Lifecam VX-5500 Choppy and Erratic Video

Hello and thanks for reading my post. I have a four-year-old Toshiba
Satellite A75-S229 laptop. It is running Windows XP SP3. It has an ATI
Mobility Radeon 9000 IGP graphics component with the latest driver available
as of this writing (available here:
http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/jsp/modelContent.jsp?ct=DL&os=&category=&moid=835418&rpn=PSA70U&modelFilter=A75-S229&selCategory=3&selFamily=1073768663&selModel=835418|PSA70U).
I also have the latest BIOS installed as of this writing.

I got a Microsoft Lifecam VX-5500 for Christmas, but unfortunately the video
it displays flickers horribly. Blocks just move around the image constantly.

When I installed the Lifecam software, I saw it say "verifying minimum
system requirements" so I know that the laptop has enough speed and memory to
handle the webcam.

Any advice would be appreciated; thank you.

perhaps too much software running in the background?

If you're not satisfied with the product, consider a refund.

An alternate test you could try, might be to use Windows Movie Maker to
acquire a short movie segment. Using a different playback application then,
might work around any issues with the video card driver.

Try uninstalling sp3 and going back to sp2.

Nope, that wouldn't be it. I have minimal processes and services running on
the laptop. The actual speed of video playback is fine; it's just distorted
and "blocky", as in little squares of the video image become detached and
move around.

I never used the webcam on the laptop back when it was SP2, so I wouldn't
uninstall a whole service pack when it wasn't guaranteed that it would work.
I also wouldn't give up the security benefits of SP3 just to get a webcam
functioning properly. I am pretty sure that the problem lies with the old ATI
video driver or the Microsoft Lifecam driver for the camera itself. I use the
camera on my new PC without a problem, so I know that it is fully functional.

Having the exact same problem with a Microsoft NX3000 webcam my daughter
got for Christmas which refuses to work properly with her Dell Vostro
1000 laptop with a Sempron 3800, 1 GB of RAM and Windows XP.

The Vostro also has an ATI video chip.

It functions correctly at the lowest resolution, but the video breaks up
at 640x480 and 320x240.

It works correctly when plugged into our aging desktops, with half the
RAM and smaller processors than the Dell.

Please share if you find a solution outside the group. We will, as well.
I have another brand of webcam coming which advertises no need for extra
drivers. Will post if it works.

I just got the Lifecam VX-5000 and have the same horrible flicker. I have a
[4-5 yr old] desktop pc and mb has integrated video - guess what - ATI Radeon
9000 IGP. I also am running sp3.

Were you ever able to resolve the problem?

I installed this Lifecam on my newer HP laptop and it works fine.

Jim

[RichLoba]

Did anyone ever figure out this problem.

I have the exact same problem on 2 of my Toshiba Satellite 75 laptops.

One is Vista Ultimate and the other one is XP SP3.

At one time i was able to have the camera run on the XP, but after just rebuilding it the camera is now choppy.

The camera works on other machines, a Compaq x64, and HP 1.7mhz, so it seems to be something with the Toshiba laptop not working with XP SP3 and Vista.

Does this make sense?

If anyone has any resolutions, it would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

[Crazycanis]

I realize this post is a few months later, but I would imagine more people will still be running into this problem. While I don't have a fix, I have discovered something interesting.

I am using the Lifecam vx-5000 on two computers with two totally different experiences. On my Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop, the webcam works perfectly no glitchs and seemless video. However, on my desktop my audio is fine, but the video flickers, and goes in and out of different colors (green, red, blue..etc...).

In terms of the PC's, both are running XP (laptop = home; desktop = Prof.) all are up-to-date and all drivers are current (with the exception of my laptop video drivers they are old). Lastly, my desktop is a custom built machine, with 4 USB ports hard connected to the Motherboard and 2USB ports that are connected by cable to the motherboard. All ports produce the same image flickering image.

So this is my conclusion....

My guess at the moment is those of us that are recieving flickering images just have Noisy electronics. that is, somewhere along the pipline the images from the webcam are picking up noise from other electronics before they are displayed and/or sent to others. How to fix? No easy fix I'm affraid; narrowing down which components are creating signal noise would be quite the investigation.

The frustrating part about this, is from what I've seen out there, is there really is no fix for this issue. It either works in your USB ports or it doesn't (i.e. flickering video). Perhaps there are other webcams that can deal with signal noise better than Microsoft's products (please post if there is, that is if you've experienced this problem, replaced with another brand and it works). - thanks