Creative Live! Cam Video IM

Suppose you have added $15 and bought a Creative Live! Cam Video IM. What do you get for this money? Looking up in the specs table, the two cameras are identical in all the parameters except for the maximum interpolated resolution (only when capturing still frames) and the additional video compression format YUV2. Both features don?t mean much for the end-user, I guess.

The differences in the case design are more notable. The Cam Video IM has an additional capture button on its top and also a different stand that is going to keep it steady on a desk and more secure on a monitor case. Thus, the extra money buys you a better case design and nothing more than that.

Now we can also compare test images made with the two cameras. The ISO Resolution Chart helps to check out the optical system for sharpness and focusing.

Creative Live! Cam Video IM: ISO Resolution Chart

Like with the Cam Vista M, the picture becomes blurry towards the borders, which is indicative of the same problems in the camera?s optical system.

The box with color markers will show us how well
the cam reproduces the colors

The camera defaults to a too high contrast. Coupled with the poor optics, this worsens the reproduction of smaller details even more. In terms of color reproduction, cold tones are close to each other and warm tones are predominant.