After looking for a Webcam to add to the MCE rig in order for my wife to make videocalls to her family in the UK, I settled on the Logitech QuickCam Sphere for both its aesthetics and features. But MCE users, be sure to read through to the end of this review, as all is not as rosey as it first starts out.
Looking great both on paper and in the flesh, this stylish little webcam has a powerful, echo canceling omni-directional mic built into its matt black base which connects to the computer via a reasonably long USB cable.
The base itself sports a mini-USB port into which the spherical robotic camera housing can attach, either directly, or via a slightly ungainly looking extension pole to allow for a more eye-level interface when close up.
Again, this spherical housing is very stylish with a gloss black rear hemisphere and a slightly silver reflective transparent front hemisphere. When sitting directly in the base, the effect is almost sculptural and looks quite at home sitting next to a black bezelled LCD panel in the living room.
As mentioned, this is a robotic cam, with user controllable pan and tilt funtions via the software supplied, and plug-in functionality for Skype and other video-calling software. The bundled software also features face tracking and animation features which again leverage the robotic function of the cam to follow a subject or subjects around a room.
Focus is fixed, with a user definable digital zoom (which unfortunately is pretty useless as the image quality suffers miserably) but the depth of field via the wide angle lens allows for sharp images (when foregoing the zoom) either close up, or across the room on a sofa for example.
Sounds good so far, right? Now here's the rub...
For anyone running a HTPC, the drivers supplied to run this little beasty royally mess with audio settings. DD and AC3 output will suddenly and inexplicably vanish, leaving only PCM output via SPDIF. Adding insult to injury, the drivers automatically reduce the audio hardware acceleration making the PCM output crackly and degraded.
PowerDVD will no longer recognise that there is SPDIF hardware attached and will remove the SPDIF output setting from the options list altogether. So no more DD from your DVDs!
Removing the drivers aint that straight forward either. There are numerous changes to the registry, which aren't undone with the uninstall, meaning that the only way to restore your audio is to rollback to a pre-installation disk image or system restore point.
Very disappointing, and creating a lot of angst among users of Logitech's 'support' forum. This issue seems to affect all sorts of audio hardware, with some unlucky customers even experiencing BSODs as a result of installing and using the supplied Logitech software/drivers, even the most recent updates.
Another slightly annoying aspect which relates to the hardware, is that upon startup, the camera pans to its horizontal extremity, yet the motor seems to continue to force it as if attempting a 360° spin creating a cringeworthy ratcheting sound almost like the thing is going to tear itself apart, before it eventually returns to the default forward facing position. When quizzing support staff about this, I was assured this was normal fuctionality! Hmmm...
An apparent fix for the audio issue, found after trawling various forums, is to disable the Logitech audio driver which I beleive disables the inbuilt mic and therefore reduces the device's usefulness for many (seems to fix the problem for me, but it's early days, and luckily for me Skype audio is via a cordless handset, so WAF intact).
Other fixes to the issues involve none-too-simple manual adjustments to registry values, which could in themselves create further issues, especially if implemeted incorrectly.
Pros
Great looking
Works well within itself (at least it did for me)
Seemless integration with Skype
Cons
A little pricey
Awful driver compatibility with digital sound cards and onboard audio hardware alike
Support for the above issue relatively poor
Conclusion
MCE users with digital audio BEWARE!
