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Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

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Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#131

Post by diarrhea »

ansgri wrote: post #25

Sony recently added support for webcam-over-usb to a lot of their cameras, apparently. And they are known for video quality and good lenses. So that’s $700-800 for a very good camera (new) that also works as webcam. https://support.d-imaging.sony.co.jp/app/webcam/en/download/

Sadly, the software is quite terrible. Last I checked, it only did 720p. Even an entry-level Sony at that $700-800 price range outclasses what the software can do by a long shot.

So there's no way to make use of high-end Sony gear for mind-blowing webcam quality, since the software is a huge bottle neck. Very disappointing and a missed opportunity (not to mention Sony was months behind Canikon and others with their software release).

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#132

Post by ThePadawan »

mvdwoord wrote: post #45
ThePadawan wrote: post #16

I can't say the same about my experience with (other people's) webcams. From all the video calls I had this year, people either used * their notebook's built-in webcam that's complete garbage * any other webcam, and their image is clear as day, or at least video quality is limited by lighting or bandwidth.

Seconded, to a degree. It seems most people's workspaces are just very dimly lit. Of course, modern hypersensitive sensors from DSLRs are immune to this. I use a relatively simple and old Logitech (C720 I believe) as webcam, and when I am in calls, I point my desk light straight at my face from just atop the webcam. This alone increases the image quality by an order of magnitude. If I would do more videoconferencing…

Oh lightning is definitely the largest real-life factor.

I definitely cut my colleagues some slack here since many literally had to set up a home office out of nowhere.

Some had to go to the basement (and CFL lights + webcams = blergh), others just had to cram themselves into whatever corner of the house (thus also badly lit).

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#133

Post by kennywinker »

Bad_CRC wrote: post #63

I finally ended buying a cheap (15€) hdmi-usb capture for my dslr and the quality is abysmal. Sure canon released an usb support for it, but all the usb cameras I've tried end up using a lot of cpu. With the capture card 0 problems.

Do you mean “abysmal”? Your first sentence says that a capture device was a bad solution, while the next paragraph seems to imply that it was a good solution.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#135

Post by m-ee »

milesvp wrote: post #69

This article sort of glosses over the actual cost of designing the hardware. You should be able to get 500 units made working through a factory. Though minimum qty for parts can be as high as 5000, usually factories can find most components in smaller qty for 2-5x the price, especially since they already have relationships with suppliers. At $25-$35 bill of materials for something retailing at $250-$300 you're only l…

$30k is extremely optimistic for tooling costs for someones first hardware project. Maybe if they found a good JDM in China to work with.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#136

Post by rutthenut »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #67
lmilcin wrote: post #41

If you are looking here to improve your webcam because you started to do remote work, don't. First try to improve lighting and audio. Any camera will look bad in bad lighting. It is always better to first improve your lighting before you invest in a new camera. Use high CRI lightbulbs and ensure even source color temperature in your room (ie. all lightbulbs should be emitting same color temperature). Audio is also ve…

Those are great tips. I'll add a free one: just put your desk in front of a window and use that natural light

Sod's law means that the window is often behind the desk, making video pics a silhouette, and the light that does come from the monitor can give some ghastly hues to your skin tone!

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#137

Post by riho »

mattowen_uk wrote: post #20

I've also investigated this quite deeply. As I'm sure most of us know, the main problems with 'webcams', either the built-in ones or USB ones that you perch on top of your monitor, are the lens size, and the CCD/CMOS image sensor size. Manufacturers spouting specs like '4k' are deliberately misleading the public if the sensor and/or the lens aren't also upgraded. The only cost-viable methods to get 'broadcast quality…

Finally made an account, just to reply to this. With newer Canon DSLR bodies you can use the Canon Webcam Utility[1] to directly get the video feed show up as a webcam, with just a USB cable.

I've been using the EOS R as my webcam with the RF 35mm F1.8 lens and it's working pretty great. I just hook it up with the USB-C cable and it shows up as a webcam.

The only annoyance that I haven't been able to get around yet is switching batteries. There's a Kickstarter project[2] for a battery that is hot-swappable, but among those features it also allows you to just use the power while plugged in, which I'm eager to try out.

I haven't tested the audio quality of the camera, so I can't say much about that. I've always just used my headset. I would expect it to be somewhere between meh and ok-ish. Of course you could invest in a proper mic plugged into the Camera[3].

I have it set up on a tripod behind my desk. One thing I have been considering is getting some kind of a monitor arm style setup for the Camera, but so far I haven't found such a product.

The setup of course is quite expensive depending on the Camera, but I already had the camera and tripod since I do photography as a hobby, so I was pleasantly surprised when Canon came out with the webcam utility.

Is it worth it? Probably not if you just want something that works all the time. I mostly use the camera to take photos, so I have to re-mount it every time I come back from shooting, and keep the batteries charged, etc. but people do notice and it's fun to see their reactions and getting accused of being a YouTuber every once in a while.

[1] https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/se...

[2] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/x-tra/the-camera-batter...

[3] https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-shotgun-mic/

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#138

Post by iamacyborg »

muro wrote: post #75
pembrook wrote: post #40

The reason you can’t buy a good webcam is the same reason you can’t buy a high quality monitor outside of LG’s unreliable apple collab. The lazy conglomerates who sell these peripherals often don’t actually produce the parts in them. They simply rebrand commodity cameras and IPS panels in a crap plastic housing and slap their logo on it. Then they give the product a hilariously user-hostile product name, like “PQS GR…

Dell sells good monitors.

Sadly the implementation of USB-C on models like the U3419W isn’t to standard and causes known issues when used with Apple laptops.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#139

Post by alexvoda »

another_kel wrote: post #129
TulliusCicero wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not-quite-4K 3,840 x 2,160 But...that is 4K. It's what 4K is defined as, exactly 2x 1080p resolution in each dimension. > Windows scaling looks like crap I don't understand. 2x each dimension (so 1 pixel in the old resolution is 4 in the new) is, like, the easiest possible scenario when it comes to scaling in software.

4k on 27inch requires you to do 175%. 200% is too big.

To explain further:

200% (2 times each direction) scaling on 4K is the equivalent of 1080p. A 1080p 27 inch monitor has huuuge pixels for the normal viewing distance of a desktop monitor. 1080p is common on 23-24 inch displays. Therefore you are forced to use fractional scaling which is less then perfect.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#140

Post by heipei »

avian wrote: post #78
pembrook wrote: post #40

The reason you can’t buy a good webcam is the same reason you can’t buy a high quality monitor outside of LG’s unreliable apple collab. The lazy conglomerates who sell these peripherals often don’t actually produce the parts in them. They simply rebrand commodity cameras and IPS panels in a crap plastic housing and slap their logo on it. Then they give the product a hilariously user-hostile product name, like “PQS GR…

> Then they give the product a hilariously user-hostile product name, like “PQS GRT46782-WT” as an extra f-you to the user. That is also a strategy to prevent product comparisons and unbiased reviews. They quickly cycle through product names and sell a certain product no. only in a limited geographical area. Doesn't matter if a consumer org/magazine/someone on reddit/your friend/etc. does a review. The product will b…

That's exactly what I have been telling folks about Apple vs. other laptops. Apple only has a handful of laptop models for sale and they don't even change that much across generations. Furthermore they seem to exhibit hardly any manufacturing variations within each generation. That means that if there is a problem (and yes, there were a few big ones), everyone is affected the same, everyone is screaming about it, the majority of customers are not corporate customers, and eventually a class action lawsuit is set up and Apple will often (grudgingly) offer to fix/replace broken units for free, like what happened with Staingate or the Butterfly switches.

Now compare that to buying a model from Dell or Lenovo, where the current product lineup is already 2-3x the size, the models are sometimes discontinued, sometimes changed significantly between refreshes, often refreshed annually, oftentimes configurable in a meaningful way (1080p non-glossy vs. 1080p privacy screen vs. 4k glossy vs. 4k touch screen), sometimes just available in certain geographical locations and they exhibit more intra-generation manufacturing differences. The chances of finding other folks with your exact same permutation (and same day of the week it was manufactured) of these options are much smaller, so you stand less of a chance of getting something recognized as a fundamental manufacturing issue which should be covered for free by the vendor. Plus, even if you can get repair/replacement for free, you still fear that your specific model has a flaw, so you might only get lucky after having it replaced 2-3 times.

I've seen it happen with Dell and Lenovo where folks sent back brand-new units repeatedly because the first one had overheating issues with the SSD, the second one had really noisy capacitors and the third one had a display cable that wasn't seated correctly. At least with Apple I know that if I'm getting screwed, I'm in the same boat with everyone else ;)

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