One of the main advantages of the laptop is the presence of a built-in camera with a microphone, which allows you to chat on Skype without the need to purchase additional equipment.

This is probably the first time many people have encountered a situation where a program told them that the camera was unavailable. However, this does not mean that the device is not working correctly and needs to be replaced or repaired.

This applies not only to laptop owners, but also to owners personal computers who have already purchased a camera. Most likely, you should simply connect the device, and in the case of a PC, additionally install a driver (usually when selling a web camera, a disk with such a program is included).

Setting up a camera is even easier than, for example, activating an MTS trust payment, the connection of which is also paid. This does not require special skills from the computer owner.

So, first you need to make sure that the camera is connected. To do this, you should open the program responsible for its operation, or a test. If even after opening the menu items remain inactive and the image is not displayed, you need to try connecting the web camera as a device.

Access to controls is usually provided through the Fn button in combination with other function keys (most often they are marked in blue).

If you look closely at them, you can find an image of a web camera. While holding down the Fn button, you should simultaneously press the key where the camera is drawn. When turned on, a corresponding image and the inscription “On” will be displayed on the desktop. This will mean that the webcam is ready for use.

A similar result can be achieved using traditional means operating system. So, in the “Start” menu, select “Control Panel” → “Administrative Tools” and double-click on the tab. In the window that opens, find a shortcut called “Computer Management” and open the window.

On the left side is the “Equipment Manager”. This is the option that should be opened.

The user will see a list of devices on his laptop or PC. In the “Image Processing Device” menu, you will need to find the list marked with a “+” sign and select the name of your camera there. Right-click on the name → “Enable” → “Ok”.

If the user could not find the icon or name of his web camera, it is likely that a driver needs to be installed. Installing such software is no more difficult than throwing money into a megaphone.

A modern laptop is very convenient because there is no need to purchase additional devices (camera, microphone).

To check correct operation built-in web camera on a newly purchased laptop, you should install the drivers, go to “Start” → “Control Panel” → “Scanners and Cameras”. An image should start appearing on the monitor. Accordingly, the quality of the video is checked by moving a little.

There are times when the camera on our laptop simply does not work. Either it is not yet configured for a new acquisition, or the one that previously worked has stopped working. Here is a list of options when you may not be satisfied with the camera on a laptop:

1. Often, when buying a new laptop, the camera does not work at all. In this case, it needs to be configured.
2. Your camera is not working quite correctly, that is, the image is upside down, the picture is colorless, and so on.
3. Sometimes there were cases when the camera worked in normal mode, but the picture quality left much to be desired.
4. Your camera works flawlessly, but you want to expand its functionality. For example, take a photo or trim a video.

There are many more problems that users face when using a webcam, but these are the most common.

How to get a webcam to work on a new laptop

If you have never used the camera on your laptop before, but want to do so, first make sure that it is installed as equipment in your software. To do this, we do the following:

1. On the desktop, right-click on the “My Computer” icon, from the list that appears, find and select the “Manage” item.
2. In the left column you should notice the “Device Manager” directory - click on it, after which in the right column we mark with a cross the inscription “Image processing devices”. If the camera is installed, then in theory it should be in this directory.

In any case, whether it is there or not, you need to perform the steps indicated in the paragraph “universal treatment procedures” (This is installing or replacing drivers for your webcam).

— In order to remove all drivers, repeat the procedure indicated above, then double-click on the name of your camera and click the “Delete” button in the “Driver” tab. Then we confirm the deletion.

- If you don't have drivers or you just uninstalled them, you should install new ones. To do this, insert the driver disk into the laptop and install the driver packages from the “Webcam” folder. The disk should come with the laptop itself, but if it is missing, download all the drivers from the official website of the laptop manufacturer.

How to fix problems with incorrect work cameras (image upside down and the like).

Often the cause of such confusion is a bug in the drivers. Therefore, follow the procedure indicated above. If installing new drivers does not help, contact service center, whereas this is already a problem with the equipment.

How to make the picture quality on the camera better (if it is disgusting).

The quality of the picture is already a problem with the camera itself, so you need to either replace it or buy a new webcam at any electronics store. There you will already select the quality you need.

How to Expand Your Camera's Functionality

To do this you will need to install special programs. Often this is software that you can download from the official suppliers of your operating systems.

You're sitting comfortably with your laptop, hoping to chat with a friend in Skype, and the program reports that the WEB camera is unavailable. Do not rush to get upset, as this does not mean that your laptop requires repair. It is quite possible that the WEB camera is disabled and you just need to connect it. It is not difficult at all and does not require any special skill or time.

Instructions for turning on the WEB camera

First of all, check if the WEB camera is turned on

To do this, run the program that controls WEB work cameras. Or run a camera test directly from the window client program. If after startup the image does not appear on the screen and the menu items are unavailable, then you should connect the camera as a device.

Find the key on your keyboard labeled "Fn"

It is usually located on the left side of the keyboard next to " Ctrl" Keystroke " Fn» allows you to use other function keys that control devices. They are usually marked in blue and are located in the top row of the keyboard. Using this key you can turn on the WEB camera. Take a close look at the keyboard and find the WEB camera icon. Press the " Fn"and, holding it, press the second key with the WEB camera icon. A picture of the WEB camera with the inscription “ On" The camera is ready to use.

We achieve this using standard Windows tools

From the menu that appears after pressing the " Start", select " Control Panel", and in it find the tab " Administration" and double-click on it with the mouse. Find the shortcut in the window " Computer management" and open a console window. On the left side of the window, find the snap-in " Equipment Manager" and run it.

Structured list of computer devices

Open the nested list under the "+" icon in the " line Imaging device" In this list you will see the name of your camera. Right-click on it and select from the proposed menu “ Turn on" All you have to do is click the button “ OK" to confirm activation. If you do not find the WEB camera icon in the device manager list, you may need to reinstall the WEB camera driver.

N. Romodanov

Original: "Add A Customizable Webcam Widget To Your Desktop With The Simple & Lightweight CamDesk"
Author: Yaara Lancet
Publication date: June 15, 2012
Translation: N. Romodanov
Transfer date: June 2012

Webcams are cool. There really is no limit to what you can do with a webcam. The camera may not be as exciting as it once was, but it is still one of the most useful devices I own. One thing I find strange about webcams is the lack of flexibility in how they can be used.

How can I make sure that I see on my work what comes from my webcam, regardless of what I am doing? What should I do if I don’t like sitting stupidly in a video chat and staring at the chat client?

Not long ago I came across the CamDesk program. It's a tiny app with open source code, which offers a really simple solution to the problems mentioned above using a webcam. With CamDesk, you can get a constant stream of data from any of your webcams into a customizable window, so you can keep an eye on everything happening in front of your webcam, no matter what you're doing. The program can be used for any purpose: from tracking your cats and watching your front door to constantly broadcasting your image in a video chat or recording a video. Fabulous!

Installing CamDesk

CamDesk is an open source project that is still being developed by several independent developers. As such, it is magnificent in its simplicity, but in some places it is unfinished. CamDesk is reported to be available for Windows, Linux, Chrome and Android systems, but as for the last two implementations, they are still far from the end of the development stage, and even the developers themselves do not recommend downloading them.

If you are using Linux system, then when you download the tar archive, you will find installation instructions in it. With your permission, for now I will focus on the version for Windows systems. To install CamDesk for Windows, you must have the .NET Framework 4 installed. That's all you really need to install CamDesk (assuming you have 1.17 MB of free space on your hard drive, of course).

CamDesk is a portable application and there is no installation process as such. Just unzip the files and run EXE file. Now you're ready to try out some webcam features!

Using CamDesk

If you have more than one webcam connected to your computer, then the first thing you need to do is select the camera that you want to use to constantly broadcast the video signal. Unfortunately, the camera cannot be changed inside CamDesk, and there is no other option than to restart CamDesk every time you want to change the video source. Since this is a very small and fast application, reloading it shouldn't cause too many headaches.

Now that you've selected your source, a video feed should appear on your desktop. It looks something like this:

After you've combed your hair (which I couldn't seem to do), you can start a video chat or start video recording, or just surf the web and see yourself at the same time if you want. You can move the video window by dragging it with the mouse and place it in a less visible place on the desktop. Right-click on the video to access some additional options.

From the menu that opens, you can start and stop the video, switch to full screen mode, access additional settings and stop the CamDesk application. Each operation has its own hotkeys, if you prefer to use them, of course. Let's see what additional settings are in store for us.

This is Bibi, my old cat, who I'm trying to monitor using my other webcam. In the window additional settings, although it looks a little unattractive, it offers several useful settings. Here you can dock the video window and make it always appear on the screen on top of other windows, or undocking and make it behave exactly like other windows. You can also resize the video image to suit your liking and you can also change its transparency.

This last parameter It will be interesting if you want to monitor yourself or someone else while doing something else and don't want the video image to obscure anything valuable on the screen. To do this, you can set the video image to be semi-transparent so you won't lose sight of it.

If you have an external webcam, no matter what you do on your computer, you can never lose sight of the object you're watching. This way I can write this post and keep an eye on whether my cat is awake.

Webcams are cool. There really is no limit to what you can do with a webcam. The camera may not be as exciting as it once was, but it is still one of the most useful devices I own. One thing I find strange about webcams is the lack of flexibility in how they can be used.

How can I make sure that I see on my work what comes from my webcam, regardless of what I am doing? What should I do if I don’t like sitting stupidly in a video chat and staring at the chat client?

Not long ago I came across the program. It's a tiny open source app that offers a really simple solution to the webcam problems mentioned above. With CamDesk, you can get a constant stream of data from any of your webcams into a customizable window, so you can keep an eye on everything happening in front of your webcam, no matter what you're doing. The program can be used for any purpose: from tracking your cats and watching your front door to constantly broadcasting your image in a video chat or recording a video. Fabulous!

Installing CamDesk

CamDesk is an open source project that is still being developed by several independent developers. As such, it is magnificent in its simplicity, but in some places it is unfinished. CamDesk is reported to be available for Windows, Linux, Chrome and Android systems, but as for the last two implementations, they are still far from the end of the development stage, and even the developers themselves do not recommend downloading them.

If you are using a Linux system, when you download the tarball, you will find installation instructions in it. With your permission, for now I will focus on the version for the Windows system. To install CamDesk for Windows, you must have the .NET Framework 4 installed. That's all you really need to install CamDesk (assuming you have 1.17 MB of free space on your hard drive, of course).

CamDesk is a portable application and there is no installation process as such. Just extract the files and run the EXE file. Now you're ready to try out some webcam features!

Using CamDesk

If you have more than one webcam connected to your computer, then the first thing you need to do is select the camera that you want to use to constantly broadcast the video signal. Unfortunately, the camera cannot be changed inside CamDesk, and there is no other option than to restart CamDesk every time you want to change the video source. Since this is a very small and fast application, reloading it shouldn't cause too many headaches.

Now that you've selected your source, a video feed should appear on your desktop. It looks something like this:

After you've combed your hair (which I couldn't seem to do), you can start a video chat or start video recording, or just surf the web and see yourself at the same time if you want. You can move the video window by dragging it with the mouse and place it in a less visible place on the desktop. Right-click on the video to access some additional options.

From the menu that opens, you can start and stop videos, switch to full screen mode, access advanced settings, and stop the CamDesk app. Each operation has its own hotkeys, if you prefer to use them, of course. Let's see what additional settings are in store for us.

This is Bibi, my old cat, who I'm trying to monitor using my other webcam. The advanced settings window, although a little unattractive, offers several useful settings. Here you can dock the video window and make it always appear on the screen on top of other windows, or undocking and make it behave exactly like other windows. You can also resize the video image to suit your liking and you can also change its transparency.

This last option will be interesting if you want to monitor yourself or someone else while doing something else and don't want the video image to obscure anything valuable on the screen. To do this, you can set the video image to be semi-transparent so you won't lose sight of it.

If you have an external webcam, no matter what you do on your computer, you can never lose sight of the object you're watching. This way I can write this post and keep an eye on whether my cat is awake.