Philips SPC900NC PC Web Camera with VGA CCD Sensor and USB 2.0 Interface

I bought two of these so that my daughter and I could see and hear each other over the Internet, neither of us are able to get sound. She has Win XP and I have Win Vista.

The camera works great, sits on top of my iBook G4 and I use it to talk on Skype. When I talk to my boyfriend whose in England, he says my picture quality is like a television when my window is smaller, but more digital when he maximizes the window or enlarges it to full screen. I had to install macam to use it on my Apple, but that application is free and can be downloaded online. All in all, few complaints here!

I purchased this product after visiting my son-in-law who uses the cam for astro-telescope photos. If you are into that you will need some additional free software available on the internet. The cam software is somewhat difficult to install on Windows Vista. You need to download the Vista drivers from the Phillips website. Do not follow cam instructions that says to install camera drivers form CD first. I had to use windows restore several times. I succeed by starting clean connecting camera to USB and starting the PC. Let windows search for drivers on internet, once found go to Phillips web site and install the vista drivers, then go back to cd and install vlounge only. You might start instead of trying to download vista drivers from website first, reboot and connect cam; I did not try and do that. On my xp computer I just use the CD, worked fine.

I purchased this camera from this vendor last month for $89 dollars. What is confusing is that the SPC900NC has suffixs of 00,24 (may have been 27),37. I checked with Philips they indicated that the only differance is the region where the product is marketed otherwise they are the same. I have the 37 my son-in-law has 00, both work the same both work with Vista. You can buy the same product on ebay new and have seen it on amazon for around $50 including shipping. Other vendors write-up are not as pretty. Astromony is an expensive hobby, and even though this is a good vendor (did have some problems with shipping mixup)and they were responsive but their service is not worth another $70 more when you include shipping.

Very good camera. Focus knob very stiff, and plastic parts fragile, but image quality is excellent.

I LOVE the fact you can mount it on a tripod, and the ccd sensor, really makes a great picture, smooth for video feed and low light conditions,, good deal at the price!