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Video on the desktop is pretty much taken for granted these days. Any old PC can do it, just as long as it's not too old. By that I mean a 100MHz Pentium or faster. If you have anything slower, you really don't want to invest in multimedia hardware for it. I'd actually recommend a 166-MHz or faster Pentium, but 100 MHz will do, at least for the hardware I'm going to talk about.
As I was saying, anyone can play with video on a PC, even those without too much knowledge about how PCs work-it has gotten that simple. People can easily capture still images or fullmotion video, edit the material and then post it in Web pages, e-mail it to others, embed it in multimedia presentations, and a lot more. So instead of taking video for granted, this month I thought I'd concentrate on some very affordable, yet quite capable, video hardware I've received in recent months.
VIDEO BLASTER WEBCAM II
Creative Labs recently sent me a sample Video Blaster WebCam II, a terrific bargain for only $99. This digital color camera for a PC is great for capturing still and motion video clips. The camera has a focusable lens and can capture true-color (16.7 million colors) motion video up to 30 frames per second at various resolutions with a maximum resolution of 176 x 144 pixels. WebCam can also capture true-color still images with resolutions up to 704 x 576 pixels.
Setting up WebCam is easy, because you don't have to open up the computer's case. The camera stands on top of a monitor and plugs into the PC's parallel port, while power comes from the PC's keyboard port via an included adapter. A one-piece headset and microphone is included with the package to provide full video-conferencing functionality. Drivers and software are loaded from a CD-ROM. The camera provides Windows 95 and TWAIN support (allowing you to capture high-resolution still images from your favorite photo-editing application)-so it's compatible with a wide variety of applications.
Also included in the bundle is all the software programs you need to work with video and still images. ULead MediaStudio Video Edition is a videoediting program that lets you capture, modify, and edit still images and...