Working With Cameras and Personal Capture

Owned by Hannah Petty
Last updated: Sep 21, 2015Version comment
2 min read

In this section:

Overview

While Echo360 works with and attempts to support a wide variety of cameras, we strongly recommend you to use one of the tested web cameras listed for each version of Personal Capture. These cameras have been tested in-house with the Personal Capture product.  Click the following link for supported and recommended devices with Echo360 Capture products:

Recommended and Supported Camera and Input Devices

Best Practices for Web Cameras

Follow these best practices:

  • Current drivers. Use the most current drivers for your web camera.  You can find these drivers on the website of your PC or laptop manufacturer. You can also have the operating system of your computer search for current drivers. 
  • OS Updates. Please have the most current updates applied to your operating system.
  • "Driver-only" installation. If possible, use the "driver-only" installation of the camera software. Most web camera vendors allow for this. Sometimes, the software included with the web camera can interfere with the Personal Capture connection to the web camera. In some cases, the "driver-only" method is the only supported method.
  • Test a capture. Perform and review a test capture before using the camera routinely. See Test Protocol for Web Cameras below.

Test Protocol for Web Cameras

To ensure successful recording, we encourage you to follow the below test protocol the first time you use any web camera, even if it has already been tested by Echo360. It is even more important to do this if you are using an unsupported web camera; in many cases an unsupported web camera will work. If the web camera fails, please enter a support request.

Follow these steps:

  1. Ensure that there are no other software applications accessing the web camera while Personal Capture is running.
  2. Do a 15 minute A/V recording with the unsupported camera. 
  3. Examine the media using the Personal Capture software editor.
  4. Publish the capture to the EchoSystem Server (ESS) and wait for processing.
  5. Evaluate the processed results (the "output products") from the ESS.
  6. Do the output products meet your standards?

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