...
Thank You so much for the enjoyment our lives have now... its
been a REAL Blessing !



God BLess!
Harold Knapp

I purchased this webcam to chat with my family, so the only requirements I had were that it give consistent good quality in bright light or low light. I use the webcam at night mostly, and this webcam doesn't work very well in nighttime lighting. When exposed to artificial light, it doesn't know how to handle the brightness well automatically, and you have to change some of the configurations, specifically in the brightness, to adjust to your indoor lighting. The webcam should do this for me but it doesn't do a good job of it. In the daytime, however, it works great and the transmission is a lot smoother than at night. With nighttime usage, I get a strange ghost trail from any movement, whereas in the daytime there is none of that at all. I do not use the facial autofocus very much or very often, but it does work well.

Before buying this, I tried the Creative WebCam for Notebook, which had a great design, but horrendous quality (even the software felt like it was written in a day). I was pleasantly surprised to find out how good this one is, and at just a moderate increase in price. Bright picture, great resolution, fabulous software. Though I have only used it through USB 1.0 so far, it's supposed to take advantage of the higer speed of USB 2.0, enabling you to record 640x480 videos at 32 frames per sec. The motion detector functionality is a terrific bonus!

The only problem I have had so far is that the email feature of the motion detector is not working, but I am sure it will be worked out.

Lovely image, actually. But the face-tracking leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe it's just my shiny head that confuses it, but it usually ends up tracking with my eyes at the very bottom of the frame. Also: if the face tracking lets the camera zoom in that far, why isn't there a plain old zoom feature? I like sitting about 3 feet from the thing...but the field-of-view is so wide then... Also: focusing is a bear. The lens wobbles when turning the focus-ring.
I won't return it, but I won't buy another one, either.