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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?

#161

Post by eptcyka »

heipei wrote: post #140
avian wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Apple has it's fair share of issues, and it's often a pain to diagnose them remotely without the user looking up the specific model code which isn't all to easy to identify. They often don't change any visual appearance and certainly don't distinguish between different models in their marketing. It's easy for me to look up what common issues Lenovo's had with a specific T series model, but if I'm buying a used MacBook, it's hard to know what I should be searching for until the seller has told me the exact model number. And even still, there's variance between machines of the same model because sometimes different panels and SSDs are used for the same model number.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#162

Post by Hamuko »

gaudat wrote: post #118
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…

Tip: try to find out what panel the monitor you are buying has. Then look the panel up in a database like panelook.com. This way you can get the specifications without any marketing bullshit. It also works the other way round. Find a panel that is good enough for your eyes, then see if there's a mass marketed display with that panel. If you are adventurous, you can grab "DIY" or "assembled" monitors with the panels o…

Isn't there a chance that the assembled Chinese monitors actually use second grade panels that the big makers wouldn't accept?

I remember getting a 27-inch 1440p display from a Chinese manufacturer for really cheap back in high school. It should've been the exact same panel as was in Apple's iMacs. However, the were some quality issues with it long term and it's definitely suffering from burn-in that I don't think the iMacs suffer from.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#163

Post by mkl »

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.

I've had compliments about how good my (work) Surface Book 2's camera is. Surface Pro 4 seems pretty good too.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#164

Post by murkt »

varjag wrote: post #110
murkt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Though minimum qty for parts can be as high as 5000 It can be as high as 100 000. No stock anywhere. > $30k is pretty cheap from a capital expense if you're just talking about testing a market. Yep. That's what I thought before contacting SoC vendors. > It would be easy to spend $100k in billable hours to bring something as complicated as a webcam to market. I'm not in the USA, engineering hours are much cheaper in…

> It can be as high as 100 000. No stock anywhere. There is always a way to obtain engineering samples/devkits. That's how the products in these 100,000 runs get to be. > That's what I thought before contacting SoC vendors. You don't buy from SoC vendors directly unless you're an enormous operation. Farnell, Mouser, DigiKey, Elfa.

> There is always a way to obtain engineering samples/devkits. That's how the products in these 100,000 runs get to be.

Of course there is. But what's the point for me to produce a prototype if I'll have to produce hundreds of thousands of units in production with no way to sell that much?

> You don't buy from SoC vendors directly unless you're an enormous operation. Farnell, Mouser, DigiKey, Elfa.

"Your search returned no results."

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#166

Post by bserge »

gaudat wrote: post #118
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…

Tip: try to find out what panel the monitor you are buying has. Then look the panel up in a database like panelook.com. This way you can get the specifications without any marketing bullshit. It also works the other way round. Find a panel that is good enough for your eyes, then see if there's a mass marketed display with that panel. If you are adventurous, you can grab "DIY" or "assembled" monitors with the panels o…

Yeah, if you look into it, you'll find most monitors using the same panels from LG, AUO, Samsung or ChiMei, with some outliers.

When it comes to assembled monitors, the highest failure rate is in the power supply. The components used and the cooling/ventilation play a big part in that.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#168

Post by Joeri »

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…

I think it’s more of a “the market won’t pay for quality” problem. People won’t pay thousands of euros for a good monitor, so manufacturers have to slap together the parts available in bulk in order to reach price points people will pay. The LG 5K is a good example, because it is clearly compromised to reach a somewhat reasonable price point. From what I can tell the monitor market mostly exists to cater to the generic business monitor and pc gamer markets anyway, as those are the only parts still selling in volume.

Although I have to admit that I was equally frustrated when I wanted a good retina screen with 200-ish dpi to pair up with the mac mini I wanted to buy, only to conclude getting the 5K iMac instead was the most sensible option.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#169

Post by dsr_ »

In the typical videoconference meeting everything would work better if each participant is represented by a nicely-chosen photograph.

The client software can light up the borders to designate which audio streams are active and pop an icon of a hand when someone wants to get attention.

Save the video for chatting with your friends and family.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#170

Post by bserge »

Hamuko wrote: post #162
gaudat wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tip: try to find out what panel the monitor you are buying has. Then look the panel up in a database like panelook.com. This way you can get the specifications without any marketing bullshit. It also works the other way round. Find a panel that is good enough for your eyes, then see if there's a mass marketed display with that panel. If you are adventurous, you can grab "DIY" or "assembled" monitors with the panels o…

Isn't there a chance that the assembled Chinese monitors actually use second grade panels that the big makers wouldn't accept? I remember getting a 27-inch 1440p display from a Chinese manufacturer for really cheap back in high school. It should've been the exact same panel as was in Apple's iMacs. However, the were some quality issues with it long term and it's definitely suffering from burn-in that I don't think th…

That was the case with noname Korean/Chinese monitors a decade ago that used high quality IPS panels found in Apple and other professional displays - they used rejected panels, which had various issues (mostly dead pixels afaik).

https://techreport.com/review/23291/those-27-inch-ips-displa...

But overall, they were a great purchase quality/performance/cost wise.

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