5 posts tagged “webcam”

Since Triangle TV closed in Wellington, I have not been able to watch al-Jazeera as often as I used to. As I was asked to be on the July 31 edition of Listening Post, commenting on Kim Jong-Il and the media, I thought it would be worth sharing with more of you, especially if you are equally hampered by access to the news network. (Apologies to my Vox neighbourhood who will see two entries to the same video.) I think this marks my fifth or sixth appearance—I seem to have lost count.

My colleague Marie and I were chatting about travel and webcams, and wound up surfing to one for Times Square, New York City. This lady, chatting on her cellphone, waved at the camera twice—of course it was a coincidence, but it wasn’t half spooky.

Times Square webcam

Logitech keeps insisting that the problem with my QuickCam is installation. Of course: Logitech itself can do no wrong. It must be my fault.
   Although the chap was faultlessly polite and courteous, I’m getting sick of hearing, ‘Uninstall and reinstall,’ as the tech support solution to everything.
   I know the QuickCam I have works with Skype Video and I have now discovered that it works with Windows Media Encoder. Surprise: it does record segments as long as I want them! It doesn’t conk out at will! The program is free as long as your Windows is legit.
   For anyone else whose Logitech QuickCam stops recording at will, there’s my answer. Give up the original software and use WME instead.

I went back to Dick Smith and swapped yesterday’s faulty webcam for a new one costing twice as much. It kind of works, and I kind of got my al-Jazeera Listening Post spot done, but the set-up remains buggy. The main problem now is that the software stops recording whenever it damn well likes. I also have not found anything on Logitech’s tech support pages about this, or about a massive black band appearing on the left of the screen in certain situations (which situations, I don’t exactly know). Maybe there is some convention that webcammers know of to prevent these automatic turn-offs—but I sure don’t, since I missed that memo.
   This was to be a shout-out to Randy and everyone at a private Vox group, but I thought it was funny where it stopped. It’s like the program knows its masters were being criticized (cue Twilight Zone music).

Video 23

I walked inside and asked if they did circumcisions, as I had recently converted to the Jewish faith. The guy there looked at me puzzled and said, ‘But this is an electronics’ store. How could you possibly get the idea that we would do circumcisions?’
   ‘But it’s on the front of your shop,’ I replied.
   ‘Show me,’ he demanded.
   So I did. Emblazoned on the front of his shop were the words, in Avant Garde Gothic Bold, uppercase, ‘Dick Smith’.

I am joking about the above, and no, I am not Jewish. But I did go to Dick Smith Electronics today and bought a Logitech QuickCam Go webcam after having been asked to appear on al-Jazeera. From there, the problems began. After all, it is the tail end of Mercury retrograde.

• Got home to find that the sealed box was missing the stand.
• Went to a nearer Dick Smith store to be told that they had sold out, but a customer return of the same product had a stand, and that was given to me.
• Began installing software. The box claims it’s very easy: install software; plug in camera; video instantly. The instruction menu warned me to not plug in the camera till prompted.
• Installation froze about three-quarters of the way through. Had to crash out of the program.
• Restarted installation. Program took four minutes to start from the time the CD-ROM was reinserted.
• Installation was slow and took nearly half an hour. At no point was I prompted to ever plug in the camera into the USB port.
• Installation program alerted me, despite the status bar having reached five-sixths of the way, that I should reboot my computer. I clicked ‘OK’. As I did so, the remainder of the installation continued while other programs were crashing around me.
• The installation completed as everything else was shutting down, in the nick of time. A second prompt about rebooting appeared. Still no prompt to plug in the camera.
• Computer rebooted. Started Logitech’s program. It complains that I have not plugged in the camera. I plug it in.
• It asks for a sound check. Lo and behold, it turns out that this device has no microphone built in. Not that there was any warning about this other than a line in the instruction manual. In other words, a regular Joe would not know that he had to buy an optional accessory to be heard. And I am not appearing on telly with my regular headphones on.
• The camera supposedly stands on top of the monitor. I’d like to see it done. Yes, I do have a flat screen. I just assumed the stand would be designed to accommodate both. It isn’t: you need a CRT for it to work. Otherwise, it’s out with the Scotch tape.

   This comedy took around an hour to see its way through, from the time the stand was supplied by Dick Smith (whose service, I should note, was excellent).
   Let’s see how they are when I take this piece of crap back.
   As with most software and hardware I have bought of late, remember the golden rule: do the opposite of what the manual tells you and all will be fine.

So, do you reckon Dick Smith sells Viagra?