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Webcams aren't good enough

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Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#221

Post by Terretta »

mchusma wrote: post #212
rlei wrote: post #171

I'm the cofounder at Lumina - we're building a modern webcam designed to solve some of these problems. There's really been a lack of innovation in the entire home office space, with the webcam being particularly bad. It sucks that a decade-old product (Logitech C920) is still the bestselling product today -- that would be like if Apple stopped releasing new phones after the iPhone 4S (launched 2012), and it remained…

I bought a Lumina in December. It still doesn't do automatic tuning of the video. Everything requires manual adjustment. I can't just have it...work. It requires tons of adjustments. It even ships with a color card, which I assume is to automatically tune things, but it fails miserably. I have tried tuning it a dozen times, but maybe I can get it right until the light changes (I am by windows). Finally, after about 5…

Agree. I posted a sibling comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31803306

I use this on MBP M1 Max and on Intel MBP2019 16”.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#223

Post by m463 »

hgomersall wrote: post #177
rlei wrote: post #171

I'm the cofounder at Lumina - we're building a modern webcam designed to solve some of these problems. There's really been a lack of innovation in the entire home office space, with the webcam being particularly bad. It sucks that a decade-old product (Logitech C920) is still the bestselling product today -- that would be like if Apple stopped releasing new phones after the iPhone 4S (launched 2012), and it remained…

I'd love to compare lumina too, but you don't support Linux so I'll have to accept a crap webcam over a non functioning one.

I think just supporting UVC instead of doing some other mess is what people really want and need.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#224

Post by AdrianB1 »

thewebcount wrote: post #199

What is going on in the video of the C920 exposure test? It’s not clear if he’s changing lighting, changing camera settings, or letting the driver change some internal settings, but the view out the window is getting less and less overexposed while his face remains exactly as overexposed at each step. It’s like it’s exposing different parts of the frame differently and all poorly. WTF?

He is quite clear: he is changing the lights in the room.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#225

Post by oittaa »

ec109685 wrote: post #134
logifail wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just turning on any bright lights Umm, it really depends where those lights are relative to the camera. None of us look our best when light brightly from directly overhead, or from one side, or - if you're really after that Dracula look - from directly underneath. The sun is a unique (free!) light source, particularly if you're able to get access through a North-facing window. It's quite costly (time and money) to…

I know what you’re getting at, but for people who can’t rearrange their house, good lighting is definitely cheaper than a north facing window :)

Exactly. I put couple of Ikea Torsbo(? or something similar, can't remember the exact model) next to my monitor and they provide nice soft light to the face, which amazes some people. Literally spending 20€ on some cheap tabletop lamps would improve the quality dramatically for most of the people. I don't even have any fancy cameras, just a Logitech Streamcam I bought from some discount sale.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#226

Post by zajio1am »

captn3m0 wrote: post #69

> Originally, Logitech's higher-end webcams, such as the C920, also included dedicated MPEG processing hardware to encode the video signal, but removed it at some point Anyone knows if this is detectable on the hardware side? By checking the revision number or features using v4l2-ctl perhaps?

Well, i have Logitech C925e, which has MPEG encoding hardware, but as people switched to WebRTC in browsers, it is unlikely to get supported in software (browsers).

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#227

Post by m463 »

shados wrote: post #93
logifail wrote: post #48

There is a reason that for hundreds of years painters and (later) photographers have preferred working in spaces with North-facing windows[0], and that is because it's a simple way of ensuring neutral, even light. My home office is (by design) in a room with one North-facing window. I use a Logitech C920. Many people have told me how good my webcam feed is. I don't think it's that the C920 is particularly brilliant,…

Also the vast majority of people using these web cams don't have nearly enough lighting. When there isn't enough, the software cranks up the ISO to ridiculous level which gives that distinctive "webcam grain" look thats awful.

Phone cameras seem to be extremely sensitive - even an old iphone 8 camera can see well in near-dark conditions. Don't see why webcams can't do this.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#228

Post by dopa42365 »

kcb wrote: 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.

At the end of the day, you'll mostly end up as a glorified thumbnail in a small corner of a, let's be realistic, 1080p screen, next to a bunch of other people. No one in the call gains anything by watching each other, it doesn't matter. For this case, just get a good microphone (even a 30€ Behringer sounds much better than whatever it is most people use).

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#229

Post by AdrianB1 »

_boffin_ wrote: post #46

Here's a question: why do people care so much about what they look like or how the camera displays them? Personally, I care more about the content being delivered than what someone (including the scene) looks like.

Bad image quality (picture or video) is distracting for some people. With a natural looking video you can focus on the content being delivered.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#230

Post by wholinator2 »

logifail wrote: post #191
bjourne wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the article is that even a shitty old cell phone handily beats a "mid-range" C920 webcam. Yes, lighting conditions are important to photography, but, as the author demonstrates, cell phone cameras are better even in those scenarios. Furthermore, if you live in northern latitudes you get very little sunlight during the winter so a "window" is not a sufficient solution.

> Furthermore, if you live in northern latitudes you get very little sunlight during the winter so a "window" is not a sufficient solution Perhaps I wasn't clear: a North-facing window never gets direct sunlight, but doesn't matter because we're after neutral, even light . Certainly not "direct light", not even "lots of light". Just neutral, even light. It's worked for artists for centuries.

What they're saying is that if you live north enough, you're likely to be working during a time when there _is no sunlight_. A window does nothing when it's dark outside by the time your 4p.m. meeting comes around
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