Software and Video Capture

As mentioned before, the included software that comes with the F100 is pretty basic but serves its function. The included Genius Utility software includes only a pair of options: frequency change between 50Hz and 60Hz and the enabling and disabling of the IPM (protection feature to prevent random programs from turning your webcam on and off without consent.)

The ARCSoft WebCam Companion 4 that comes with the F100 is easy to use and has a few useful features. Allowing for both still picture and full audio/video capture with the click of a button, the software is useful to both the webcam novice as established user. You can even upload your pictures to Facebook, Twitter, or Flickr and videos directly to YouTube right from within the program.

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The video capture quality of the F100 is decent enough, sadly though, there is a noticeable lagging in 1080p video capturing which is substantially less than the advertised 30 FPS “true HD” although when capturing video up to 720p quality this lost in quality is not noticeable. It is unclear whether this loss in quality is the result of encoding after the fact or the actual capturing but while streaming I have had to downscale the webcam capture to 720p for a more fluid video.

The manually adjusted focus is also worth talking about with many webcams on the market being of the auto-focus variety. Personally, I didn’t have a problem with adjusting the focus manually as it was as simple as adjusting focus on a camera but I typically kept the webcam in a stable and consistent placement. If you are one to move around and change your webcams orientation frequently the constant focus adjusting may become a hassle for you.

As a still camera the F100 functions quite admirably with its 12MP rating. While most users will likely have a separate digital camera available to take still pictures, it is nice to know the functionality is there should it be needed in a pinch.

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