interpolated resolution -The webcam Myths

By | March 22, 2012

Yet another post on Megapixels , Hope the previous post will be helpful to you to fully appreciate it

A typical customer who walks in to a computer shop to purchase a webcam is faced with so many confusing choices . The irresistible offer is a range of web cams that offer 12 to 20 Megapixels at an unbelievable price. 20 megapixels !! , my nokia has only 5 Megapixel and my DSLR has only 14 and this nice guy at the shop is offering me 20 Megapixels for just INR 800.

Too good to be true is it ? , if that webcam really transmitted video on that resolution , I need a 2Gpbs leased line to maintain my yahoo chat

just check the advtersement from e-bay about a popular brand of webcam in the industry

 

 

 

if you notice closely there is a line which mentions that the resolution is Interpolated . Ie 25Megapixel Interpolated.

 

Interpolation is a mathematical method by which the resolution can be increased by inserting some additional pixels in between the actual pixels and thereby giving a false feeling of higher resolution. 

If you closly look at the details of the camera , it clearly syay that the maximun video resolution it supports is 640 X 480 . If do do our maths ,   640 X 480 =  307200   , divide the number by 1000,000 , we will get the value in mega pixel . ie a whooping 0.3 megapixel  , not even one mega pixel .

So what ever may the extra technical factors they mentioned in fine print , claiming a 0.3 megapixel camera as a 20 megapixel camera can only be described as    Cheating .    Hope the whole hardware industry will take caution  against such false claims from the hardware vendors . 

2 thoughts on “interpolated resolution -The webcam Myths

  1. Aravind

    Thanks sir. When I say the same to my friends for past few years, they not even just dont believe me, but says “then are those companies cheating in daylight? I dont think so”. Nowthat I can show this page as proof. Even my logitech 1920*1080 HD webcam is just 2MP inside, but the quality is really really nice, close to my DSLR and no matter what lighting the room has. That is what a real 2MP webcam is capable of, but starting from 1.3MP, webcams comes at a premium like 3~5k.

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