Customer Reviews

Creative Labs Live Ultra Webcam VF0490

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I just installed Creative's Live Ultra Webcam and Live Ultra Webcam Notebook Version on my two computers and tested our videoconferencing with each other. The true USB 2.0 connection struck me as an advantage in purchasing this item. For the most part, I am happy. The quality of the video is good. I activated the feature that causes the camera to zoom in and out automatically to track the face of the user, and it worked quite well in "continuous" mode. There is one clear glitch, which is that on both of my computers (Win XP) I cannot get the computer to recognize the cam without disconnecting and reconnecting the USB connection each time I reboot. Creative's tech support people initially suggested just reinstalling the software, which was the lazy way out and did nothing but waste my time.

I used Yahoo Messenger to arrange the videoconferencing. I found the instructions for doing this pretty useless, but eventually I figured it out (I think). Making the connection is one challenge. Getting the connection to work at a tolerable speed (what Yahoo calls Super Webcam mode) is darn near a mystery, though with enough trial and error it happens. (Given that Creative Labs promotes Yahoo Messenger and vice versa, I cannot fathom why so little attention was given to instructing purchasers of this webcam how to use Messenger. Companies that make add-ons routinely make silly mistakes with instructions that only serve to drive up their costs of service and aggravate their customers, but that's a broader subject.) I have a personal firewall via my virus software, and I think it may have helped to ratchet that back.

Modest irritants aside, the product itself seems very solid, and once you get it working it's easy to use the features and the quality is good.

I only wanted to spend 50 bucks for a webcam, and I saw this Creative Labs Live! line. I actually intended to buy the regular Live, and not the Ultra, based on what people were saying. When I got to the store, though, all the info people kept raving about was mostly actually details about THIS camera, that they had confused with the more basic version. I haven't used the Live! but I can tell you this is worth the price so it's certainly worth the difference in price.

Not only is it quick and easy to install but the picture quality is great. For some people at high-res video it might be a little grainy (colored noise I mean) but it's nothing you pay attention to. The thing that surprised me is you can EDIT the video with sliders! Color saturation, gamma, contrast, etc... like the basic Photoshop of video, even while the feed is taking place. Comes with a cute headset, plenty of options and file formats. It even looks cool. This feels ritzy to own, but because of how functional it is, and how good it is at doing what it's supposed to. Pleasantly surprised, and glad it worked out this way.

I purchased the Creative Labs Live Ultra WebCam VF0060 for my home PC. Unfortunatley, it would never give a video picture. I phoned Creative Labs and their Tech. support people indicated a conflict with Haupauge WinTV. The only choice offered was to delete the WinTV software or return the webcam to Amazon. Before I chose to return the webcam, I tried it on my daughters laptop that does not have WinTV loaded. The video and audio feeds where excellent. The moral: If you have WinTV loaded on your computer, this isn't the webcam for you!

I trust Creative Lab. We have several of their electronics, from speakers to Mp3 players. Infact, my first computer housed Sound Blaster.
I am female electronic junky. I have computer knowledge. I wanted to buy a webcam, the most expensive, top of the line. I was impressed with what I had read on the website, and I bought the Laptop camera, and also bought this one. I thought it'd be fun to make movies for Youtube, and others, and was told this camera would be able to make movies. So, I bought it.
It installed in minutes, and supposebly, it registerred. I was expecting some of the fun software on the website, to be available with this camera, but, with several emails to Creative, come to find out, this webcam doesn't support the Advanced Effects software, downloaded for free from the web site. Lucky for me, I have Windows Movie Maker, and also Adobe Photo Shop. The little home made movies worked great on the computer, but on You Tube, there wasn't a high enough frame rate, unless you use the time lapse recording. As for still pics, my Nikon L3 Coolpix works much better, and can also make short movies, with great sound, and looks great on other websites, but doesn't double as a web cam. Hence, the reason I bought an actual webcam.
The microphone with Webcam Ultra has good sound quality, but is only useable with Yahoo Messenger, not very well with YouTube, or other fun websites. To me, it should also be workable with AIM. The lighting, for a webcam, isn't too shabby. The shadowing could be improved, though, as in low light conditions, or tricky lighted conditions, the webcam doesn't do well. In motion, the Webcam doesn't do as well as it should, but for the price, it's not too bad. I gave it four stars due to it's inablility to make decent moving movies. The webcam also can be a motion detector, and time-lapse recording, and also can do remote detecting. Though, it needs a longer USB cord for doing any of this.

Installation was simple except for one flaw in which I had to email Creative technical support for help. The installation went fine and I was able to record video after the install. However, I didn't have any audio to go with the video on playback. I sent an email to Creative Tech Support describing my problem and they responded within 24 hours and provided a weblink to their Knowledge Base that lead me directly to the symptoms of "No Audio". I followed their knowledge base instructions and corrected my audio problem. I just wondered why during the installation they didn't take me through the audio set-up if the audio was not automatically configured during installation. Other then that one incident I've been enjoying this option on my PC and in-spite of this initial problem and would recommend this device.

First off this review was originally for the Creative WebCam Live! however the software that runs the entire Creative Live! Live! Pro and Live! Ultra is the exactly same, and the cameras are very simular so this review should be relevant to all customers considering buying a creative webcam.

There is a reason why Creative Labs doesn't want you to test a real working camera with the Creative Webcam Suite on it's web site and here is why...

First off the Postives:
- Great picture in good lighting.
- Would be great for yahoo web camera instant messaging only. (yahoo is the only one supported by creative)

The Negatives:
- The Camera is blind as a bat in low light, even low light that humans can see fairly easily in.
- WebCam Center - overpromises way under delivers.
- Remote Monitoring Feature - You have to go through a round about way to monitor your camera. You have to have the creative suite open, then you have to connect to yahoo messenger. I can see why Creative did this, to save on money, but a web server address would be much, much better like some of the competition offer for free.
- Motion Detection Feature (for home/business security) - Would work great if the camera was not blind as a bat in low light. You really think the theives are going to turn on all the lights so the camera can see them? Nope, so it won't detect them.

Bottom line a good camera for basic video instant messaging, and horrible for remote viewing and for motion detection security purposes.

I got this camera today after ordering it from Circuit City and I will now be driving 2 hours to take it back to Circuit City! It will not install. I emailed Creative earlier, but haven't heard back from them. I read another review that said it would not work with Media Center, so maybe that's my problem; I have Media Center 2005! Creative should really tell people which systems do and don't work! I have spent several hours trying to get this STUPID CAM installed! It's going back to the store! I will buy another Logitech!

I needed a webcam to conference with my customers. I wanted a high quality picture without requiring my customers to have to have "perfect" lighting. That means I needed a camera with a CCD sensor. These look so much better than the cheap sensors that most webcams use. I also decided I might as well pick a camera that uses USB 2.0 for faster communication. Those were my only requirements. I was surprised at how few cameras I had to pick from. Anyway after researching what was available I selected this camera.

Since then I have purchased well over a dozen of these (I give them to my customers for our video conferences). They all work fantastic. I only have had one customer who had trouble installing this camera and I'm still not sure of the reason.

I like the fact that they have a seperate high quality mic, since the quality of the built in mics are always poor. Although I must say that the mic they supply is kind of uncomfortable.

I use this with a service from sightspeed.com and the results are terrific.

This was a painful experience from beginning to end. The software install took forever, and when it finally did go right, everything started to go wrong. I was getting max 4 frames per second. It looked like crap. The software itself was unintuitive and bulky. I'm running this on a p4 2.24 usb2 1 gig ram, 300gig hd space(windows xp sp2). This product is unacceptably bad. This is getting returned. If you don't believe me, just do some research on the internet. You'll find all kinds of people having all kinds of issues. Save yourself the hassle. It's not worth it.

Had one of these fail on me after 1 month.

Additionally, these cameras are NOT compatible with all USB 2.0 chipsets on motherboards. The device is simply unrecognized by the computer. It works fine on one of my notebook computers, and can not be recognized on my other. It is rather frustrating and Creative Labs will not take responsibility for the problem.

Otherwise, video quality is good, mounting to a notebook screen is a bit clunky and falls off pretty often.