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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?

#391

Post by arendtio »

a2tech wrote: post #299
arendtio wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes, I wonder too why is is necessary, especially because my PC is completely fan-less :-/

However, over the day is is barely audible and it only comes to my mind when I am sitting in front of the PC late at night (+ without headphones).

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#392

Post by dogsgobork »

sambroner wrote: post #358
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"

Right now they're talking about better lighting and camera angles. Will they still be interested in six months? In a year? There's a lot of uncertainty for any prospective manufacturer, they could spend a significant amount of money and time developing a product only to launch it into a world that never wants to do another zoom meeting again.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#393

Post by chrismorgan »

diarrhea wrote: post #131
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 s…

Worse than that, actually—720p is 1280×720, but this gets you 1024×576. (I have an α6100.)

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#394

Post by tyingq »

I'm no expert, but there do seem to be cameras in this space. The Logitech Brio and Aluratek Live Pro 4K in the $200 range, for example. The article doesn't "name names", so I can't tell if these are the models the author didn't like.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#395

Post by hengheng »

ramraj07 wrote: post #368
postalrat wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can https://www.e-consystems.com/13mp-autofocus-usb-camera.asp I bought one of these for using with my lab microscope since the alternatives from thorlabs was 10x more expensive for no reason. It worked fine for a year then it stopped working. Maybe I spillled something on it? Who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

$250 is deep into mirrorless camera territory though.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#396

Post by atoav »

sambroner wrote: post #358
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"

I worked as a freelance DOP and worked with cameras + lenses that coat more than a decent car.

And while there is certainly room for improvement with typical webcams: the problem is in many cases not the camera, but the conditions under which it operates. Low light, shooting against the light, smeared laptop lenses, weird angles (not eye level), weird perspective framing, bad combination of light and framerates, mixed light temperatures, low CRI lighting, etc. If you take an 40k€ Arri and a 20k€ Zeiss Prime and do all of the above the result will still look more or less crappy.

Making a good looking image that feels natural is work, and while the camera is an important cog in the machine, it alone won't do wonders. The whole physical space around the motive needs to be arranged the right way, light fixtures that can cost a ton as well are set up, a whole truckload of grip is placed etc.

IMO we will get photorealistic realtime avatars with cinematic lighting before we will get cameras that create better pictures on their own. Or the crappy webcam pictures are filtered in ways that make them look acceptable etc.

Making a good picture involves realising how somebody looks and how they want to be seen and get them closer to that goal, it is not something where one size fits all.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#397

Post by gxqoz »

mkl wrote: post #163
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.

Yeah a co-worker with a Surface Book (not sure the exact model) has by-far the best video quality I've seen on work calls. In general, I actually find built-in laptop cams to look much better than the typical external webcam. They're still not great, but entry-level external webcams are just atrocious.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#398

Post by joseph_grobbles »

The real, real reason you can't buy good webcams is because the market isn't a meritocracy. Make the best webcam in existence and there just isn't a robust, or honest, review community to let it shine.

Instead there are a billion "here's a list of things that we can get affiliate dollars for from Amazon, and we'll pretend we reviewed them" listings.

This problem has hit a lot of markets. Without a financial support for capable, credible, honest reviewers, the backbone of an industry falls apart. It becomes all about gimmicks.

So if you want a webcam the real options now are an SLR (many of them support that use) or even a video camera. In those markets there remains an extreme qualitative review system, so that new Nikon, Canon or Sony SLR or video camera had to shine.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#399

Post by nobleach »

eecc wrote: post #276
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…

Let me chime in: just bought a T14s. Could be a dream machine but the shite 1080 panel (Windows recommends a hilariously crappy 1.5 scaling. Kidding me?) the pesky trackpad and the awfully glitchy Windows 10 (yah, probably the drivers but the platform enables this horror) destroy the value of this otherwise pretty solid device.

What's wrong with the trackpad? I was considering a T15...

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#400

Post by feteru »

soylentcola wrote: post #281
bserge wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep! Still using the "Auria" monitor that I purchased at Microcenter back around 2012. Cost maybe $300-350 for a 2560x1440 IPS monitor at a time when you were easily looking at $500-800+ for a similar panel from a name brand. Now, if you were a professional, that quality control and warranty (not to mention better ergonomics, etc.) were easily worth the added cost, but for just "some dude who liked playing video game…

Heyo another Auria user here! I actually recently upgraded to a Dell 4k screen, but that Auria served me great for several years and is my secondary setup screen. Got it used for $150, amazing value there!
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