Polycom ViaVideo II Web Cam

Pros: Able to communicate at high bandwidth and frame rate.
Cons: Product does not work consistently. Buggy Software. Very disappointing product technical support. Exorbitant price tag.

The Polycom ViaVideo and their later ViaVideo II desktop device are greatly touted by Polycom as an excellent product with superb performance. It is able to communicate at 512kb/s over the Internet at 30fps.

I am impressed by the quality of the communication session and the ease to install this device on a computer. Unfortunately, there are only 2 problems with this product other than its high price tag:

1. Its latest Viavideo software V5.1.1 simply does not work and will drop connection after connecting for about 3 mins. This is tested on 2 computers, with both Windows 2000 and Windows XP, with no other software loaded besides the standard hardware drivers (i.e., video, sound ,etc.).

2. Polycom technical support is simply disappointing. They are only interested to attribute the problem on everything (including Dell, Microsoft, NVidia, etc.) but its product. Bottom line is, they are useless if you seeking help to get this product working.

I am now looking at a corresponding Tandberg product.