User manual PHILIPS PCA646VC

[. . . ] PCA646VC USB PC Camera Installation manual 1 Introduction Brilliant images and blazing colours. That's what the Philips USB PC Camera PCA646VC gives you. Forget about installing grabber cards and separate power supplies. You don't need them. Power is supplied direct to the camera through the USB cable and the camera returns audio and video straight to your PC!This booklet describes the quick and easy way to: install the camera; install the software; record your own videos; and take your own pictures. [. . . ] Experiment with this setting until you find one to your liking. In manual mode you can determine manually the amount of red and blue in the picture. Try a few settings at your leisure, but you will find that the auto setting is best in most cases. Exposure The exposure setting determines the amount of light that will fall onto the video sensor chip. In auto exposure mode the camera automatically adjusts the exposure gain and shutter speed. The control speed setting determines the speed of automatic adjustment to changing light conditions. Experiment with this setting to find one to your liking. In freeze mode all existing settings are frozen. In manual mode you can control the gain and shutterspeed settings manually. Try a few settings at your leisure. The auto setting will be best in most cases. Both freeze and manual exposure mode disable the controls for contrast and backlight compensation in the next tab (marked Image Controls). 14 The Flickerless option must only be used under flickering 50 Hz light conditions (like fluorescent or neon lamps) to prevent flickering or strangely coloured video images. If this option is used under normal lighting conditions the video image will tend to be overexposed. 6. 2. 3 Image Controls The third tab is marked `Image Controls'. It is divided into the subsections Image Controls and Defaults. Image Controls Here you will find the slider controls for brightness, contrast, and gamma correction. Note that both Freeze and Manual Exposure mode settings in the previous tab disable the controls for contrast and backlight compensation. Try a few settings to find one you like. With the colour enable checkbox, you can switch from colour images to black&white and back. Turn on the backlight compensation to improve the image quality when you have a scene where the background has a high illumination level (for instance when you sit in front of a window). 15 Defaults If you like a particular setting for one application or light condition and another setting for a different one, you can use the Restore and Save buttons to save and restore these preferred settings. Should you wish to restore all standard settings, click on the Restore button under Factory Defaults. 6. 2. 4 Capture Source / Format The fourth tab is called:`Source / Format'. It is divided into the subsections `Select a Source', `Digital Image Format', and `Framerate'. Select a Source Usually this setting has only one option when the Philips PC Camera is the only video source connected to your computer. However, if more than one video source is connected to your system, then this is where you switch between them. Digital Image Format This setting determines the picture size of the `live' video stream. It also determines the size of the captured still picture. The larger the `live' picture size, the more data needs to be processed by your computer. So this may have an effect on the number of available framerates. 16 Framerate The framerate setting determines the number of pictures per second in the video stream. [. . . ] USB ports are `hot swappable', meaning you don't have to restart Windows98 every time you connect a new USB device. The USB driver will detect the camera as new hardware. It can be used within a few seconds without restarting the computer. Should you unplug the camera while it is actively providing an audio or video stream to an application on your computer, the computer might crash. To avoid problems, first close all applications that use audio from the camera microphone, or which stream video before unplugging your Philips USB PC Camera. 21 Driver software check You can determine if the camera is installed correctly, and if it is being recognized by the operating system by checking the Device Manager menu in System Properties. Access this menu by clicking with the right mouse button on the icon `My Computer' in the top left-hand corner on your desktop, then click on Properties. Alternatively, click on Start / Settings / Control Panel, then double-click on System to access this menu. [. . . ]