Anyone has issue with SZ78 webcam ?

Hi,

Just trying the webcam from SZ78 .. not sure what is the spec though .. i thought it should be 1.3MP. the video movement is skippy, and i do skype video call to my friend which use MacBook it seems the Macbook webcam is smoother .. the macbook is also 1.3MP ... so not sure whats wrong here ?

I have tried to tweak the cam config from the sony software, but it seems does not really help much (no difference from remote audience) ..

My setup is SZ780 with 2.5GHz, Vista Business, 2GB RAM, 160GB Hybrid and default Bloatware ...
Not sure whether clean install will help this .. will try it tomorrow ...

Anyone has same issue ?

 

The camera on the SZ7 (and previous SZs) is VGA and only 0.3 megapixels.

 

Arghhh .. thats why ... but i try to set the configuration through VAIO i-Visual or something that changed the theme, background etc .. it has setting for 1.3MP .. so i thought it is 1.3MP.

 

i have the exact same problem, but i was told that the webcam in my unit is 1.3mp...791n...is this right>?
i was also told that moving to vista instead of xp may help this issue trying that now.

 

on DELL XM1330 system, if you opt to use LED screen, the drawback is the cam will be downgraded to VGA 0.3MP. If you opt to NOT use LED screen, it will be 1.3MP ... so i was thinking this is the same thing happen on sony. It may perhaps the new LED screen is so thin which the integrated WEBCAM technology still cant match as the part required thicker based to mount the unit. I am trying to confirm this on SONY SZ .. mine is SZ780N5 .. but i thought the same issue happen on SZ791 ...

 

IF .. using XP does not help .. then may want to use external USB CAM .. Which is not practical as need to carry around the external WEBCAM ..

 

i had xp with the comp in my sig, and poor webcam results, now i put vista seems a bit better...
is this a 1.3mp camera?
thanks

 

Just done the Vista Installation using P1 Clean Install DVD .... the webcam slightly better ... so it seems clean install the Vista is helping a bit ... but again not sure if this is 0.3MP or 1.3MP.

 

i did the exact same as you, seems a bit better , but not much.

p1 said mine has 1.3mp camera.

 

The camera on all SZ7s, Premium and non-Premium, is a Ricoh VGC-VCC7 (VID_05CA_PID_183A), which is identical to the ones installed on the SZ6 and TZ1-TZ3 models. You can verify this by reading the camera driver inf files. These are the properties of the SZ6 camera, according to this review:

If the camera is indeed 1.3M for still image snapshots, then the resolution of the pictures taken by VAIO Camera Capture Utility or any other webcam utility should be greater than 640x480 ( 0.3M). Feel free to test if that's the case. Also, do a search for "Interpolated to 1.3M" on Google and you'll find similar cameras that only display a VGA resolution.

 

I have an SZ650, and my camera is 640x480 (so 0.3 MP) in movie and still. But note that this resolution has nothing to do with this "skippy" quality... This has to do with frame rate. I have similar problems with my integrated webcam. My model can only display at 15 frames per second (fps), maybe the SZ7s can do 30fps? In any case, you can check this max setting in the Vaio capture utility (although recording videos with this utility is terrible and generates 3-4 fps movies...). Your issue may simply be software related also.

 

for the frame rate setting on Vaio Capture Utility (v2.3) it only has 15 fps and not changeable. This is under Capturing Format (movies) configuration tab. There is no other tabs that can alter the fps setting.
However, i do notice that if i disable the Low Light option on Camera ==> Advance Setting ==> unchecked the Low Light option, the "skippy" issue is slightly reduced. (Need to have bright environment in order to get better quality to use this option)
I guess ... there is no improvement for SZ7 in regards to web cam.

 

Have you tried VCCU v2.7.03.09250 from the SZ7 Notebook Utilities package for XP? You can extract VCCU from this package with Universal Extractor. It has a 30 fps option when recording as WMV, not MPEG-1, and it may work on Vista as well.




Here's the properties of a recorded wmv sample:

Audio: Windows Media Audio 16000Hz mono 16Kbps [Raw Audio 0]
Video: Windows Media Video 9 640x480 30.00fps 192Kbps [Raw Video 1]

 

Wow! Thanks bogart! I installed version v2.7.03.09250 and my webcam can now record in wmv (previously not available) and record at 30fps! Incredible!

But the link you gave is incorrect; You can find the correct vista notebook utilities at:
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?mdl=VGNSZ750NC&upd_id=3421&os_id=29

Then use the universal extractor! Thanks again bogart!

 

H Duchesne ... that is a great news .. does it mean it will make the webcam video call quality better after you use the WMV ?