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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?

#581

Post by aksss »

You can do wonders with a modern sub-$400 camcorder that can do manual white balance, aperture priority, and provide clean hdmi output. Add a $20 tripod, a capture device, and you’ve got a webcam better than anything sold as such. Camcorders can have some inherent latency in their feeds and that’s an under-examined differentiator in camcorder reviews these days.

As to accessory webcams - there is definitely a market for high end webcams. The Logitech 920s or c or whatever was very highly rated and one of the first to disappear from shelves last spring along with their 4K model. I’m not saying it was objectively great equipment, just using it to illustrate that a webcam with high ratings will sell for a premium no problem. I don’t know about the margins for OEMs but I suspect there’s some room there when a $250 webcam is only marginally better than a $90 version.

I would easily pay $400-$700 for a “usb webcam” if it approached my iPhone camera’s quality and allowed me the control and capability of a cheap camcorder (think what a $250 Vixia comes with - manual white balance, optical zoom, adjustable frame rate, physical powered lens cover, IR remote control, tripod mountable, integrated confidence display - especially if you could leverage the USB connection to make the confidence display function as a teleprompter too). No question there’s a market for such a product. It would sell wildly in today’s market.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#582

Post by supernova87a »

My simple tip is to buy a $15-20 wired lapel/lavalier mic from Amazon and use it instead of whatever crappy audio your laptop or monitor or webcam offers. It pics up your voice so much clearer and makes a world of difference. You can still use the speaker outputs or whatever you prefer, but the mic takes it to a better level of quality for people listening to you speak.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#583

Post by claudeganon »

aksss wrote: post #581

You can do wonders with a modern sub-$400 camcorder that can do manual white balance, aperture priority, and provide clean hdmi output. Add a $20 tripod, a capture device, and you’ve got a webcam better than anything sold as such. Camcorders can have some inherent latency in their feeds and that’s an under-examined differentiator in camcorder reviews these days. As to accessory webcams - there is definitely a market…

You can use your iPhone as a webcam with apps like Camo. I don’t like the $40 a year subscription fee, but it does most of the things you’re asking:

https://www.macworld.com/article/3568492/camo-review.html

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#584

Post by adolph »

cardiffspaceman wrote: post #513
atoav wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I have been bemused and disappointed that with all the high-end talent in Hollywood, there has been such a long-term tolerance for the trope of crappy sound and badly-lit faces that we continue to see on remote feeds from the "homes of the stars." I have come to believe that directors think the audience wants to see the talent are "roughing it".

Cinéma vérité

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cin%C3%A9ma_v%C3%A9rit%C3%A9

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#585

Post by sgerenser »

nbzso wrote: post #298
pembrook wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For reference, the 16” MacBook Pro has a 3072‑by‑1920 display. This means the 27” 4K monitors that are the industry standard now for some reason at 3,840 x 2,160 are almost twice the size, yet have barely more resolution than the MacBook true retina screen. MacOS can do scaling to adjust for this, but it uses the least amount of resources in native or pixel doubled mode. Any display that is between the resolutions I…

Sorry but this has no sense at all. From 20 years on I work only with Apple based desktops/laptops. And I am a pixel peeper. Scaling is not a problem even on MacBook Pro from 2013. If you want to rationalise a purchase of new Apple Display XDR there are more factual reasons for this. Don't get me wrong - the new displays are very competitive for grading middle market, but most professionals are using separate proofin…

I upgraded from a MacBook Pro with a good quality LG 4K 27” display using non integer scaling to a 5k 27” iMac with 2x scaling. Both provide the same visible screen area and not give you the same size icons and text. But the iMac with integer scaling is a better, sharper picture. The difference isn’t huge but it’s noticeable.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#586

Post by awiesenhofer »

gamblor956 wrote: post #520
cardiffspaceman wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been bemused and disappointed that with all the high-end talent in Hollywood, there has been such a long-term tolerance for the trope of crappy sound and badly-lit faces that we continue to see on remote feeds from the "homes of the stars." I have come to believe that directors think the audience wants to see the talent are "roughing it".

Actors aren't camera people, or sound or lighting techs. People who do that stuff make good money doing it because it's actually quite difficult to do well.

true, but if a studio "sends out" an actor to promote a new million dollar movie they surely can send some decent equipment and someone to set it up to that stars home? (or at least have a remote session) Seems like a small price to pay. But maybe its true what other comments mentioned and people want or prefer that amateur look.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#587

Post by hadlock »

It's interesting that he calls out Fuji explicitly not allowing webcams, as Fuji did add webcam features for both their X-T3 and X-T4 models for both windows and mac back in September of 2020: https://fujifilm-x.com/en-us/support/download/software/x-web...

The reason they did not back port it to the X-T1 and X-T2, my guess, is that the T1 and T2 use much older (circa 2014) cpu/software, whereas the T3/T4 use the same family of ~2018-2020 CPU/software/sensor and were already rolling out a new major firmware update for the X-T3.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#588

Post by iamatworknow »

gonehome wrote: post #555
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"

Yeah I think they’d sell instantly. I looked all over for one and it doesn’t exist. The mirrorless camera solution sucks because there’s not an obvious winner there either (and you usually need a capture card/camlink to convert the output from the camera). The room scale ones like the LG meetup are overpriced and generally awful, the PTZ versions from them are even more expensive, use proprietary connectors for the m…

>and you usually need a capture card/camlink to convert the output from the camera

Early on in the pandemic the major mirrorless camera providers (I believe at least Sony[1], Fujifilm[2], Canon[3], and Nikon[4]) all released software that lets you use any of their relatively recent cameras as webcams with the regular USB transfer/charging cable. A separate capture card is no longer a necessity.

[1] https://imagingedge.sony.net/en-us/ie-webcam.html

[2] https://fujifilm-x.com/global/products/software/x-webcam/

[3] https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/se...

[4] https://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/products/548/Webca...

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#589

Post by throwaway09223 »

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…

All of those things may be true, but when I zoom using my webcam the picture is far worse than when I zoom using my pixel4. Same goes for audio.

I really, really wish I could get the calibre of A/V hardware in my high end phone as a separate device to plug into my computer. I did buy a nice microphone so I'm halfway there, but the webcam problem remains.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#590

Post by s0rce »

SergeAx wrote: post #225

When this pandemic fuss was at the beginning in January, I've decided to buy a webcam just in case I got sick and have to work from home. It was Logitech C310 HD[0] for like $40 including delivery. When we became full WFH in april, people in working chats started asking me what kind of that super nice camera do I have. Our company is issuing MacBooks for workers. Turned out that internal webcam of MacBook is so crapp…

I have a Logitech C310 from 2012 ($32 back then) and its horrendously terrible. The white balance is almost always way off, people have asked me how I got the sepia tone filter! I've also had issues with the microphone drivers distorting the sound (windows and linux). Maybe they've improved the hardware. I really like the narrow 60deg FOV of the unit compared to my higher end C615 (which has much better video quality).
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