IPEVO Point 2 View USB Document Camera

• October
• 11

6:35 am Document Cameras

Last summer I attend the BC Calculus session of St. Johnsbury Academy’s AP Institute. The entire experience was fantastic, and in particular my instructor, Vic Levine, was an all-around all-star. One piece of technology that he used that I was impressed by was the IPEVO Point 2 View USB Document Camera, a simple document camera.

He used it to display a variety of documents. With it, he could quickly and easily show us any content generated by a student in class or that he had brought with him. Most of us in the class were not new to the technology as we’d seen Elmos in action. What was new to us was how easy the device was to use and it’s affordable price of $69.99. I came away from the experience with the full intention to try one out myself.

Two weeks ago I finally got around to ordering my own unit. After two weeks of use I can make the following observations:

1) It’s super easy to use. Install the (small) software package (from CD) that comes with the camera, plug the camera in to an open USB port, and you’re up and running. I’m currently running mine through a small USB hub and it’s working fine.

2) The stand works well and can be easily placed on a higher surface to get a wider view. The camera also comes with a clip that could be used instead of the stand if you have something to clip it to. I haven’t used the clip yet.

3) The view can easily be flipped vertically or horizontally. This means that I can have the camera base facing towards me with the camera over my hands, and the projected image is shown properly on my projector.

4) The camera’s autofocus works well — a little too well in fact. If my table was more stable, this wouldn’t be an issue, but since it moves a little bit, the camera (rightly so) tries to refocus. Sometimes it tries to refocus a little too often. So, I’ve set the mode to manual focus. In this mode I click a button and the camera focuses on the center content. I only have to do this a couple times a class.

5) The camera does a great job at focusing on things that are very close by. I used the camera yesterday to show my students how to fold some geometric shapes. Instead of constantly walking around to give each student a close up of what I was doing, I could show them, to even greater detail, all at once by folding right in front of the camera.

6) The camera can easily be used as a pretty decent web cam.

7) You can boost the exposure by a couple notches, a feature that I’ve found to be helpful in low-ish light.

8) Sometimes people like to turn off their lights when they use a projector. The problem with doing that while using this camera is that you need good light for the camera to adequately see the document. I haven’t needed to do this since my projector is bright and can be seen well with the lights turned on, but others have had issues. This problem could be solved with a directional lamp pointed at the documents. I plan on looking into cheap LED lights that I can mount to the camera itself.

9) The control program (P2V) is super easy to use. With it you can take picture, change exposure, jump to full screen, zoom, change the view, and adjust the resolution.

10) I’ve been primarily using the camera to show student work from homework assignments as well as work generated on the stop. So far it’s performed beautifully.

The bottom line is that this camera is worth every penny it’s $69.99 sticker price. If you’re in the market for a document camera, try this one out first before you fork out $500+ for an Elmo.

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