Review: Ariston iSee Pro Offers Modest Quality at Modest Price

PRODUCT: iSee Pro
DESCRIPTION: USB Digital Video Camera
MANUFACTURER: Ariston
RETAIL COST: $169.95
CONCLUSIONS: Easy to use; average-to-poor quality picture; severe distortion around edges.

Years ago the software wizards at Connectix, inventors of nearly magical tricks like RAM Doubler and Virtual PC, released an expensive digital video camera called QuickCam. What was revolutionary was the low price and the unusual "eyeball" design.

Today many vendors sell digital video cameras (Connectix sold their QuickCam technology to Logitech, which continues to market them, though sadly without the Mac focus of Connectix). Ariston Technologies has introduced the iSee Pro, another eyeball camera.

I expected video quality to have improved considerably since I last used my old QuickCam Color, but sadly the iCamera Pro offers a muddy, fuzzy picture compared to today's high resolution digital still cameras. Even your basic consumer camcorder shows truer colors and a sharper picture.

But of course a camcorder is much more expensive and requires a separate digitizer (such as Ariston's iView). For modest video needs, such as a webcam, the iSee is quite adequate.

The above is a still of my Grandfather (he's 85 and much amused by all my technogadets). Color looks pretty good (though a bit red), but look at the amazing amount of distortion of the vertical door behind him!

I took this picture of the Oregon coast from my Grandpa's living room. Again, much distortion of straight lines, and this time there's a strange magenta/purple color to the horizon (it was not that color in real life). Also, everything in the distance is rather fuzzy (especially compared to the sharpness of the other picture). I conclude from this test that the camera isn't designed for outdoor use.

The iSee Pro includes several niceties. It has a built-in base (which includes a tripod mount), there's a focus knob on the face of the camera, and a snapshot button on the camera top which lets you quickly capture a still (though in my tests there was occasionally a delay of several seconds before it took the picture).

My test unit did not include the Macintosh video editing software that's supposed to come with the camera, so I made do with an old copy of Strata VideoShop, which worked as fine as the iSee Pro works with any QuickTime editing software. From the description on the product box, however, it seems that Windows users get more software than Mac users; I'm sorry to see Ariston continuing that sad trend.

In short, if you're interested in a basic, inexpensive digital video camera, the iSee Pro can do the job, though video quality isn't as good as a more expensive camcorder.