Xbox Live Vision is now in stores nationwide and its time to see Xbox Live leap into a whole new realm. With this small camera, Microsoft is aiming to take Xbox Live on a whole new route. No longer will you be limited to the time consuming text messaging, and for those who hate voice messaging and making sure their voice is pitch perfect, might as well forget that too because a picture is worth a thousand words.
Being an avid Xbox Live user myself, I have come to terms with the fact that I don’t have the patience to sit down and select all the right letters to text my friends. This is why video chat is a critical addition for me. Video chat allows two users to chit chat with each other while of course seeing their friends. Within the video chat, you have the option to apply filters to the video feed to liven up the conversations. The most interesting filter I ended up using the most was the ‘Sin City’ style that uses tan and black outlines over objects.
For all those techies out there, the streaming video is beautiful in motion and we never experienced any real slowdowns. There were only a few hiccups when I talked back and forth with another journalist. These hiccups occurred after about an hour of usage – hardly anything to scoff at.
If you are a loving parent, be ready to report and block users for inappropriate use since immaturity is bound to happen at random. Hopefully it won’t happen too much, but over a game such as Uno, members do have the freedom to do what they want. I have already experienced multiple situations where I came across rooms that were full with Xbox Live members and simultaneously two of them were mooning the camera.
Another small but unique attribute for video chat is the ability to control the rumble feature in your friend’s Xbox 360 controller. This feature helps keep things interesting and you’ll be able to alert your friend with the shake of the controller. I kind of stumbled on this feature by accident when I dropped my controller onto the ground. The 2 triggers were hit and sent the vibrations through my friend’s controller. I can’t really see any practical purpose for this feature, and it really is a novelty, useful only for entertainment purposes.
Moving on, picture messaging is also now incorporated into Xbox Live. Setting up the picture is simple and user friendly. Prior to taking the picture, you’ll have three seconds to pose before the camera snaps the picture. After you are satisfied with the picture, you are then able to edit the picture with any of the 20 effects and filters that Microsoft has provided. These filters help create unique pictures with effects like black & white photos or a “night camera” look. If you aren’t fully content with your pictures, you are able to continuously take new pictures for as long as you want. I ended up going back at least two times for every picture I sent to my friends to liven it up in some way using the effects.
