Thursday, August 7, 2014

Fix zoomed-in webcam on the Windows 8.1 Asus Transformer Book T100

A departure from my usual forays into all things Japanesey (unless you count the fact my Asus Transbook T100T is the Japanese version), I thought I'd go over how to fix the camera on this forsaken device*.

My advice is basically a duplicate of stuff already out there, but somehow I managed to miss it the last couple of times I googled, so if there's a chance it will make the info more available, perhaps it's worth the blog post.

Anyway, if you try to use Skype with the webcam on the Asus Transbook T100T, you'll find that a cropped section of the webcam's total field of view is displayed; it appears as though the webcam is zoomed in.

If you download ManyCam, install it, and run it, Skype gives the option (Tools-Options-Video settings-Select Webcam) of using "Manycam Virtual Webcam". Just like magic, the field of view is repaired, and the "zooming" effect gone! ... Assuming of course that you have the same problem as I did.

So what happened? As has been discussed previously (link), this may be a driver problem. Metro's camera program shows the webcam working normally. However, Skype doesn't appear to have the same access as that Metro app, so we provide it an alternative source (ManyCam) which does have proper access to the webcam. Whether or not this is a driver issue seems like speculation to me, but in any case the workaround sorted this problem for me.

* I actually love my Asus Transbook.. It's constantly starved of memory, could do with an extra USB port, and I went through such hell to get the thing to wake up from sleeping for extended periods of time that I manually disabled the sleep function and made the power button act as a hibernate button. However, it runs Skyrim, and all manner of goodness, whilst being capable of handling my research, translation and surfing needs, and still functions as a decent Windows tablet with a decent battery life.

9 comments:

  1. Finally stumbled across the right solution after searching so much. Thank you for the great solution, appreciate your contribution.

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  2. Thanks you so much!

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  3. Thank you. It works.

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  4. Thanks! Just what I have been looking for

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  5. my camera won't work. after i opened it the camera would closed immediately. what to do? pls help :/

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    1. Late, but I'll offer what limited advice I can. First I'd suggest checking the Metro camera app to see if Windows has any access to the camera at all. If not, then try reinstalling the camera drivers through the device manager in the control panel. If the Metro camera app does correctly show a picture then the camera itself must be fine; the problem must then be with however ManyCam is trying to contact the camera. In this case, all I can suggest is to try fiddle with the Skype video options and ManyCam options. There may be alternatives to ManyCam that might be easier to get working, but you'd have to look that up yourself, I'm afraid.

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  6. You, my friend, are a life saver.
    Thank you so much for your help and posting your solution online. I wasted countless hours of my life on Skype's official website looking for an answer.
    I don't know you, but I love you.
    Here, take all my gratitude and have a great day.

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  7. I have an interview tomorrow... Problem solved, thanks a lot, you made my day! :)

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