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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?

#341

Post by ghaff »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #329

The real reason is buried in the article: You can’t buy a good webcam because the number of people willing to pay a lot of money for a high end webcam is very small. At the lower end, people are satisfied with their built in laptop parts or a cheap webcam that sits on top of their monitor. At the high end, people go down the rabbit hole of buying a do-everything mirrorless camera that they can use for so much more th…

And I'd add that there is a middle ground of higher end webcams that people can buy. Which in my experience as someone who would do the camera thing if I had no other option, works fine even for recorded video.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#342

Post by simias »

itsoktocry wrote: post #296
gaudat wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 usi…

I don't think the audiophile comparison makes really sense here (and I like to mock audiophiles more than most) simply because display technology still has a long way to go before it reaches the level of audio when it comes to "bang for your buck".

CD quality audio is less than 1 megabit per second per channel, uncompressed. HDR (10 bits per component) 4K60fps 4:2:2 video is around 10Gbit per second of data.

Of course data bandwidth is only a small part of the problem of correctly reproducing an analog signal, but it gives you the orders of magnitude we're dealing with.

I currently use a cheap ASUS 4K display. It's more good enough for coding, but I wouldn't trust it for any sort of graphical work. The viewing angle is pretty bad, so depending on what part of the screen I'm looking at I see colors differently, and some gradients become more or less visible depending on which part of the screen they're on. Contrast is pretty bad, making even some videogame display poorly: depending on the location and time of day contrast seems always too high or too low.

You can buy a good sub $100 pair of earphones and a sub $50 DAAC and they'll be good enough to do 99% of any audiophile work you could ever want to do reliably. If you want to do serious graphics work without having to constantly adjust for your display you'll have to go for something a lot more expensive than an entry-level monitor.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#343

Post by apocalyptic0n3 »

julianozen wrote: post #327

Has anyone investigated buying a top tier android phone from like 2015 or so and then just making that a permanent webcam? Surely that would be relatively cheap and high quality.

I've seen that a few times on /r/battlestations recently. Most of the posters say the quality can't be beat but it's a pain to get set up initially and building a good enough mount for it can be difficult as well.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#344

Post by foobarian »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #329

The real reason is buried in the article: You can’t buy a good webcam because the number of people willing to pay a lot of money for a high end webcam is very small. At the lower end, people are satisfied with their built in laptop parts or a cheap webcam that sits on top of their monitor. At the high end, people go down the rabbit hole of buying a do-everything mirrorless camera that they can use for so much more th…

To make your list even more dire, it seems hard to compete with something like the Logitech BRIO at $200.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#345

Post by kingosticks »

jimmies wrote: post #98

> So there is a market gap between so-so webcams for $100-200 and a full-blown setup with a mirrorless camera... Don't know where you can buy a readymade one. However, if you don't mind DIY, try our free software project showmewebcam. It uses a Pi and its HQ sensor and some software glue to make a USB webcam [1]. You'll have a wide selection of affordable lenses [2] and cases [3] that people cook up for their persona…

I've been using this for a whole now and really happy. Looking over the repo it seems there has been some software improvements so I will upgrade mine now - saving the settings will be very useful as it's too dark for me by default. Thank you!

Regarding the lens, I'm using the '6mm 3MP Wide Angle Lens for Raspberry Pi HQ Camera' and I have zero problems with it. I'm hardly moving in the way I use it as a simple webcam so I have no problem with staying in focus and I just don't get what a few people are saying about distortion, I must be blind. I looked up one of the recommended alternatives, the 'Fujinon HF9HA-1B 9mm 1.4', I can only find it pre-owned on ebay shipped from China for £70 (+ a load of tax I am sure). I will happily stick with my regular lens.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#346

Post by intricatedetail »

wruza wrote: post #317
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…

For monitors it is more than that. For a pretty expensive 144hz/1440p/gsync category that I researched a couple of years ago there were three options: acer, asus and viewsonic (and unavailable aoc). It turned out that asus, despite being a “better, much more money” brand, did a worse job of mounting the panel, so it had statistically worse backlight bleeding at one edge.

What's wrong with Asus installing alarms in their monitors? I learned the hard way being woken up in the middle of the night by a loud siren I couldnt locate the source as I wouldn't have expected it will come from a frikin monitor! There is no way to turn that off apart from physically powering it off and it happens totally random.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#347

Post by jjar »

pembrook wrote: post #217
Joeri wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gener…

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…

I think "gamer with neon lights" is certainly a segment with amazing margins, especially compared to standard office equipment. Most "gaming" mice/keyboards/chairs/computers/whatever are just decorated and brightly coloured versions of other products with insane markups. Alienware PC's are a great example here - The parts in one of those PC's can cost around half the cost of what the company actually sells it for. Other peripherals have similar price increases once they're branded as a device for gaming rather than office use as they know consumers are willing to pay more. I realize that there are lots of kids who want "gaming" gear (that their parents will pay for) but the PC gaming market is certainly geared towards mid 20's/30's who have the scratch to be able to afford this stuff. Not that these people are stupid or misinformed for doing so, some simply appreciate the aesthetic (even if it's something you or me might not particularly like).

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#349

Post by dota_fanatic »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #329

The real reason is buried in the article: You can’t buy a good webcam because the number of people willing to pay a lot of money for a high end webcam is very small. At the lower end, people are satisfied with their built in laptop parts or a cheap webcam that sits on top of their monitor. At the high end, people go down the rabbit hole of buying a do-everything mirrorless camera that they can use for so much more th…

> We’re not streaming high-bitrate 1080p H.265 on our 5-person Zoom calls. After compression and denoising the extra sharpness and low noise of a high end camera doesn’t add much benefit.

This was my experience exactly after testing different setups. I still use my Lumix GX8 for photography and home videos, but it wasn't even close to worth the trouble of maintaining the setup compared to a ~$100 Logitech option that I leave on top the monitor with good lighting and plug in via usb hub as needed.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#350

Post by ape4 »

Might help if there was a standard webcam physical attachment (same idea as the camera screw for a tripod). Then each monitor could have it. So adding a new webcam would not add bunch of clutter to your desktop. And would avoid the expense of buying a webcam holder.
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