Phillips SPC1300NC Web Camera Review

by Sarah Meyer

Webcams are one of those helpful products that just don't get much attention. Sure, a webcam is useful for video conferencing and chats (or for spying on your nanny) but if you've seen one webcam you've seen them all ... right? Philips is ready to shake things up with their latest high-resolution webcam that delivers video up to 90 frames per second! Let's take a closer look at how awesome a webcam can be.

The SPC1300NC Specifications

• 6 megapixels, 8x digital zoom
• Frame rate: Up to 90 frames per second
• Wide-angle glass lens
• Two built-in digital directional microphones
• Features: Face tracking, pixel plus, digital natural motion and motion detection, noise cancellation, and echo reduction
• Dimesions: 40 x 82 x 88 mm
• Weight: 3.88 ounces or 110 grams
• OS: Windows XP, Vista, and Vista Home; Pentium III 800MHz or faster
• Cable length: 2.1

Design and Aesthetics

The Phillips SPC1300NC webcam is mostly black with silver accents. The lens, microphones, and detailing is all done in silver. The power button on top glows a bright blue when the camera is on. The webcam is attached to Phillips' unique laptop clamp so that it swivels 360 degrees to capture the perfect angle.

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The SPC1300 is USB powered but has more than two feet of cable so it can be set up anywhere around your laptop. The clamp also works as a stand so the webcam can be freestanding.

There is an installation CD with the SPC1300. It takes about five minutes to install the software and a restart of your computer. I didn't have any problem with the installation and once I restarted, the webcam worked perfectly.

Using the camera

When you first restart your computer, a shortcut to the Phillips VLounge pops up on the desktop. This is where all the magic happens in regards to the SPC1300. Once you open the VLounge you have several options.

The default page Vlounge opens is the Capture page. At the top there is a box where all the captures you have taken reside. You can view a slide show, rotate, e-mail or print these captures from this page. You can also move them to a new folder or delete them if you are done working with certain images. If you want to be more organized, you can sort the captures into images, videos and folders to make them easier to work with.

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At the bottom of the Capture page is the live camera window. Above the actual live camera box are several tools. The first and largest buttons are the image button and video button. They are pretty self explanatory, click the image button and the camera takes a picture; click the video button and the camera starts recording. Pretty simple. The SPC1300 is a 6 megapixel camera and takes good images but it's a web camera - not a digital camera - and it lacks high resolution.

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Video is where the SPC1300 can really show off; at 90 frames per second, this webcam has almost no competition. Movement in the video is clear; no lag, no blurred images. Check out the sample video below with some moving traffic outside our office. Even the speed of passing cars isn't a problem for the SPC1300 frame rate.

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Below the image and video buttons but above the live camera window are 11 more buttons. Going down the row left to right they are: full screen mode, pixel plus, noise reduction, echo reduction, face tracking, digital zoom, add logo, video attributes, video FX, PC camera settings and capture settings.

Full screen mode is easy enough to explain; when you click this button the entire computer screen becomes a live camera window. What was cool about this mode was that you don't lose much quality when blowing up the screen.

Pixel Plus turns on Phillips' Pixel Plus 2 feature. This features increases the number of lines and the number of pixels in order to enhance picture quality. I didn't notice a huge improvement with this feature on but it did seem to make the live camera window crisper.

Noise and Echo reduction are two separate buttons with one common goal: to make communicating with someone on a web camera easier and clearer. Noise reduction blocks out background noise while echo reduction suppresses echos on your end so that the person you are chatting with can hear you more clearly. When I tested these features, I couldn't tell a huge difference between my friend's web camera's audio qualities and mine not to say they were faulty in anyway, I just didn't notice a huge improvement.

Face tracking is a common feature on webcams, the SPC1300 is no exception. This feature works well, finding the person easily and zooming in on their face.

Digital zoom allows you to control how close up or far out you want the camera to capture your image. You can also move the camera angle left, right, up and down using this feature without physically touching the camera.

The add logo button adds a default Phillips logo to your image. You change this logo under PC Camera settings.

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Video attributes adds a default military frame to your image. You can change the frame under PC Camera settings.

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Video FX adds a default tint feature to your image. You can change this effect under PC Camera settings.

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The PC Camera settings button is where you can change the options that come with the SPC1300. There are four tabs in PC Camera Settings: General, Video, Audio and Features.

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General is where you can turn the flickerless feature on and off and change regions between the U.S. and Europe (the difference being 10 Hz).

The Video tab under the PC Camera settings can be used to adjust picture enhancement, frame rate, exposure, white balance, brightness, contrast, saturation, backlight compensation, etc. If you're not sure about where these should be set you can hit the full automatic control box on this page.

The Audio tab is strictly to turn noise reduction and echo reduction on and off. The audio format is 44100 Hz, 16 bits, Stereo, CD quality.

The Features tab controls all the camera effects. Backgrounds, logos, attributes and video FX can all be changed from the default settings as well as turned on and off. You can also turn on face tracking and digital zoom in this tab.

The final button on the Capture page is capture settings. Here you can change the snapshot resolution, video resolution, audio device and input (you can also access most of this buttons from the preferences drop down menu in the tool bar).

The second page in the VLounge is the communication page. On this page you can connect to multiple programs to talk to friends, family and coworkers. The programs are Skype, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, QQ Messenger, and AIM.

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I tested the SPC1300 with Skype. While the resolution quality was normal with what you would see from a typical webcam, the frame rate was much better, with almost no lag. When I was on the video chat using Skype, my bandwidth use jumped up to 65 KB/s, which is an average amount for the program I was running (you can also access most of these buttons from the links drop down menu in the tool bar).

The third page in the VLounge is the Monitor page. Here you can set your web camera to monitor for motion. Anytime it picks up any perceived motion in the area it takes a picture and logs it in this section.

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The final page is the broadcast page where you choose one of two sites to broadcast live video over the internet. The site choices are http://www.camcentral.com/ and http://www.ww.com/.

Conclusion

The SPC1300NC webcam goes above and beyond any other webcam I've ever used. The images are clear, there is virtually no lag and it comes with great features such as face tracking and digital zoom.

Best of all, it is priced competitively with other webcams on the market at $100 and can purchased at your local Walmart beginning in March.

The only problem I detect with the SPC1300 is that it comes with no warranty. In fact, in the owner's manual, there are three separate disclaimers. Also, while I'm being picky, it would have been nice if the webcam had a carrying case or at least folded up to protect the glass lens.

Pros

• 6 megapixels
• 90 frames per second frame rate
• Phillips unique clamp
• Excellent features
• Competitively priced

Cons

• No warranty
• Not compatible with Mac OS
• No carrying case

Pricing and Availability

Phillips' SPC1300NC webcam will be available for purchase in March for $99.99.

UPDATE: Phillips says the SPC1300 has a standard 1-year warranty (90 days parts and labor).

 

Great review, looks like a really great web cam.

 

I still like this sample video a bit more

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bDTreeRoL0

 

I still like this sample video a bit more

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Thanks for the review Sarah. Good to see some high resolution/fps consumer web cams coming out. It is about time. Very strange about the warranty though.

Is that you running?

 

I agree. A product with no warranty? Not even 6 months? From a big company like Phillips? Maybe they misprint it?

Nice review by the way. I think one of the reasons a web camera has never been a big thing is because of it's ineffectiveness i.e. bad quality, low frame rate, etc. etc. etc. Maybe this will change things.

 

That second video is Kevin "The Cheetah" O'Brien running through the parking lot ... with the fps at the wrong setting.

He only wishes he was that fast.

 

there is a comment on the youtube video which says "this kid is a moron" LOL

 

No comment...

 

Are you sure there is possibly no warranty due to it not being out yet? Maybe the final retail products would have a warranty?

 

No, we confirmed with all of the printed materials available from Philips ... which contained multiple disclaimers about no warranty.

Sarah contacted Philips three times to confirm verbally, but Philips didn't reply in time for this review. I suspect the lawyers over at Philips are trying to decide exactly what wording to use regarding the warranty issue.

If Philips replies with contradictory warranty information then we'll update the review. Until then, we're assuming it has no warranty based on the information provided in printed materials from Philips.

 

Mine just arrived today, and though I was impressed by the quality and FPS of the low frame resolution video capture. It seems to only capture at around 5fps at the larger 1.3mp... even though the video it saves claims 24fps, it is nowhere near this.

Can anyone else confirm this?

 

Also another I noticed.

For those of you who are attracted to the 90fps, it isn't possible to save a video at 90fps, just a max of 30fps. The higher frame rate is simply for hardware smoothing.

 

It really depends on what compression method you choose to record your video. I managed to get 60fps at 640x480, and I am uploading a small sample clip right now.

http://www.t3flange.com/60fps.avi

 

As Jerry said earlier, I'm still waiting to hear from Phillips about the warranty but as far as we can tell it's only covered if it's defective out of the box. We thought it was weird too, which is why I put effort into getting more info.

 

I can't seem to download that, it's not connecting? I was wondering what fps you get at 1280*1024, my file claims the resolution is roughly 24fps, but the video only really displays 5fps... I'll upload a file in a bit.

 

Kevin, just wondering if you could let me know what software you are using to capture video, I'm testing out getting a decent fps via VLC at the moment.

 

My website appears to have gone down around the same time that video went up . Hopefully it will be up and running again soon.

As to the software I used, it was all Phillips provided.

http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/...iles/s/spc1300nc_00/spc1300nc_00_rwv_eng.html

If you go to the product page, this is the software they give for Vista machines.

 

How is this cam compared to the excellent resolution of Logitech Pro 9000 which is being used on http://www.Justin.tv/dealer? And where can this cam be purchased from? No one seems to sell this Phillips brand cam in the US. I've checked Amazon, Newegg and Best Buy.

 

Also, for those who're interested, I contacted philips regarding frame rates, these are the max fps you can expect.

"Resolution Maximum framerate
160*120 90
176*144 90
320*240 90
352*288 90
640*480 60
800*600 30
1280*1024 30 Used by default
1600*1200 30

Unfortunately the included vloungs software supports only up to a 60fps."

 

Although I've rechecked, and it seems that even though the 1280*1024 saves at 30fps, on viewing the file, it really only has 5 unique frames per second, the rest are duplicated. Any thoughts? or is this just my machine?

 

Phillips isn't releasing the SPC1300NC in the U.S. until March. They will be sold at Walmart and i'm sure other various retail chains.

 

So I heard back from Phillips. The SPC1300 has a standard 1-year warranty (90 days parts and labor).

Hope this helps... I updated the review too.

 

For those who bought it, can you test the night mode?

For example, my 4 years old logitech automatically turns to night mode to detect more light when it's dark (no light at all, other than the laptop LCD), and it stays in that mode. My brand new gateway FX laptop's 1.3MP cam also automatically turn on night mode, but when it's too dark, it just go back to normal mode which I can't see anything at all.

Does this web cam work at night?

 

This is such a sweet webcam. if you wanna combine the best images you can get with this cam and the best audio in video messaging, check out http://www.oovoo.com. Server based unlike skypes p2p so uses less bandwidth so audio is much better. email me if you have any other questions about oovoo, I have all the answers. [email protected]

 

I am also interested in night mode. what's minimum lux on this thing?

 

Guys,

Spot 2 new Phillips Webcam called SPC1330 Pro and SPC2050 Pro, pix below











I did DL that SPC1330 software and drivers to install top of my SPC1300 and it's not work anything. The Vlounge software is no longer and they bundled software called Phillips CamSuite and Webcam Companion software for new model.

I was wonder if Phillips willing updates new software for older models like SPC1300 ?

Just my 2 cents

Dg