Product Description
Logitech TV Cam HD. Skype now comes to life on your TV in wide-angle HD. Now everyone can get involved and enjoy the freedom to move around the room naturally.
| Price: |
$199.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details |
| as of Fri, 15 Mar 2013 07:44:04 GMT ***Remember, deals price on this item for sale just for limited time*** | |
Product Details
- Color: Black
- Brand: Logitech
- Model: 960-000921
- Dimensions: 5.70" h x 5.47" w x 11.70" l, 2.35 pounds
Features
- HD TV Cam with Skype: Connect face-to-face with anyone on Skype from your HDTV to their smartphone, laptop, tablet or HDTV
- Clear, full-room view: Wide-angle lens gets everyone in the call and lets you move freely around your TV room
- HDTV-ready: Ready to use with simple plug-in to your HDMI port, plus integrated Skype and Wi-Fi connectivity
- Always on: Ringer alerts you to incoming calls-even if your HDTV is off. Included remote makes it easy to start, stop or zoom calls
- Sharp, smooth HD widescreen video and crystal-clear sound: Precision Carl Zeiss optics and four built-in noise-cancelling microphpones
From the Manufacturer
Logitech TV Cam HD
Get closer to your friends and family.
The Logitech TV Cam HD makes it easier than ever to make video calls from the most comfortable room in the house – your living room. Feel like you’re in the same room with Skype HD video calling on your home HDTV.
Calls made comfortable
- Designed for the living room—with a wide-angle lens makes sure the whole family gets in your HD calls2
- Move freely around the room—gives everyone from grandparents to grandchildren the freedom to move around naturally
Visit with loved ones more often
- No need to schedule calls anymore—the TV Cam HD rings whether your TV is on or off
- Easy to use—effortlessly start and end your calls with included remote
- When nobody's home—voicemail integration3 lets you know if someone has called
- Always ready for calls—AC wall-outlet power makes sure your TV Cam HD is always on and ready for you
Connect to anyone on Skype
- Call all your Skype contacts—on their smartphone, laptop, HDTV or tablet
- Easy calling—just sign in to your Skype account or create one right on your TV
- Access all your Skype contacts on your TV using the included remote
- Skype Certified to give you the best possible Skype calling experience
Sharper video—it’s like you’re in the same room
- HD 720p2 Logitech Fluid Crystal Technology delivers smooth video motion and truer color
- Precision Carl Zeiss optics for sharper, richly detailed video
- Best-in class auto light correction—so they can see you clearly, even in dim or low light
- Four noise-cancelling built-in microphones for clear conversations from the couch
- Digitally zoom/pan/tilt your camera around the room- with included remote
Easy setup with any HDTV
- Works with any HDTV with an HDMI port—just plug it in
- No computer is required; no software to install
- Connect to your home Wi-Fi network (or wired broadband), plug into your HDMI port, power on and you’re ready
- Clip-on design for simple, secure mounting to any HDTV or use an alternative tripod mount
1 Skype account required (free). Terms and conditions apply.
2 1.2 Mbps upload/download for 720p video calling.
3 Voicemail option must be activated on your Skype account settings with your computer.
Compatibility
What's in the box
- TV Cam HD
- Remote control
- 6 foot HDMI cable
- AC power adapter
- User documentation
What you need
- High-speed Internet access
- HDTV with available HDMI port
- Skype account1 (free)
The specs
- Skype app built-in
- Skype Certified
- HDMI connection to TV
- Widescreen HD 720p video2
- Wi-Fi (802.11 g/n) or Ethernet connection
- Built-in ringer (rings if TV is on or off)
- Carl Zeiss optics
- Logitech Fluid Crystal Technology
- Digital zoom, pan & tilt
- 4 noise cancelling microphones
- No computer required
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
By A. Datta
We have been using skype with our parents overseas for the past 4+ years using computer and after just using this for a few days, we are extremely satisfied. While the cost of this device is a bit on the high side, the value that it brings in its simplicity and quality are well worth it.
Pros:
* Simplicity of setup and use - ideal for older parents
* Quality of video - outstanding! Using the same slower internet connection in India, this device produces significantly better video, its not even comparable how much better this is.
* Wide Angle - the whole family is in view
* Use your TV - worth stating again. Makes it that much easier for elderly parents to use it on the larger TV screen
* Works over wifi and ethernet. Quality over WiFi is very good.
Cons:
* You need HDMI on the TV - not a con per say, but you need to be aware of it
It comes with a simple remote, but next time I visit my family, I will be pairing this with a logitech harmony remote to make it an even simpler setup for my parents. And I will be buying another one for my wife's parents and one for us at home.
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
By Moe
I posted this review on some other sites when this device was available at those sites. Now that it's available here, I'm posting here since I like to reference Amazon for product reviews:
In full disclosure, I got the Logitech TV cam HD free as a review unit so some may see my review as biased but I'll try to be as impartial as possible in my review.
I really liked this unit as an easy one-stop device for Skype video and audio calling. It's really user friendly with easy set up so that a nontechy can put it together and get started. The camera image is pretty good and the built in microphone is acceptable. I compared the image quality to my HD Pro webcam C910 and found it comparable. The C910 though is used with software driver on a computer so it has a larger set of options than the TV Cam. Because of it's ease of use and utility, I gave a rating of 8 on a scale of 10.
Likes:
Ease of set up and ease of use. The ability to use it without a computer is awesome. Just hook it up to an HDMI device that has a speaker, a router or switch, and a power source and you're set to go. The set up of the Skype application was very easy and got online within 10 minutes of opening the box.
This unit works on both wired and wireless networks which is really nice. It automatically detects he network and selects it. An interesting feature/bug is that you can't have a wireless connection when you've got the camera plugged in to an active wired network. The user interface won't attempt to detect the wireless network if attached to a wired connection.
Since it works wirelessly, this camera is very easily used as a security/baby monitor. It doesn't have to be connected to a display to work so you can set the Skype account to automatically accept calls and you can call it using a mobile phone, tablet, computer, etc.. to see what the camera sees and hears: Very cool.
The camera has a built in speaker for a ringer which is really convenient if you want to turn off the display or if it goes to sleep. You're alerted to the incoming call and all you have to do is hit the select button on the remote and you answer the call. You just won't know who the caller is though since the display is off. The ring tone is that of an old fashioned metal phone ringer. If you don't like it, you're sort of out of luck since there isn't the option to select a different ring tone.
The device has a really cool feature in that when you miss a call, a mail icon is lit on it so that even though the display or tv is sleeping or is off, you can see that you missed a call. Very cool idea.
As is often the case, making things easy to use often results in limits to features.
I'll categorize my negative findings as those that I find critical, significant, and annoyances that I can live with.
Critical:
There's no on/off switch. The unit stays on or you have to unplug it from the power source. In these days of going "green", one would think you could turn the device off as you wish. I really don't understand the movement for not being able to switch off powered devices. My Roku device has the same issue, and maybe I'm old fashioned but this drives me crazy.
The Left/Right and Up/Down panning didn't work intuitively using the remote control. When I tried to pan the camera in any of the four directions within the video settings so that I can set the video field for Skype, the camera wouldn't pan in these directions. Zoom In and Zoom Out worked fine but on my unit, L/R and U/D don't work most of the time. I did get it to work once or twice but pointing the remote at the device differently didn't change the camera's response. I could see the light coming out of the remote on the video image though so I knew it's not the remote. I would suggest that in a future version of the software, that there be an indicator on the screen that shows when the zoom and panning is occurring. Right now, all you see is the image changing, so when you don't see the image changing, you don't know if it's the remote, or if it's the device, or something else. At least with some sort of indicator, one would see that the device is detecting the remote but is not responding for some reason.
After talking to Logitech, I learned that since the camera doesn't have a way to mechanically pan in different directions, if you're not zoomed into an image, you can't pan left or right. The panning is only available within the image range of the lens. So in the end, I just misunderstood, what the capabilities of the panning and zooming.
Significant:
Using the device with Wifi seemed to degrade the video performance. I'm using an 802.11AC router so throughput from the device to the router shouldn't be the cause of the stuttering I saw in the video calls. I didn't see any way to determine the connection speed of the device so I couldn't troubleshoot why the video quality was worse. Furthermore, when I used the wired connection on the camera, it was a wired connection to a wireless bridge. This connection produced a much better video performance.
I'm not sure whether it's for ease of use or if it's due to memory constraints but the Skype software that is integrated into the camera unit does not have all the features found on the desktop software. The significant omissions are the ability to send and receive SMS, and picture messages. There's no way to even know that someone has sent one to you with the current software so that you can get on a computer and see it later. I found that kind of a problem since I often get texts while I'm away from Skype within Skype; usually from those out of the US.
The C910 software comes with some features that are controlled by driver software installed on the computer like auto focus, auto gain, etc. Since the software on the device is limited, many of these features are missing.
The integrated speaker on the device is for the ringer only. It won't transmit the audio of the connection. This is significant because if the display or speakers connected to the display is off, there's no way to answer the call and determine who is calling, or to tell the caller to wait a minute until the video comes up. You can answer the call by hitting the select button on the remote before the display fully comes up so that you don't lose the caller but you won't know who it is until it does come up. It would be nice to answer the call when I hear the ringer and to be able to at least have a voice conversation with the person so that I can tell them to wait a minute for the display to come up.
The Skype software retains a list of missed calls and lights up an indicator on the physical unit when they come in. This is kind of nice as I noted above. The management of the call list however is kind of clumsy. You can't remove individual calls from the list, you can only remove the entire list. In addition, if that list is long, the only way to clear them is to scroll all the way through the bottom of the list to the "clear list" selection below. Kind of a pain if you've let that list get kind of long before you delete it.
Furthermore, the software indicates how many calls you missed at a glance with a small dot with the number of missed calls on a tab on the left of the screen but the individual calls are not marked in any way. It's kind of like the indicator Apple uses on the iPhone that shows how many emails you have unread, except on the iPhone, each individual email is marked as unread too. The way you remove this indicator is to review the caller profile of one of the missed callers from this page. The problem is that the total number of missed calls disappears when you select any one of the unanswered calls. So let's say you left several missed calls on the list and you've cleared the missed calls number during your last session. Then say you missed 7 calls while away from the tv. When you get back to the tv, you notice that you've missed 7 calls, and you scroll down the list to see who called. First, you have to count down the list to see which 7 call you actually missed since the last session since the individual calls are not marked. In addition, If you happen to look at the profile of one of the callers to call them back, you lose the number of calls that went unanswered. Again not a back breaker but really annoying and possibly a significant issue if you rely on Skype for important calls.
Can live with:
When I ran the Skype video test call, I have trouble with the system detecting my voice. It ran fine with the audio test call but while running the video test call When I used the video calling on Skype, the audio quality was just as good as when I used my C910 camera so it was acceptable. I'm not sure why the Skype test call didn't work well.
So overall I like this device and would suggest it to anyone that is not technically oriented. Several issues might need to be resolved however before it becomes a huge success.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
By GBS
I bought this product a couple days ago, and it works great. Excellent quality picture, and it makes it much more easy and relaxing to skype, because you can do it from your couch in front of the tv. The microphones pick up clear sound even from a couch ten feet away. This improves the skype experience enough so that we will now use skype a lot.
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