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Webcams aren't good enough

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Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#551

Post by IYasha »

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…

Nice! I'd like to ask: as there's a growing trend for (e)motion-contolled 3D personas/avatars driven my conventionl webcams, are you considering that as one of your potential directions of development? As a potential buyer, I'm in need of an inexpensive webcam with invisible IR backlight that would reliably capture facial expressions at moderate resolutions (up to 1280*960) even in a dark room without being distracting or harmful. Fast internal basic encoder (maybe primitive, but fast) would be nice too.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#552

Post by [deleted] »

blablabla123 wrote: post #520
modeless wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Give it a camera module from a midrange 2017 smartphone and use the latest image processing tricks, and you'll blow almost any webcam on the market today. Sorry, that's exactly the strategy of these webcam startups, and Apple with the Studio Display, and the results empirically suck. Even if you could get 2017 smartphone quality (which is still apparently an unsolved problem), why should you settle for that in a we…

As stated somewhere else, at the end the video will go through very lossful compression and often be scaled down when used at work. I mean I'm now at my 4th webcam since the pandemic started because the other cams were: too dark, constantly zooming in and out for no reason (MS Cinema Lifecam), poor image. I now sticked with the Logitech C920 because I can manually set brightness/contrast/activate autofocus. I think t…

[deleted]

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#553

Post by hbossy »

I don't _want_ a good webcam. There's really no need for my colleagues to be able to count freckles on my nose. All I want others to see is my general contour and expression on my face. In fact I wouldn't use it at all if it weren't mandated by company policy and no one used one until after HR drones started complaining about it. We had one guy join the weekly call with some crystal-clear, HD cam once and entire office started joking about his alleged "online side gig".

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#554

Post by erellsworth »

Not good enough for what? All the problems the author describes are certainly issues I'd worry about in photography, but that's not the purpose of a webcam.

The quality of images produced by modern webcams rivals that of professional gear from 20 years ago. I'd say that's more than "good enough."

And if you really want professional photography quality images from your webcam, it is possible to use a DSLR as a webcam.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#555

Post by swlkr »

So true.

I ran into this problem when streaming on twitch. After I switched from a webcam to a sony a7r2, I never looked back.

I even use it for zoom calls too, because why not?

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#556

Post by Tepix »

Panasonic released a "beta webcam" software for several of their more recent cameras in September 2020[1]. Luckily i have one of the supported models. Unfortunately, it has bugs, it doesn't support Apple Silicon and it hasn't received an update since.

Hello Panasonic... please fix the issues and release an update, including Apple M1/M2 support!

[1] https://www.panasonic.com/global/consumer/lumix/lumix_webcam...

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#558

Post by eropple »

xxs wrote: post #524
eropple wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm lucky, but I've got half a dozen Logitech wireless mice/keyboard-and-trackpad media keyboards in regular use, plus the MX Ergo trackball, plus a couple of G Pro keyboards, and I haven't been able to kill any of them even through pretty rough use on the mice particularly (they tend to get bounced around in the living room when the dog jumps on the couch, etc.). "Can't be accidental" reads as conspiracy-huffi…

No need for conspiracy - their mouse buttons are run out of spec which guarantees the infamous double-click. This is an issue on pretty much all their (esp. wireless) mice.

Maybe I've been extremely fortunate, but since the MX518 I haven't seen it on any of my (pretty heavily used) mice.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#559

Post by eropple »

ncmncm wrote: post #467
eropple wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm lucky, but I've got half a dozen Logitech wireless mice/keyboard-and-trackpad media keyboards in regular use, plus the MX Ergo trackball, plus a couple of G Pro keyboards, and I haven't been able to kill any of them even through pretty rough use on the mice particularly (they tend to get bounced around in the living room when the dog jumps on the couch, etc.). "Can't be accidental" reads as conspiracy-huffi…

You talk like you have never heard of Planned Obsolescence. But it has been in business school textbooks since probably before you were born. Whirlpool refrigerators have a "light control" circuit board to make the dome light come on slowly when the door opens. It has two resistors carefully underspecified to fail after warranty end, requiring a $150 replacement board. (Lots of pics online.) Good for them, bad for us…

> There is literally no legitimate reason why moisture on the bottom surface of an optical mouse should possibly have any effect on its operation or longevity.

Sure there is. You got a lemon with an unexpected gap in the base panel and electronics don't like water much. That happens; that doesn't mean it's a defect by design, and the shouting about it needs a lot more substantiation than "well have you heard of this thing in another industry entirely?". Tolerances exceed, stuff breaks, warranties are sometimes necessary. This sniffing about capital-P Planned capital-O Obsolescence when this stuff works in the main quite well for a lot of people (and, as mentioned, my own pretty wide array of hardware from them) has a long road to hoe to substantiate it.

You buy a dishwasher once a decade or so. You buy mice rather more frequently than that. From where I sit, there's more incentive to hand you a decent product so you come back and buy another from the same manufacturer--and, as it happens, that's much of why most of the input devices kicking around my house and my studio are Logitech, because they're generally a decent floor of quality.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#560

Post by modeless »

blablabla123 wrote: post #520
modeless wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Give it a camera module from a midrange 2017 smartphone and use the latest image processing tricks, and you'll blow almost any webcam on the market today. Sorry, that's exactly the strategy of these webcam startups, and Apple with the Studio Display, and the results empirically suck. Even if you could get 2017 smartphone quality (which is still apparently an unsolved problem), why should you settle for that in a we…

As stated somewhere else, at the end the video will go through very lossful compression and often be scaled down when used at work. I mean I'm now at my 4th webcam since the pandemic started because the other cams were: too dark, constantly zooming in and out for no reason (MS Cinema Lifecam), poor image. I now sticked with the Logitech C920 because I can manually set brightness/contrast/activate autofocus. I think t…

Bigger sensors and bigger lenses are exactly what would solve those core problems. Even after video call compression (which is not always extreme) it is trivial to tell whether a video was taken with a big sensor/lens or a small one. Compression is no reason to use a crappy camera. Garbage in, garbage out.
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