Logitech C922 Pro Stream Webcam
Cut out and weep
LET US WASTE NO TIME and begin by addressing the elephant in the Logitech C922 room: its box-vaunted background replacement feature. This is meant to do a virtual chroma-key, and blot out everything but yourself, making this (in theory) a perfect cam for cost-conscious streamers. Using a piece of third-party software called Personify Chromacam, which appears as a virtual device in any webcam-compatible software, whatever happens to be behind you is indeed excised—but it’s done with the ferocity and finesse of an angry toddler carrying a chainsaw.
Testing the feature on a busy background, Chromacam routinely hacked off our headphones, and the majority of our arms and shoulders, with strange, wobbling, wavy edges. Sitting stock still and giving it time to adjust just made the problem worse, because it then presumed we were part of the background. If you’re interested in holding video conversations looking like a digital ghost struggling to traverse the barrier between the human and spirit worlds, more power to you; the ironic thing is that, in order to get even mildly good results out of it, we needed to move to a spot with a neutral, plain background that contrasted with our clothes and skin. Isn’t that precisely what the feature is supposed to prevent you having to do?
Background replacement isn’t this cam’s only automatic feature, though, and the rest of it is really rather good. Autofocus works very well, reacting quickly to distance changes in the central portion of the camera’s viewing area, though the edges, with no way to select a particular focus point, are less sensitive. There’s a massive focal range, so it captures you nice and sharp wherever you happen to be sitting. The camera’s automatic lowlight correction is also pretty good, a step above the integrated webcams we tested it against. Although, as is usual for digital sensors, there’s a notable increase in visual noise as the sensor has to work hard to fight the dark. This is an environmental feature more than anything, in that it’s helpful if you’re in an inconsistently lit locale—next to a window, for example— but less so if you’re in an electric-lit room. Taking control manually using the barebones settings panel, you get access to a limited set of exposure levels, so you won’t always find the perfect configuration.
STREAM DREAM?
There’s also panning, tilting, and zooming integrated into the driver—these aren’t physical functions, but they’re useful if you’re a little further away from the camera’s massive 78º field of view, and want to crop out your boyband posters and dirty laundry. With its maximum resolution of 1920x1080 at 30fps (and a far zippier 1280x720 60fps mode available) tied into some remarkably sharp H.264 compression, the C922 gives you plenty of wiggle room, in most cases, to work with a smaller area of the image when streaming or holding conversations. Its integrated mic is, well, fine—not something we’d ever record with, and the usefulness of stereo mic functionality in a unit you’ll primarily use for Twitch or Skype is debatable. But adding an environmental mic to a desktop PC that lacks one, or upgrading that of a cheaper laptop, is a bonus. You’re not short of positioning options, with a desk tripod in the box, and a stiffly-engineered monitor hook that can be adapted to hang from the top of just about any screen, so it’s flexible enough for most potential setups.
The main issue with the C922 isn’t its failed chroma-key gimmick or slightly awkward settings panel, though. We’re utterly spoiled by the devices we have in our pockets, and while phone sensors are improving rapidly, the same can’t be said for the sensors we get to play with on the desktop. This is functional and sharp— perfect, in fact, if you just want a webcam— but it’s time for the tech, particularly at this price, to take the next step. –ALEX COX