Sony Vaio SA webcam problems!

So I've been having this problem for a few weeks that the webcam will disconnect will I'm in video chat and I just have to press the video chat button again and it will start working again. Occasionally annoying, but I figured it was just Skype acting weird. Now, my webcam will disconnect completely and shows up in the Device Registry as "Unknown Device". Occasionally I also get the "Windows does not recognizes usb device" pop-up error in the corner. A restart fixes the issue, only for it to occur withing two minutes of starting another video chat.

Sony technical support instructed me to uninstall "WebCam Compainion 4" and reinstall, which creates the same temporary fix as restarting. I'm at a lost and really pissed off that my +1k laptop's webcam won't even work correctly. Help?

 

Have you tried leaving the WebCam Companion 4 software uninstalled? Also uninstall any other ArcSoft software (I think there's some "visual effects" software). I didn't have bugginess problems with mine, but it totally destroyed the proper color balance, leaving me with basically a sepia image.

And you don't need the Arcsoft software at all. It's not like a device driver or anything.

 

i had a different problem. the webcam would flicker and then suddenly change to 320x240 resolution. i have to turn video chat off and on to bring it back.

 

@Mitlow
I had same problem with sepia image on my SA camera, uninstalled ArcSoft and the sepia is still there. It makes camera unusuable. Any ideas how to bring proper color balance?

 

I still have a somewhat sepia-toned image compared to my MacBook Pro (which has really good color reproduction with its webcam), but at least now, you can tell what color someone's shirt is, even if it looks like you're looking through a yellow piece of glass at everything. With ArcSoft installed and on the default settings, it was literally sepia-tone; no colors except shades of tan.

I think the webcam is the single biggest let-down of the Vaio F. I would not have thought that a well-respected multimedia company that sells TVs, cameras, videocameras, etc would struggle to have its laptop webcams produce decent colors (I'm not talking professional-quality photo reproduction; I mean a red shirt looking red instead of tan and a blue shirt looking blue instead of grey).

 

Should I just uninstall through Vaio Care, or are there any extra steps I should take?

Edit: I don't see an option to uninstall through windows or vaio care. Shall I just delete?

 

That's odd, I was able to delete mine through Windows' remove programs function. Must be something different in how they load the Arcsoft software on an F2 as opposed to an SA.

 

So, I deleted the programs. It seemed fixed for awhile, but happened again today. What now?

 

One of three driver files is from ArcSoft. Check device manager under Camera. This one we cant get rid of unfortunately and I bet it is screwing the camera.

I wonder if there is another compatible driver from Microsoft for example. This could solve the issue. I will try to install generic USB camera. Wont hurt anything.

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk

 

Let us know how it works. I'm still trying to get the same color quality from my Vaio's webcam as I have from my MBP webcam. That's a webcam from late 2008, so there's no reason the Vaio F2 should have dramatically inferior color quality.

 

How would I do that?

Edit: I clicked uninstall, then "scan for hardware changes". It shows the drivers now as being fromm 2006 and provided by Microsoft. I didn't check before what it said, unfortunately.

 

Bump for solution.

I am in the same boat with my new Sony VPCSA3AFX.

Everything is in a sephia-tone color and the stock driver is provided by Microsoft from 2006. Sony doesn't even offer a driver at all from their website...

 

I'd try downloading the free trial of Arcsoft WebCam Companion 4. At first I hated the program, but I've come to think it works well and helps with webcam color quality. On my Vaio F, I use Arcsoft's default brightness and contrast, but I've enabled low light compensation (capture > settings > advanced > camera control).

http://www.arcsoft.com/estore/software_title.asp?ProductCode=WCC4