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Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

vsevolod.net

291–300 of 794 posts

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think that’s it. Apple is the most valuable company on earth right now, entirely due to their thesis that people will pay for quality hardware. The “creator” market is much more profitable than the gamer market where kids only have as much as mom will allow them to spend (vs The tech workers, coders, designers, youtubers, etc that need high quality displays to make a living). It’s why Apple is able to get ins…

There are tons of expensive monitors available that cater to the professional market. The whole premise is not based in reality. Apple simply has the highest mindshare among average products.

There’s literally no good monitors with the proper resolution for MacOS outside of the fragile LG ultrafine line.

It doesn’t matter how much money you throw at the problem, nobody is making 27” 5k displays right now.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#293

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…

>The lazy conglomerates who sell these peripherals often don’t actually produce the parts in them.

You think that complete vertical integration will improve product quality?

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#294

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…

Why do you think the LG monitors outside of the Apple collaboration are not good? Recently, I bought two 27GN950, which is a 27" 4k@144Hz gaming monitor with good colors. So far the worst part is the fan and in the long run the absence of HDMI 2.1 might be disappointing, but overall I have the impression of a good product. Yes, it doesn't have the same PPI as smartphones, but I am not sure if we are going to see that…

Hmm... There might be some truth in that.

I've noticed over decades that high quality stuff comes out of the checks-and-balances of experts specifying and purchasing stuff.

Examples I remember are sun monitors based on sony trinitron tubes, sun/sgi hard drives that were always checked - and sometimes returned by he container - so were actually enterprise grade, not consumer grade. Lots and lots of OEM stuff like that.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#295
post #188
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

FWIW Planar makes 27" monitors that use the same 5K and 2K panels used in the iMacs, down to the bonded glass surface. The Planar IX2790 and PXL2790MW respectively. I have the PXL2790MW and if you look closely you can see the glass peephole for the nonexistent iSight Camera. Not sure if it's B grade panels that Apple rejected but it's flawless, maybe I just got lucky.

It is hit or miss. I own two, the one is flawless (apart from the retention which is the norm apparently in LG displays). The other I have exchanged it 2 times and still have issues with many many dead pixels. So in my case 3/4 were bad apples.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#296
post #203
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes, so often I ask if the seller can provide a "perfect" display, that is, without any artifacts on the display. This adds 100-200 CNY to the price. There's a Chinese panel manufacturer called BOE that makes products competitive with some of the lower-end Samsung / LG panels. I got one 15.6" 2160p external display with a BOE panel that offers 100% sRGB coverage. I can see a huge difference compared to my Dell Latitu…

>I can see a huge difference compared to my Dell Latitude laptop display.

And outside of a few occupations that might actually require pixel-perfect colour, what does this matter? Is this like the audiophile world, where people argue about seemingly subjective things that no else cares about?

The customer interprets colours differently than you, the customer sees colours differently than you, and the customer is using a monitor that almost assuredly displays the colours differently than yours. And the world continues to turn.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#297
post #23
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, and multiplatforms, I recommend DroidCam ( https://www.dev47apps.com/ ). The interface could use some polish but it works well on android/ios phones to Mac/Windows and Linux.

What's your lag with Droidcam? My experience was a delay of half a second, making it unusable for live conferencing.

I use DroidCamX too, I don't have any noticeable delay but I have a fairly solid wireless setup (Unifi AP in the same room) and most of the time I just use the USB cable anyway so I can also keep the phone charging

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are those "the ideal resolution for mac os", exactly?

For reference, the 16” MacBook Pro has a 3072‑by‑1920 display. This means the 27” 4K monitors that are the industry standard now for some reason at 3,840 x 2,160 are almost twice the size, yet have barely more resolution than the MacBook true retina screen. MacOS can do scaling to adjust for this, but it uses the least amount of resources in native or pixel doubled mode. Any display that is between the resolutions I…

Sorry but this has no sense at all. From 20 years on I work only with Apple based desktops/laptops. And I am a pixel peeper. Scaling is not a problem even on MacBook Pro from 2013. If you want to rationalise a purchase of new Apple Display XDR there are more factual reasons for this. Don't get me wrong - the new displays are very competitive for grading middle market, but most professionals are using separate proofing displays for testing.

I am talking about good quality display with bearable price. Not display for $6,299.00 Example: https://www.amazon.de/EV3285-BK-Monitor-DisplayPort-Reaktion...

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#299

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…

Why do you think the LG monitors outside of the Apple collaboration are not good? Recently, I bought two 27GN950, which is a 27" 4k@144Hz gaming monitor with good colors. So far the worst part is the fan and in the long run the absence of HDMI 2.1 might be disappointing, but overall I have the impression of a good product. Yes, it doesn't have the same PPI as smartphones, but I am not sure if we are going to see that…

The monitor has a fan? That would be a huge negative to me

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#300
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That last paragraph is indicative of terribly quality and quality control. Fortunately that hasn't been my experience with the recent Dell, Asus, Lenovo and HP laptops I've purchased. Each have been without any issues at all. But my point here is that... it sounds like you're arguing against consumer choice. You can have your Model T in any color as long as it is black. And this is Apple's model. You can have your pr…

Consumer choice only means anything if the consumers can choose something they know about.

If the choice is between "you can know about it" xor "you can buy it", there's no real choice.

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