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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?

#441

Post by BlargMcLarg »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #214

This is a little off-topic, but a little tangential. Why do so many people insist on doing video chats? Regardless of camera quality, you're going to come in as a blocky and stuttery mess to most people anyway. Audio-only has worked really well for my team for a few years now (my team is all remote all thr time), so it's always jaring when interfacing with the rest of the company and having people pop up with video.

They want to mimic the office as much as possible, that's really all the argument tends to boil down to.

Some will claim it is for charisma --> sorry, no amount of charisma is going to fix a bad cam and bad audio.

Some will claim it is more productive --> I really only need to hear your words or see your screenshare, your face moving in front of my screen is distracting.

Some will claim it is more natural --> Try looking at a whiteboard while everyone stares at you from the front. That's about what happens when you use videochat in important meetings. I don't think that's the way people used to have meetings.

Some will claim it is to read body language --> Don't depend on body language and stop assuming things from audio alone. We're adults. People will tell you when something is up.

The only argument I can't go against is bonding. But if you don't want to bond with your team past business-only, that argument is voided.

And I haven't named the cons yet. One of my pet peeves being people will start calling you over every single thing, make you repeat yourself often, misunderstand or even forget what was said in 10 minutes. You don't have that problem with asynchronous communication, and it also yanks the callee away from their flow.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#442

Post by philjohn »

dhosek wrote: post #428
philjohn wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are already companies who do this, such as Eizo. They cost multiple thousands (or tens of thousands for reference monitors with built-in calibration and Dolby Vision certification).

I'm thinking the op was imagining something in the middle ground. Maybe +10–40% for a guarantee of quality. The case I can think of is Anker for cables although in that case they also don't charge a premium either.

Honestly, in that price range, Dell is probably "good enough"

Grab something like the i1Display Studio to calibrate and it'll be golden for anyone who doesn't need a hardware LUT or built-in calibration.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#444

Post by pavlus »

coldtea wrote: post #215
gambiting wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just completely don't understand your point. There's no misleading advertising here - the resolution is exactly as promised ,at the size promised....what's the problem? If the resolution isn't high enough for you....then buy one where it is? There are 5K monitors out there, maybe even 8K? Or just get a 4K one but in a smaller size? I'm so confused by your comment.

> I just completely don't understand your point. There's no misleading advertising here - the resolution is exactly as promised ,at the size promised....what's the problem? That would be relevant is my problem was false promises or misleading advertising. But my problem is not (a) "Monitors say they are 4K and they are not" but: (b) "Most monitors out there are BS-4K, but for the best quality/viewing comfort at their…

For me it's hard to believe that 4k on 27" is not enough, I use 1440p 27" 144Hz display as daily driver and barely see any pixels(usually with badly hinted fonts, and still not pixels, but uneven forms of letters), because I sit around one meter apart from it, and sitting closer makes me turn my head around too much, except when watching movies.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#445

Post by JKCalhoun »

redler wrote: post #376
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.

It would be a hobbyist endeavor -- and look like one -- but a Raspberry Pi plus camera module would hit the mark.

Here: https://youtu.be/8fcbP7lEdzY

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#446

Post by gambiting »

pavlus wrote: post #444
coldtea wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just completely don't understand your point. There's no misleading advertising here - the resolution is exactly as promised ,at the size promised....what's the problem? That would be relevant is my problem was false promises or misleading advertising. But my problem is not (a) "Monitors say they are 4K and they are not" but: (b) "Most monitors out there are BS-4K, but for the best quality/viewing comfort at their…

For me it's hard to believe that 4k on 27" is not enough, I use 1440p 27" 144Hz display as daily driver and barely see any pixels(usually with badly hinted fonts, and still not pixels, but uneven forms of letters), because I sit around one meter apart from it, and sitting closer makes me turn my head around too much, except when watching movies.

Yeah, same - 27" 1440p as a daily monitor for work and I have no issues with it. I have had a 27" 4K monitor for a while but it was just too small at 100% scaling, and at 150% scaling some things looked naff. Prefer the 1440p at that resolution.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#447

Post by dragonwriter »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #214

This is a little off-topic, but a little tangential. Why do so many people insist on doing video chats? Regardless of camera quality, you're going to come in as a blocky and stuttery mess to most people anyway. Audio-only has worked really well for my team for a few years now (my team is all remote all thr time), so it's always jaring when interfacing with the rest of the company and having people pop up with video.

> Why do so many people insist on doing video chats?

Control. They want to make sure the silent people in the meeting aren't doing something else or not actually present.

It's probably why it's particularly common with managers who run meetings that are neither effectively timeboxed, limited to the essential personnel as required, nor planned well to handle an agenda that requires a meeting rather than an email or exchange of emails to handle effectively.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#448

Post by ed25519FUUU »

save_ferris wrote: post #440

Tangent: I really wish that Apple would make it easier to use the iPhone camera as a webcam when using a Mac. It would be a killer feature since so many people are in the ecosystem and iPhone cameras completely outperform webcams these days. I tired EpocCam but I wasn't completely satisfied with it. This seems like a missed opportunity for Apple, given their seamless integration experience mantra.

There’s an app called EpocCam that lets you turn the iPhone into a webcam. I was disappointed with the results. The colors get washed out easily, especially in strong direct light. It’s nothing like the image quality you get when taking a video (which was what I expected).

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#449

Post by jstummbillig »

atoav wrote: post #396
sambroner wrote: post #358

Earlier 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…

> 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.

Incidentally the same is true for audio: You can get what easily passes as "studio level" audio quality out of a 20$ microphone and free processing plugins these days – as long as someone or something is making the right operational choices during recording and processing.

Making good choices in absence of right answers is the hard thing about creative work.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#450

Post by sukilot »

postalrat wrote: post #351
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.

What's one such phone?

I've never seen a <$300 Moto phone match a $100 Logitech webcam.

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