Does anyone remember iSight? For the time the quality was great, and it was also really nice looking on top of a monitor. It may have been a high-water-mark.
Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
401–410 of 794 posts
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
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"
Did somebody say iSight 2?
iSight was such a beautiful-looking product!
It's rather mind-blowing that back then its 640×480-pixel VGA resolution was considered good.
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Oh, that’s amazing. I got curious and found this comment on youtube, sharing in case it may help or diagnose:
Battle Angel Sorry, not sure why I didn't share previously. So, I believe this is caused by using a non-HDMI cable with the audio out turned on. Either turn the audio in the display off completely in the settings, or use a new HDMI cable. The alarm is a result of the display trying to send an audio signal through a Displayport cable. Are those of you getting this alarm using Displayport cables? They do not pair audio with video, as HDMI does. I hope this fixes your problem.
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#404I'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…
Any idea if the EOS M is supported for this? Last I checked Magic Lantern had no webcam type functionality but that was ages ago. If it does that's a pretty great webcam for like £100 RE those chinese knockoff dongles, I got one for £8 off ebay, use it for Pi Zero stuff occasionally and the lag isn't bad at all tbh. I'd guess somewhere between 250ms and 500ms but it maybe gets worse at larger resolutions.
I have an EOS M and it works ok. I had to install a different version of Magic Lantern to get it to not auto shut off, and generally a lot of poking around in the menus. You can get battery replacement AC adapters quite cheaply and my cheap HDMI->USB works fairly well. Lag is not a problem but it introduces black bars on the left and right and in Google Meet my feed is horizontally squashed. Other video apps the picture is fine though.
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, mixe…
> 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.
All this is true, yet the difference between a bad laptop webcam and a high-end phone front camera is huge.
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#406Earlier 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
Hello from Vermont. How does that help for meetings after, say, 3:30 this time of the year?
I am from Warsaw, Poland and believe it or not, Warsaw is about 7 degrees north from northernmost part of Vermont. Vermont spans 42 to 45 degrees while Warsaw is at 52 degrees.
Did you know that most of people in Canada live at the lattitude of Croatia or south of it?
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#407Does anyone remember iSight? For the time the quality was great, and it was also really nice looking on top of a monitor. It may have been a high-water-mark.
The quality was great for the time: 640×480-pixel VGA resolution
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#408sounds to me the question is why can't you buy an _high-end_ streaming camera with integrated microphone for an _affordable price_.
I use Logitech BRIO Ultra HD Webcam[1] along with Headphones and very very happy for all my needs. From calls to recording training sessions and demos.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-BRIO-Conferencing-Recording-...
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought it was the exact same as the LG 24UD58-B except with lightning connectors instead of display port and hdmi? That (the non-lightning model) is the monitor I have, it's the smallest (24") 4k monitor I could find - I wanted high DPI, and I got it.
Unfortunately at 3840 x 2160, it's not ideal since in pixel doubled mode (retina), you're only getting the equivalent of a 1080p display. The 22" LG Ultrafine used to have a 4069 x 2304 resolution. So in pixel doubling mode you actually got more screen real estate than newer 24" 4k models (which are only 3840 × 2160)! The problem is better described here: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/2/20678597/lg-ultrafine-4k-2..…
Hmmm. I actually quite like 2160p as a simple upgrade over 1080p; usually I just solve the screen real estate problem by buying more monitors. You can get the 24UD58-B for about $200 used on eBay, so this is not a large cost.
Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
Take a look at Eizo (pun intended).
I think LG makes their own panels but Eizo doesn't? I think it's probably better buying a digital signage display from LG, Samsung or the likes.
I used to have a two-monitor setup with a Dell (? not sure) and an Eizo, both using the exact same panel. I started with one monitor and then got the Eizo. The difference in picture quality and eye comfort was absolutely jaw-dropping. Dell looked and felt like a complete junk in comparison.
Make what you will of this, but it's not just a panel per se, it's also how it's integrated and used in the whole product.