Why can’t you buy a good webcam? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#611

Post by rapind » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 8:00 PM UTC

Firadeoclus wrote: post #405

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…

> 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…

People walk around taking pictures and video with their phone. No one walks around with their laptop open taking pictures or filming the kids on the tobogganing hill.

Now with everyone working remotely I could see a quality demand happening but no where near the interest in phone cams.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#612

Post by OOPMan » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 8:00 PM UTC

You could just use a piece of software like IVCam in conjunction with a very good camera you already own...the one on your phone.

Sure, you'll need to rig up some kind of stand (like maybe a hands-free mount?) but once you do that you'll have a webcam with a pretty decent camera (Since you can use the rear camera)

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#613

Post by gamblor956 » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

awiesenhofer wrote: post #586

gamblor956 wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, if they want to risk people's health so that an actor can look better during an interview, they can definitely send a makeup specialist and a lighting/sound crew and a camera guy to set everything up in the actor's home, and then send them back to take everything down after the interview is over.

But since nobody cares that actor's aren't wearing makeup at home right now, they could just do the safe thing and not do any of that and the actor can do the interview the way they normally appear in real life. Indeed, it may actually be worse PR to have the actor have a professional studio setup in their home, because then people may ask why the studio risked the health of so many people for something so unnecessary.

TV stations did have crew set up home studios for anchors and weatherpeeps, complete with remote links to the studios video in-feed, but the difference is that anchors and weatherpeeps will be on the air almost every day, for hours at a time.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#614

Post by dbrgn » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

Godel_unicode wrote: post #604

hengheng wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$250 is deep into mirrorless camera territory though.

Or GoPro, which you don't need a USB interface for. Works all the way back to hero 4 apparently. https://gopro.com/en/us/news/how-to-use-gopro-for-webcam

A GoPro performs horribly in bad light though. And it costs serveral hundred dollars as well.

If you already own one, then it might be an option. But buying a GoPro to get a better webcam doesn't really make sense.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#615

Post by jldugger » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

SirZimzim wrote: post #608

jldugger wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, in 2019 this article made sense. If there is ever a year to launch a high end webcam, it was 2020. A ton of professionals with disposable income and very few ways to spend it, sitting in Webex and Zoom calls all day. People are dropping tons of cash for ring lights and Lume Cubes. These are already serving the Youtuber market, the same way that podcasters enjoy Blue Yetis. Which makes me wonder, what cameras are…

How fast can the hardware market typically respond to a sudden and potentially short term increase in demand like this?

Depends. Inventing new products probably 1y out. But ramping up production on an existing product to a new category should have happened already.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#616

Post by piranha » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 8:08 PM UTC

dota_fanatic wrote: post #349

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…

> We’re not streaming high-bitrate 1080p H.265 on our 5-person Zoom calls. After compression and denoising the extra sharpness and low noise of a high end camera doesn’t add much benefit. This was my experience exactly after testing different setups. I still use my Lumix GX8 for photography and home videos, but it wasn't even close to worth the trouble of maintaining the setup compared to a ~$100 Logitech option that…

This is plainly wrong. I use Sony a5100 (cheapest camera you can hook up as webcam) and in zoom meetings the difference between my image and others (even though some tried to use their phones) is just night and day.

Disclaimer: I am that brother referred in the article. :)

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#617

Post by notjtrig » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 8:09 PM UTC

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…

The best solution I've found is using a app like ManyCam on both your phone and desktop to transmit the A/V stream to the computer and emulate a webcam. Has a ton of benefits like being able to adjust the picture, filters, switching webcams, being able to play videos for people, screen sharing.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#618

Post by djsumdog » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 8:10 PM UTC

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…

If you're a game streamer or other type of streamer and are willing to fork over the cash, it's probably easier to buy an $800~$1k Sony Handycam and USB-C capture device. The majority of game streamers don't really need that though, although they might fork it over because they already have HDMI capture cards with dual inputs.

But for the most part, most streamers don't care about their little picture in the bottom 1/4 to 1/8 of the screen. Good lighting in the filming room is much more important than the camera anyway.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#619

Post by petra » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 8:17 PM UTC

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 think the real problem that needs solving is eye-contact. That's the camera most people are going to buy, because the lack of eye contact is such an acute problem in video chats.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#620

Post by michaelmrose » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

novok wrote: post #578

brianwawok wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the Smartphone camera cost $20, and the laptop camera cost $5 to manufacturer? Smart phones can maybe justify the extra $15, laptop makers cannot. If a laptop maker can't raise the price $15, it literally eats their profits.

Seriously? With laptops costing $1000+ I think they can afford to put in the $15 smartphone part from $300 smartphones in the higher end ones.

I believe they make 3-5% margin for a $30-$50 profit on the hardware in that example. They literally cannot afford that extra $15 unless they raise the price $15 and then they have to worry about whether a value conscious buyer buys their slightly cheaper alternative.

Keeping in mind this is for a feature that most people actually don't care about.