First, what to expect on a call
No meeting app transmits 4K. Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet all cap at 1080p and frequently send 720p, depending on your plan, your computer and your connection. If you are judging the image inside a call, you are seeing what the meeting app sends rather than what the camera captures.
Full resolution is available where the video is not being sent anywhere — local recording in QuickTime or the Windows Camera app, capture software such as OBS, and the iContact Control preview.
Always turn on HD
For the best video quality, make sure your iContact Camera is selected correctly in your video calling app. You can also enable HD video in Zoom, where available, and adjust your camera settings in Microsoft Teams.
Zoom
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Open Zoom Workplace.
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Go to Settings → Video & Effects → Camera.
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Enable HD video if the option is available.
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Under Camera, select iContact Camera for normal plug-and-play use, or iContact Control to apply your Control app settings.
Note: HD video availability and resolution depend on your Zoom account, meeting settings, and system requirements. Enabling HD does not guarantee a specific resolution in every call.
Microsoft Teams
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Open Microsoft Teams.
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Go to Settings → Devices.
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Under Camera, select iContact Camera for normal plug-and-play use, or iContact Control to apply your Control app settings.
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Review the available camera settings. You can turn off Automatically adjust camera controls if you want to manually adjust the available controls.
Note: Teams automatically manages video quality based on factors such as network conditions and device capabilities. Standard video-call settings do not offer a general HD resolution selector.
Tip: If you're using iContact Control, open the app first and adjust your camera settings before opening your video calling app. Then select iContact Control as your camera source.
Check what you are actually getting
Mac: QuickTime Player > File > New Movie Recording, select iContact Camera, record a few seconds and check the file's dimensions.
Windows: open Camera, take a photo or short video, and check its properties.
If that looks right and your calls do not, the meeting app is the limit, not the camera.
Then work through the picture itself
- Clean the lens. A soft microfiber cloth removes the fingerprints and dust behind most soft images.
- Improve your lighting. Autofocus needs contrast to lock onto; in dim light it hunts and settles poorly. See lighting that looks good on camera.
- Give autofocus a moment. Move slightly closer or further away and pause. Objects very close to the lens pull focus away from your face.
- Check autofocus is on in iContact Control. If you sit at a fixed distance you can turn it off and set focus manually.
If it is soft everywhere, check the connection
A USB hub, dock or monitor port shares bandwidth between everything attached to it. When there is not enough left, the camera quietly drops to a lower resolution rather than failing outright — so the picture is soft and nothing looks broken. Plug straight into the computer and compare.
Give your computer room
Close what you are not using, particularly other video or streaming software, and turn off virtual backgrounds while testing. Encoding video is one of the first things a busy or battery-throttled machine gives up on.