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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?

#351

Post by postalrat »

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…

A camera off a $50 budget phone will probably beat every $100 webcam on the market. So why can't I get that same camera module, minus the phone parts but plus a usb interface, for $100.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#352

Post by zitterbewegung »

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…

In the middle it is everyone who has a phone that can take decent video.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#353

Post by krzyk »

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…

> 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?

I'm a color blind person and even I can see a color difference between cheap displays that I have at work and an old EIZO one that I bought years ago at home.

I can more accurately diffrentiate between different colors/shades on my EIZO panel.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#354

Post by Thaxll »

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…

Well I'm cusrious if you're $2k DSLR gives you a better image than a 150$ webcam on zoom, facebook, skype etc... ?

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#355

Post by Swizec »

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…

You can turn your old phone into a webcam. An iPhone X has camera quality that competes with a cheap DSLR in a webcam situation.

Main thing real cameras are better at is bokeh, but you won’t get that in a webcam. And software can passably fake it these days.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#356

Post by iso1210 »

eptcyka wrote: post #161
heipei wrote: 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…

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 MacBoo…

> without the user looking up the specific model code which isn't all to easy to identify

My 7 year old macbook has "A1465" written in perfectly legible text on the bottom. "About this mac" has the serial number two clicks away, which is convertable online to exact specifications.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#357

Post by remlov »

randallsquared wrote: post #231
remlov wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have a couple of these from 2014-15, and they are very, very nice (and as a plus, they matched the dpi of some macbook models at the time, at least). One surprise: they were very heavy compared to other, similarly-specced monitors.

The only issue I had was coil whine coming from a choke on the power supply inverter board. I resolved this by cracking open the monitor and encasing the choke in two part epoxy.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#358

Post by sambroner »

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…

I'm just not sure I buy this...

The number of people willing to pay significant money for a high end webcam was very small. Now my parents and their friends are talking about better lighting and camera angles.

It seems like this industry is unusually ripe for a "better webcam" that "just works"

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#359

Post by wongarsu »

Matt3o12_ wrote: post #333
mschuster91 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then for the exact same internals you need different models where the power cords are different The IEC 60320 connectors were specified for exactly that reason. Honestly, I don't get why these were not made mandatory for all kinds of appliances. There are even locking variants available if vibration is of concern.

> The IEC 60320 connectors were specified for exactly that reason. Honestly, I don't get why these were not made mandatory for all kinds of appliances. There are even locking variants available if vibration is of concern. I'm not sure what you mean by the second sentence but you can't use most appliances made for Europe in America and vice versa. Most electronic appliances depend on the input voltage and supplying 24…

My cheap hair drier has a switch to select the input voltage (you need to turn the dial with a screwdriver). For many devices it shouldn't be too hard to make it possible to use them both with 110V and 230V, even more so for already complex and expensive machines like a washing machine.

The biggest problem might be the amount of power a device can draw. Half the voltage gives you half the power, which is the reason why e.g. kettles are much less useful in the US.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#360

Post by Macha »

GordonS wrote: post #273
jokethrowaway wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have my desk in front of a window, facing the window. I keep the blind about halfway down though, because the glare makes be squint at the monitor uncomfortably. The other option would be to not face the window, but then you have bright daylight shining onto your monitors instead.

Also a bright window behind you plays badly with some webcams automatic lighting adjust (including the logitech ones recommended here). It should just let the window be overexposed/blown out but it prefers to adjust the brightness such that that is reasonably lit with the effect of making the foreground look like I'm in a dark room.
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