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mynewrog · ‎05-17-2013

Hi,

So it's true that from the very first moment, my video preview from Skype didn't look exactly..."crystal clear" but I didn't bother. After all it was labelled as 2.0MP so it should be more than fine. Well, guess again!

Last night, I was getting a lot of complaints from 2 different people I had been video-conferencing with quite often (not from the new G75VX though) as they had been accustomed to a certain "video quality" provided by my old ACER's webcam (which I considered mediocre until yesterday). They were telling me they couldn't practically distinguish certain areas of my face... Sounded really strange as none of us has poor connection and I was assured my webcam should be more than up to the job.

What better time to get to the bottom of this then, so I went ahead and powered up my old ACER with a whooping (!) 0.3MP webcam and just switched the conferencing there. Their replies were: Wow! what did you do? It's like night and day, we can now see you clearly while before the blur was unbearable...!!! I said: excuse me?? It should be the other way around!

In disbelief, after endind the video-calls I opened the webcam device from VLC just to capture a few test videos and indeed, it seems that video from the old ACER's 0.3webcam looks like FULL HD video compared to the crappy image the ASUS "2.0MP" webcam delivers. How is this possible?? I mean it's a 2013 premium laptop, you'd expect at least a decent webcam and not sosuch a low performing device. This gets more frustrating by the difficulty of upgrading this item (I have replaced laptop lcd panels before but I don't want to void my warranty on a brand new device) and I am sure If I buy a usb webcam, I will forget it at home the time I will be needing the most.

All in all, I just wish one could tell me that I am wrong and very very stupid to have mis-set some setting/driver which is to blame for such a crappy quality but I'm guessing not since these devices are merely plug and play. In that case does anyone confirm this? Also, any decent webcam suggestions? (Don't want silly full hd solutions, I won't be shooting a movie with it, just want the other guy to be able to recognise who I am without having to check my contact details!) Thinking about something like Logitech HD270...

JwPwns · ‎05-17-2013

hey, I know what you are talking about, these web cams are not exactly the perfect webcams for a gaming computer that we spend 1k on.. while the cheap mainstream laptops that cost 300 have way better webcam than we do -__- it's true that these webcam qualities are low. Not to mention that they can't even put in a 720p webcam that cost as much as 10 bucks max. I guess what they had in mind while creating these laptop was we will never use webcams so we won't find out about these crappy cheap cameras

Asus G46 vw
3rd Gen Intel® Core™ i7-3820QM processor
16GB-DDR Corsair Vengence 1600
128GB Samsung 830 Msata SSD + 750 GB HDD
GTX 660m + Windows 7 ultimate db Windows 8 pro

Cyrix · ‎05-17-2013

yeah they put a cheap a$$ webcam, horrible sound chipset (VIA), crappy WiFi (Atheros) that can barely get 150 mbps top speed max, and they call this a performance/gaming laptop.

did I forget about the crappy screen that looks washed out with crappy colors?

When I am at the mall and look at the budget laptops for $500 USD their screen looks 10 times crisper than mine!

this is my last try with ASUS. Next laptop will be an Alienware

dogfart · ‎05-17-2013

Yes, I have a G75VW and the webcam is worthless. It isnt a concern for me tho as I didnt want a built in webcam anyways and have disabled it in the BIOS. But I did try it and it does suck. Even tho I dont use it I think that it should be usable, and it is not.

mynewrog · ‎05-17-2013

All right... It seems that's the way it is! Very disappointing.

It's even more frustrating really if you consider that a laptop's webcam is something most people use at least on a weekly basis, it's so ridiculously cheap to put a decent one in, and it's such a mess having to upgrade it yourself (if it is even possible!). There is absolutely no excuse for such a poor design choice.

Are there any upgrade options really? I don't mind tearing the screen apart. Too bad I recommended a friend an ASUS Ultrabook which he received yesterday, only to realize it has exactly the same crappy webcam as mine. Now I hang my head in shame not knowing what to reply really!

Cyrix · ‎05-18-2013

mynewrog wrote:
Too bad I recommended a friend an ASUS Ultrabook which he received yesterday, only to realize it has exactly the same crappy webcam as mine. Now I hang my head in shame not knowing what to reply really!

ouch!

ASUS have lost their big name they once had about producing quality products!

dstrakele · ‎05-18-2013

It sounds like you guys possibly have:

1) a defective webcam

2) corrupt webcam driver or video conferencing software

3) bandwidth issues, or

4) DPC Latency causing performance problems.

I've got the 2.0 MP webcam on my G74SX and it works fine. I can't tell any difference between it and the 2.0 and 8.0 MP cams on my phone when using Skype.

The Atheros WB9002-1NG WiFi card gives me the same performance as other 2.4 Ghz cards I've used on other laptops.

The display on my G74SX looks as good or better than any 17.3" display I've seen.

And I typically don't have a lot of good things to say about ASUS on this forum...

G74SX-A1 - stock hardware - BIOS 202 - 2nd Monitor VISIO VF551XVT

TLAVY · ‎05-18-2013

Same problem here terrible web cam quality images. If its a setting please advise...

dstrakele · ‎05-18-2013

I don't believe it's as simple as a setting or configuration.

I recommend booting up a Linux "LiveCD" distribution to see if the problem persists under a different OS and driver. If so, the problem is likely caused by hardware. If not, you can begin troubleshooting for a software solution.

However, lack of bandwidth is often a cause of poor video performance. It will occur under any OS, so you can't be sure the Linux "LiveCD" test truly indicates a hardware problem unless you've checked video performance with another webcam.

G74SX-A1 - stock hardware - BIOS 202 - 2nd Monitor VISIO VF551XVT

dogfart · ‎05-18-2013

The problem I had was very very very laggy video, even on the lowest setting. If I aim a 300w flood lamp on me the lag subsides. This leads me to beleive the cam has a low light level filter than is too sensitive. I can NOT find a way to turn it off. I plugged in my old Logitech 720p HD webcam and it works great. I personnally am very happy with my G75VW. I think the sound is fine(with newest drivers), display looks great. No wifi issues. I can play CoD BO2 at full 1080p and get about 50fps. I can always plug in my old cam if I want to be "social". 🙂

G75VX webcam really that bad?