by Larry Trochesset
It’s been predicted that Video Conferencing will be the next Internet killer app. Until recently the stumbling blocks were ease of installation and cost.
With the introduction of products such as the ViCAM from Vista Imaging Inc., of Belmont, CA, the learning curve takes a nosedive and the equipment cost follow.
The hardware was easy to install following the installation instructions. The ViCAM camera connects through two ports, your keyboard port for power and one parallel port for data. NOTE: it is strongly suggested that your system be equipped with an EPP (E nhanced Parallel Port) parallel port for maximum performance. (Most modern systems are EPP equipped.) The cables come with adapters, allowing you to plug in your keyboard and printer or scanner, et cetera, without the need to turn your computer off and p hysically install a video card. ViCAM simply uses existing hardware.
To install the software, I turned off the virus scanner and disabled the system agent. After inserting the disc, I awaited the auto installation. Following the instructions, I went into the ViCAM Utilities Installer. The installation went well. The n ext choice on the menu was the ViCAM Bundle. I clicked on the ViCAM Software installation. That brought up 4 choices. The first choice was the MGI Video Wave/Photo Suite. Clicking on this, it brought up 4 more choices: MGI Video Wave Installer, MGI Video Wave Tutorials, MGI Photo Suite Installer, and, MGI Photo Suite Tutorial.
Install Bundle MGI Video Wave/Photo Suite Installer. This can be used for Web pages, E-Mail and video conferences. The tutorials are audio/visual and take you through the major components of the MGI Wave and Photo Suite. It seems to be very informativ e. After the MGI installation and going through the tutorials which were very good, I installed Visionics FaceIt, Microsoft Net Meeting, Explorer 4.0 which I did not install.
I launched ViVIEW 32 under Utilities Folder, then under help, selected “About”. A window will display showing ViCAM details. Mine came back with Bi-Directional on parallel port LPIT at 0X378. Display driver 800x600 in 16 million colors. For best vide o performance a setting of ECP or EPP is recommended. See documentation that comes with your computer to change the parallel port mode if required. My motherboard does support the ECP and EPP mode, but I did not change my BIOS.
While using FaceIt PC and the other software, I had a problem because I had an “iVision” camera, capture card and software that comes with the “iVision” camera. FaceIt and MGI VideoWave software kept using my “iVision” camera, so I powered down the syst em and took my card out. Then it recognized the ViCAM camera.
The camera and software were easy to install. You have to go through a learning curve to learn how to use the software. The system offers both simple and complex controls allowing the user to adjust size, color format, quality, brightness, sharpness, co lor saturation, gain, gamma and specific color balance.
ViCAM can capture both video and individual frames and has TWAIN and .AVI interfaces, making it useful in conjunction with most popular video and graphics applications. MGI PhotoSuite SE let us capture images by selecting the ViCAM instead of the scanner attached to the test machine.
The ViCAM would be an excellent choice for businesses needing videoconferencing or an in-place camera that can provide acceptable still digital images under almost any lighting condition. These features combined with a low price make for a great value.
This test was done on a PENTIUM 133 system with 64 meg of memory. The video card is the Matrox Millienium II 4M.
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