DVdriver

DVdriver is a lightweight and efficient piece of software designed from the ground up to make it as easy as possible for you to capture, encode and stream video with the help of your webcam or, better yet,  your camcorder, in order take full advantage of the superior video quality.

Thanks to its streamlined installer, you should be able to deploy this software on your computer's system in just a couple of seconds and with the least amount of effort.

Once launched, you are bound to discover a compact and slightly outdated user interface. Since this application was mainly designed to broadcast video from your camcorder, it should come as no surprise that it packs a few extra control features, at least when you compare it with typical webcam apps.

Even though the app compact UI might seem a bit barren, it offers you an easy way to control your webcam or camcorder's zoom and focus as well as an intuitive pan and tilt controller, dubbed PowerPod. With the help of two small buttons, you can start recording videos or capture snapshots of the live feed.

Right-click anywhere on the app's UI and you are met by a contextual menu that allows you to access more advanced settings. For example, you can access the app's dedicated pan/tilt/zoom Options window that allows you to select the zoom step size and choose the zoom method (Digital, FireWire, and PowerPod).

The other set of settings (DVdriver Settings and Camera Settings) can be easily accessed directly from the live feed window.

The former provides you with a quick way to choose the video sources, framerate, resolution and video output while the latter allows you to tweak various video property and stream settings. This said, you can change tweak parameters like exposure, brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, sharpness, gamma, white balance, backlight compensation, and gain levels.

While it clearly looks a bit weird on later versions of Windows, DVdriver is a neat little application that provides you with various control settings for your webcam or camcorder, allows you to broadcast camcorder video on the Internet, and even to use your camcorder as a webcam.