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Webcams aren't good enough

reincubate.com

11–20 of 610 posts

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#11
If I could I'd still be using my 480p external 2003 iSight camera through an increasingly ridiculous series of dongles:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/412516/external-is...

Support though has been removed from Apple Silicon Macs :(

Would be a good project for someone to hack support back in.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#12
You can use you phone's camera as a webcam with Reincubate's Camo App. This required a wired connection iirc.

You can also use OBS Studio along with a virtual camera plugin to use any device which can output directly to your computer.

But most of these solutions do not work on Safari or FaceTime unless you manually modify the app.

Now, Apple is going to soon introduce their "It Just Works" solution with the next release of macOS and iOS. You will be able to use your iPhone's camera as a webcam wirelessly with your Mac by just sticking your phone on the back (Apple is partnering with Belkin[0] for this stand) [1]

I personally don't care about the camera as much as I care about the sound quality.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/6/23156834/apple-iphone-webc...

[1] https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2022/10018/

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#14
post #10
post #2

Webcams are good enough for their purpose which is video conferencing and calls. In the end your video is likely going to be encoded in like 360p low bitrate. I personally prefer not being in razor sharp detail on calls anyway. Anyway this is the one I've been using. https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Webcam-Built-Stereo-Micropho... I like the integrated shutter better than the cover thing for the c920.

> good enough for their purpose which is video conferencing As a hard of hearing person, the main reason I'd bother to video conference is so I can see a person's lips to understand them better. The vast majority of practical set-ups do not presently make that possible. Some are so bad with the compression and framerate that sign language gets substantially garbled, too.

You probably know of this already, but in some software you can have speech to text live subtitles. I hate to advertise for Google but their Meet thing is the only one where I know this exists. The quality is slightly worse than their YouTube auto-subtitles (and even those are worse than my own hearing as a non-native listener), though perhaps that's because the input is also worse and it needs to be realtime? Not sure, but if you're having trouble understanding, getting 80% as text plus your own hearing and lip reading might be a big aid.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#15
As I had a Canon DSLR lying around during Covid, I have repurposed it to a webcam using Canons webcam driver: https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/se...

Image quality is top notch and the ability to Zoom in/out using the zoom lense is nice. You also get some nice background blur, depending on your used lens. For power there are modified "batteries" allowing to plug the camera into AC for power.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#17
post #11

If I could I'd still be using my 480p external 2003 iSight camera through an increasingly ridiculous series of dongles: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/412516/external-is... Support though has been removed from Apple Silicon Macs :( Would be a good project for someone to hack support back in.

I still have my iSight camera plugged to my Mac. 'Tis a shame it won't work when I will upgrade to an M-series Mac even though I don't even use the camera for anything.

It definitely does have some overheating issues, but it looks too good. I might use the shell and replace the guts with a Raspberry Pi powered camera [0] if I can actually get my hands on a Pi Zero with the shortage we have right now

[0] https://github.com/maxbbraun/pisight

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#18
post #11

If I could I'd still be using my 480p external 2003 iSight camera through an increasingly ridiculous series of dongles: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/412516/external-is... Support though has been removed from Apple Silicon Macs :( Would be a good project for someone to hack support back in.

> If I could I'd still be using my 480p external 2003 iSight camera through an increasingly ridiculous series of dongles

Why? 480p does not sound better than today's mediocre webcams, does it have some amazing light balance or face detection for focus or something?

I would want to do this as well for shits and giggles, a 2003 webcam with 4 dongles being nearly on par with modern webcams is fun / hackery / a conversation starter, but I'm curious if it's more than just that. (My own ~2005 webcam simply connects with USB and works out of the box on any modern hardware running Linux. I suppose I didn't and don't think different enough.)

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#19

You can use you phone's camera as a webcam with Reincubate's Camo App. This required a wired connection iirc. You can also use OBS Studio along with a virtual camera plugin to use any device which can output directly to your computer. But most of these solutions do not work on Safari or FaceTime unless you manually modify the app. Now, Apple is going to soon introduce their "It Just Works" solution with the next rele…

Great, because I never want to use my phone while in a meeting

What the actual fuck are they thinking just use a decent cam in the laptop

But yea, mic audio is always trash too

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#20
post #2

Webcams are good enough for their purpose which is video conferencing and calls. In the end your video is likely going to be encoded in like 360p low bitrate. I personally prefer not being in razor sharp detail on calls anyway. Anyway this is the one I've been using. https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Webcam-Built-Stereo-Micropho... I like the integrated shutter better than the cover thing for the c920.

+1 to that. I don't want to be in ultra HD in meetings. I mean, I also don't want to look like a character from a 90s CD-ROM game -- but that's a matter of bandwidth, not the camera.

In a way, 720p or below is a non-vain version of applying a filter, smoothing imperfections away.

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