Hercules Dualpix HD webcam

Using the webcam

As a webcam, the Dualpix HD does about exactly what you can expect of such a product: a nice smoothly moving picture at a low resolution of 320x240 pixels. All of the well known instant messenger programs are supported. It is a downright shame that neither MSN Messenger nor Skype, which were the programs we tested with, were able to use the higher resolutions this camera should be capable of. However the product can't be blamed for this, rather the conservative settings and limited options of these programmes are at fault here. Of course this is only all the more painful for a webcam model with the promise of 'HD' so prominent in its name. Thankfully Hercules does include a separate application (Webcam Station Evolution) to access the high quality options of the camera, even if for any purpose but the main webcam function. The other bundled application, Hercules Zoom Controller, does work when the camera is used as a webcam. This particular tool enables you to zoom in on a part of the image, up to 300 percent. Actually this is more of a crop than a zoom, but seeing how the camera's sensor is capable of a much higher resolution than the messenger programs supprot, at least zooming doesn't mean losing any quality. The ‘Travelling Zoom' function is mildly entertaining, it attempts to zoom in on that part of the image where a face is detected, in order to follow it. It works surprisingly well.

Considering the aforementioned limited resolution, the webcam's images are quite good. Our testing location has yet to know anything other than artificial light, but the camera produced clear images with good contrast and most importantly, above average colour balance. Especially after manual adjustment of the settings does the images generated by this webcam can be qualified as better than we're used to for this type of product. None of the too dark, greenish output we see so often from webcams.