Cycling Experiences…

It may not appear so, but a lot of work has been going on with the WebCam setup [SPECTER], some of it busy work. I have looked at hundreds of cameras, specs & reviews, seller sites and the manufacturer—Sony, Canon, JVC, Panasonic, and more.  I’ve looked for USB Streaming, USB 2.0 streaming, firewire [ieee 1394 streaming]. Express cards with firewire—must fit a 25mm slot-there are none. I wanted Apple’s iSight [a firewire camera].

My SCEPTER laptop does not have a firewire port and there is no Express card with firewire that fits it. There are older Sony Handycams that will stream, most the USB 1.1 standard [too slow]. I finally found a USB 2.0 Sony Camera [a DCRTRV80] that has USB streaming—used, too expensive, and has features I do not need [i.e., Bluetooth];but, it was all I could find.

For some reason, yesterday, I decided to check Sears. Camera by camera, I found another USB 2.0 streaming camera [a Sony Webbie MHS-CM1 HD Camcorder] —available new, no unnecessary features and only $169.95 [everywhere]. Well it is on its way. It is also a Sony. Now, I had no plans to buy a Sony product, given my misinformation experiences and the promised call-back by a sales staff supervisor. Reality is that Sony dominates the camcorder market. There are mixed reviews on their products and service. I hope I can avoid a Sony video camera purchase in the future. If possible, I’ll raise the quality on the video for my blogcasting; but, with products from other companies. I have not returned the Sony HDR CX-100 camera. I plan to integrate it into my videography.

So, look for the empty slot on my WebCam Page to be filled early next week. Given that I have resolved the camera issue for now, I have been working on another dimension of the system—sound for SCEPTER. Rather than use the camera microphone [with its internal sounds being added], I’ll collect my  sound with a parabolic microphone that plugs into the laptop microphone jack.  I think it is cool stuff—lots of testing today. I’ll publish a separate article on it.

 Other WebCam updates