Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

vsevolod.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

651–660 of 794 posts

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#651

Post by legulere »

grenoire wrote: post #96
avian wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then they give the product a hilariously user-hostile product name, like “PQS GRT46782-WT” as an extra f-you to the user. That is also a strategy to prevent product comparisons and unbiased reviews. They quickly cycle through product names and sell a certain product no. only in a limited geographical area. Doesn't matter if a consumer org/magazine/someone on reddit/your friend/etc. does a review. The product will b…

The geo-locking of model numbers is one of the vilest practices I've seen. I don't see it going away for any reason, it'll only be possible to combat by intl. legislation... but how do you even legislate that?

Eben Apple sells different iPhone versions on different countries. It’s mostly frequency bands but Chinese iPhones have a second sim slot instead of an eSim as far as I remember.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#652

Post by thaumasiotes »

542458 wrote: post #268
fuzzy2 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be referring to the GeForce GTX 970. It had reduced bandwidth to parts of its RAM.

Maybe the RX480? Many of the 4GB models sold were actually 8GB models with firmware locking them down. https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-radeon-rx-480-4gb-to-8...

> Many of the 4GB models sold were actually 8GB models with firmware locking them down.

Definitely not that; the concept was that you had a large amount of RAM you could advertise on the box, but the card was unable to use the RAM. You're describing the opposite, the card has a large amount of RAM that is advertised as a smaller amount.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#653

Post by bsder »

leokennis wrote: post #641
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…

Right on the money. I’m not sure I get people’s use cases here. Ok, if you’re creating/streaming video, I get that you need a good webcam. But for your teams’ standups, refinements etc...is video quality really an issue? Usually I’m in a call with 5-10 others. One will be sharing a screen or we will be collaborating on a whiteboard. Other people’s webcam feeds are stamp-sized somewhere in the periphery of my vision.…

Erm, I bought an Avaya HC020 (about $250) back at the beginning of the pandemic. It's quite nice--my images are always better than everyone short of pro streamers. You can flip the image, color balance, etc. all in the webcam with a remote control (this is why I got it--"flip the image" was causing my laptop fans to screech at max RPM for a different webcam)

I've never used it, but if you really need microphone arrays, then probably the Avaya CU360 is probably for you. Bonus: it's standalone Android so you can install all the streaming apps on the device instead of on your computer.

And, why not microphone arrays? Because echo cancelling is a nightmare technology that requires real R&D. Somebody always gets the setup wrong on conference calls. The new macs haven't been out long enough for me to trust that Apple actually solved the problem any better.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#654

Post by praxulus »

leokennis wrote: post #641
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…

Right on the money. I’m not sure I get people’s use cases here. Ok, if you’re creating/streaming video, I get that you need a good webcam. But for your teams’ standups, refinements etc...is video quality really an issue? Usually I’m in a call with 5-10 others. One will be sharing a screen or we will be collaborating on a whiteboard. Other people’s webcam feeds are stamp-sized somewhere in the periphery of my vision.…

It matters less for internal meetings (maybe improving audio quality could help meetings run more smoothly, but that's just a microphone issue).

If any of your employees talk to external clients, I can absolutely see value in getting them set up with a better webcam and internet connection, and I don't think you'd want every sales rep and partner engineer spending a day futzing around with an enthusiast-grade setup.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#655

Post by mxfh »

timidiceball wrote: post #470
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…

My organization has been slowly rolling out the use of Cisco Desk Pros which are hardware endpoints that connect to Webex but are in a practical sense essentially monitors with very nice camera modules and microphone arrays built into the bezel. Laptops connected to the monitor with USB C can use the camera/mic. These cost like $4000 though. I find the video flattering (camera angle/focal length?)

You certainly can buy good high end webcams. But their market profile here is clearly still B2B and Telepresence, no Prosumer or Individual Professionals yet.

Cisco had some impressive cameras in their older Telepresence products: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/collaboration-endpoint...

But the Cisco TelePresence Precision 60 Camera CTS-P60-K9 ist Ethernet Only and needs prohibitivily expensive hardware to work with.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/collaborat...

Next up is probably the Logitech PTZ Pro 2 or Rally

https://www.logitech.com/en-roeu/product/rally-ultra-hd-ptz-...

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#656

Post by xioxox »

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…

There are laptops with truly terrible cameras, in particular Dell, even in their most expensive laptops. These aren't my pictures, but I've tried different lighting but the pictures have the wrong colour, are low resolution and are extremely noisy: https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/XPS-15-9500-camera-webcam...

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#657

Post by korse »

pembrook wrote: post #217
Joeri wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s more of a “the market won’t pay for quality” problem. People won’t pay thousands of euros for a good monitor, so manufacturers have to slap together the parts available in bulk in order to reach price points people will pay. The LG 5K is a good example, because it is clearly compromised to reach a somewhat reasonable price point. From what I can tell the monitor market mostly exists to cater to the gener…

I don’t think that’s it. Apple is the most valuable company on earth right now, entirely due to their thesis that people will pay for quality hardware. The “creator” market is much more profitable than the gamer market where kids only have as much as mom will allow them to spend (vs The tech workers, coders, designers, youtubers, etc that need high quality displays to make a living). It’s why Apple is able to get ins…

I don't know very many young PC gamers. Is the market for good gaming hardware really that small?

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#658

Post by GeorgeTirebiter »

jseliger wrote: post #536
marta_morena_9 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make any sense. Mirrorless cameras cost a couple thousand dollars (I have one) and the last thing I am going to wear down/abuse this equipment with, is to jump into daily meeting lol. At the low end, there are decent webcams, like Logitech HD 1080p, but it costs over 100$ and honestly, it's a couple of years behind the current. There don't seem to be webcams of around 100 to 200$ that are state of the ar…

Mirrorless cameras cost a couple thousand dollars No, they don't: https://www.adorama.com/ifjxt200sk.html And that's a new, relatively expensive model.

"On Backorder Order now, your card will not be charged until it is ready to ship."

Generally, this means "a long time". I've been waiting 6 months for a recommended underwater camera, still nada.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#659

Post by rossjudson »

kylecordes wrote: post #624
iamatworknow wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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://imagingedg…

As I understand these are all awful in their own way, typically with quality problems and extra latency as well as the extra complexity of the software. The obvious solution is a camera mode in which it presents itself over USB as a webcam… As far as I know no "real" camera at any price does this. I solve the problem with a Camlink, but it really should not be necessary.

I use a camlink 4k/nikon d610 and a Movo UM700. Great color and low-light performance, with natural bokeh, far superior to software background blur solutions.

Now, I'm not sure it's a great idea to actually present myself in such find detail ;). But it was fun to set up.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#660

Post by _carbyau_ »

At the particular market segment they seem to be aiming for - the enthusiast middle ground - the cost of extra capability is not competing with higher/lower priced cameras.

It is competing with environment control on price. If I can change lighting with a $10 lamp or two and clean up the space behind me then why do I need "low light capability" and shallow depth of field?

When this middle ground is marketed, it should be against the convenience of NOT having to arrange your surroundings "Just so".

Post reply on HN