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Why webcams aren’t good enough

reincubate.com

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Re: Why webcams aren’t good enough

#241

Post by beisner »

glitcher wrote: post #226

This is a completely minor and silly gripe, but one of the things I don't like about the video conferencing experience on computer screens is the lack of direct eye contact. I just can't escape the feeling of everyone looking at each other looking at each other, instead of looking each other in the eyes and knowing when someone is looking at you as opposed to someone else. It's really an odd shift from our natural fa…

Not minor, making eye contact when communicating is a super deep instinct. Even animals make eye contact. It totally takes you out of the moment when it isn’t there.

Re: Why webcams aren’t good enough

#242

Post by tacon »

glitcher wrote: post #226

This is a completely minor and silly gripe, but one of the things I don't like about the video conferencing experience on computer screens is the lack of direct eye contact. I just can't escape the feeling of everyone looking at each other looking at each other, instead of looking each other in the eyes and knowing when someone is looking at you as opposed to someone else. It's really an odd shift from our natural fa…

It really isn't a minor point. Lack of eye contact is really important. I pulled out a gooseneck webcam mount I had bought and never used from years ago. I can position it almost right in front of the Zoom window and achieve almost direct eye contact, though it is tricky if I need to see detail behind the webcam itself. Multiple monitors with extra area reduce that problem.

I ran across a video that showed how to create an actual direct eye to eye contact effect, using a half-silvered mirror and parts from a laptop webcam[0]. I started shopping for a used laptop webcam part, and then realized I have never seen laptops rated by their webcams, so it is almost a shot in the dark to get something good.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AecAXinars

Re: Why webcams aren’t good enough

#243

Post by gumby »

Animats wrote: post #162
TeMPOraL wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this pattern everywhere - the market bifurcating into a) race-to-the-bottom garbage products that are barely crossing the legal threshold of fit for purpose, and are essentially a huge waste of natural resources, and b) quality goods sold to specialists or companies, usually severely overpriced (to cover low volume of sales, and/or just because the market will bear it). Does it have a name in economics? Are the…

Sears. Sears' niche was in the middle. Everything was good, but not great, quality. Products were durable, came with good warranties, and "We Service What We Sell". Sears sold to the middle class, with middle prices. They went bankrupt with that model.

Sears didn't start that way. Their appliances and tools were top of the line, for instance.

Their own decline was a whoo-corporate example of the described phenomenon, accelerated if not triggered by the execrable Eddie Lampert.

Re: Why webcams aren’t good enough

#244

Post by ivansavz »

my_username_is_ wrote: post #120
krrrh wrote: post #93

I spend a lot of time on video calls every day, and wanted to take advantage of my iPhone camera. I had tried Epoccam and it was buggy, and broke between releases of Zoom or didn’t work in Slack calls. Screwing around with OBS was time consuming and pinned my fans. Reincubate Camo has been a pleasure to use over the last 3 months, and has never let me down. Having good image quality on video calls is on par with wear…

Are there any similar options for Android phones?

I use https://iriun.com on an old Android phone to get an "overhead projector" setup (to show hand written notes).

(using USB connection not wifi; there is a bit of lag but works OK)

Re: Why webcams aren’t good enough

#245

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

Animats wrote: post #162
TeMPOraL wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this pattern everywhere - the market bifurcating into a) race-to-the-bottom garbage products that are barely crossing the legal threshold of fit for purpose, and are essentially a huge waste of natural resources, and b) quality goods sold to specialists or companies, usually severely overpriced (to cover low volume of sales, and/or just because the market will bear it). Does it have a name in economics? Are the…

Sears. Sears' niche was in the middle. Everything was good, but not great, quality. Products were durable, came with good warranties, and "We Service What We Sell". Sears sold to the middle class, with middle prices. They went bankrupt with that model.

It was even better - they used to have 3 of everything.

Want a hammer? They've got exactly 3:

1) One that's good enough to get the job done (Cheap, solid for a one-off project.)

2) One that's great (The one you probably want: More expensive, but tradeoffs are balanced for most people.)

3) One that's basically best in class, with a lifetime warranty (Expensive, basically professionals, you could hand it down to your grandkids)

I still think there's a craving for this sort of thing, but online. Extensively curated products divided into 3 tiers.

Re: Why webcams aren’t good enough

#246

Post by floatingatoll »

tibbon wrote: post #142

Here's what really bugs me. It's clear Apple has good cameras, excellent even. And small. Yet, the camera in my $2000 Macbook Pro? Remarkably worse than even the worse external webcam. If they can throw an amazing camera in a phone, why can't they put a decent one in a laptop?

The camera in your MBP isn't the Apple Silicon camera that's used in their mobile devices. In the near future, when Apple drops Intel from their entire laptop product line, it is very likely that they'll bring their Apple Silicon cameras from their mobile products to their laptop products. (Yes, there's a 'version zero' MBP with the M1, and a teardown showed that it's literally a drop-and-swap of the motherboard with no other component changes at all. It's literally the "get this out the door so that developers can start finding issues so we can fix them for the masses" model. Hope y'all waited to upgrade if you're not developers for Apple products!)

Everyone assumes that it's only the camera module that needs to be updated, but forgets that it's the image processing hardware circuits that make DSLRs and iOS devices produce such gorgeous images. This, in a nutshell, is why USB webcam makers can't compete: they aren't willing to raise their price by $50 to incorporate a real image processing chip that's able to handle the sensor adequately, and their software is crap because it's bargain-basement and hacked-together to avoid the hardware spend. Imagine if we could purchase Leica and Nikon and Canon webcams, with the ability to use DSLR controls to set them up, and then have them just produce gorgeous photos at any time. So far, Apple is the only webcam maker that's taken it far enough to earn praise. It's really unfortunate.

Re: Why webcams aren’t good enough

#247

Post by bootlooped »

diamondo25 wrote: post #146
tibbon wrote: post #142

Here's what really bugs me. It's clear Apple has good cameras, excellent even. And small. Yet, the camera in my $2000 Macbook Pro? Remarkably worse than even the worse external webcam. If they can throw an amazing camera in a phone, why can't they put a decent one in a laptop?

I think because it has no room for the module. Cameras these days tend to bulge out of the case of the phone...

So rather than put a crappy camera in the phone, they expanded the volume to fit the camera. I wonder why that isn't something we see with laptops? You could have it bulge out of the back, or have some clever cutout below the trackpad and let it bulge out the front.

Re: Why webcams aren’t good enough

#248

Post by bootlooped »

u678u wrote: post #198
tibbon wrote: post #142

Here's what really bugs me. It's clear Apple has good cameras, excellent even. And small. Yet, the camera in my $2000 Macbook Pro? Remarkably worse than even the worse external webcam. If they can throw an amazing camera in a phone, why can't they put a decent one in a laptop?

The other part is if you have a quality HD or better camera its a huge load to GPU and network which will chew your battery. Lower resolution is actually probably preferred if you could see the alternative.

It's not just resolution though. By every other measure of quality, webcams are mediocre. In the article, even before expanding the video test of the 4 different webcams, it's easy to see how poor some of them are in various ways.

Re: Why webcams aren’t good enough

#249

Post by nom »

barkingcat wrote: post #187
mfkp wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people don't mind a bulge in their phone, I doubt they'd mind a camera bulge sticking out the back of their laptop.

Yah this precisely. Why are phones allowed to have bulges and chins and notches, but laptops somehow are too "thin" to do the same? For that matter, why hasn't anyone made a laptop screen with a centre notch? people accepted that for phones and now every large manufacturer of phones use notches in their phones. Laptops are much larger and heavier so it's really doable to include a better camera. The only thing blocki…

For the bulges you have to consider that most people use phone cases, which gives the designers a bit more room.

On laptops you can either create a bump on the backside of the lid, which looks weird as the use of it is not obvious, or you can extend the camera in the front and create a dent in the bottom shell, which also has no clear use and seems out of place. Either way, it will look and feel weird.

On phones it at least highlights the powerful camera and most users are not bothered by it as it extends into the phone case.

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