Lights, Camera, Happy Birthday!
In any TV studio you’ll find expensive lighting equipment that provides the right conditions to record great video. But out in the real world it can be tough to find good lighting. I didn’t have fancy lighting equipment when I recorded my “Happy-Birthday-Mom” video last year using my webcam at home with lights off and cake candles lit. Under that lighting, the video looked dark and I don’t think my mother recognized me until she heard me singing. We know that low lighting and bright backlight are very challenging conditions for any camera and if you’re like me, you probably don’t have TV-like lighting at home to use with your webcam. This is the reason why we developed our new line of HD LifeCams with TrueColor Technology – we want to bring more color to your videos.
TrueColor is a proprietary technology that uses Microsoft’s LifeCam hardware together with the power of your PC to provide superior color and brightness even in poor-quality lighting conditions – like when singing in front of a cake with only the light from the candles. The image processing technology works like this: It analyzes the current lighting conditions, then it tracks your face using a series of algorithms to determine if you have the right level of light or exposure, and finally makes the necessary adjustments to provide the best video possible based on the room’s lighting conditions. All this is done in a fraction of a second.
We’re launching TrueColor Technology with our new line of webcams announced today: LifeCam HD-5000, LifeCam HD-5001 and LifeCam HD-6000 for Notebooks. These webcams will also offer a 720p HD sensor for widescreen video recording and Auto Focus. Auto Focus is actually the feature I like the most. Try putting a greeting card four inches away from your webcam; if you can’t read the card’s note then you don’t have Auto Focus. But if you do, it’s actually pretty cool, especially when you want to show small, detailed objects like the frosting details on a cake. All these new LifeCams offer a great opportunity for those of you who want to upgrade that old webcam or need a step up from your current laptop built-in webcam. TrueColor will also be available in the popular LifeCam Cinema.
Although you likely don’t have movie-studio lighting at home, you can still have bright and colorful video with any of our new HD LifeCams from Microsoft. We’ve put a lot of technology inside these webcams so you don’t have to worry about the lights and instead can focus on recording your next birthday video. So go ahead try this technology with any of our new LifeCams and let us know what you think.
Daniel Anguiano, Product Marketing Manager
Interesting webcam technology from microsoft
5:16 am http://infopediaonlinehere.blogspot.com/
Any justification as to why loud click sounds were introduced in Basic Optical Mouse ver 2, when ver 1 was practically silent? Also, is a ver 3 of the basic optical mouse planned because ver 2 is certified for Vista and not Windows 7.
5:39 am Ravi Gupta
Hi! I use a LifeCam Cinema on my company. All comps in my company don’t have a Internet connection, only local network. And I can’t install LifeCam Software 3.0 for my camera. Please, give me a offline (standalone) installer of LifeCam Software 3.0
7:14 am Konstantin
What i am curios about is the following: Whenever the ‘actual footage’ frames are shown in the video, the material appears to ‘flicker’, which leads me to suspect that the camera doesn’t really record at 30fps. Is the assumption correct?
8:17 am [CC]
Hi CC, any of the new HD webcams are capable of doing 30fps. This said, it will depend on the lighting conditions. If the lighting conditions are bright, the webcam will reach 30fps but if lighting conditions are dim, the webcam will drop the fps to help provide a brighter image. We ensure that the fps are never dropped to a level that makes the video look choppy. You will see in the last part of the video that even when recorded in dim light the actress’ face is bright while the video looks smooth.
10:48 am Danguiano
Hi Konstantin, we recommend contacting to your IT department first to ask them about the software that you can install on your local network computer. You can also access our support center online and contact our Product Help and support department for additional information. Here is the link
http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/digitalcommunication/support/default.mspx
10:49 am Danguiano
All webcam announcements lack a critical component: real-live, actual sample photos. I’ve bought my last webcam sight-unseen: until I see real photos, you (and other h/w vendors) are expecting customers to buy these things based on slick Flash demos rather than actual results. Not me!
11:25 am Jim
Hi Jim, the video that is shown in the blog post is actually real footage and not doctored. What you’re seeing on the video (specifically when they are comparing the video with and without TrueColor)is a real representation of the quality of the HD LifeCams.
2:11 pm Stu
Looking forward to enable True Color on my LifeCam Cinema review unit
So the difference between the HD-5000 and HD-5001 is just the look? I notice that they share the same features/specifications
10:39 pm Michael Aulia
Hi Michael, that’s correct. The HD-5000 and the HD-5001 are the exact same except for a slight difference in their design.
11:05 am Stu Holdren
Thanks, Stu. More choices are always better :)
6:39 pm Michael Aulia
I just bought a MS LifeCam Show. It doesn’t show in color. Under properties, the EnableColor is not active. I don’t know what to do.
2:22 pm Sue Knapstein
Hi Sue, have you tried installing the latest version of the LifeCam software? It’s available here: http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/downloads/default.mspx . Hopefully that will do the trick!
10:36 am Stu