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Webcams aren't good enough

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Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#581

Post by Groxx »

june11 wrote: post #499
Groxx wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that price point you're competing with a GoPro, which is likely as good or better at a lower price. All (or most?) current GoPros can be used as a webcam.

Actually I tried to do exactly this. Except the gopro webcam software straight up doesn't work and they don't plan on fixing it. Its depressing really.

That would indeed put a dent in that plan :\ I suppose there are always DSLRs, as those are also sometimes in a similar price bracket (many recent ones can act as a webcam as well).

I gather support / fixes / etc have been rolling out rather slowly, have you tried it in the past few months? Or is it currently that unusable? I certainly wouldn't expect the software to be difficult to build, there are quite a few webcam-emulating projects out there... but then again this is a company's software rather than an interested hobbyist.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#582

Post by drewg123 »

simondotau wrote: post #411
p1esk wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Link?

The feature is called “Continuity Camera”.

This appears to support just photos and document scanning. And also seems to use BT and WiFi.

I have a friend who lives in a high rise with incredibly crowded wifi spectrum. Anything wireless that involves latency sucks in their apartment. They tried to use an old iPhone for VC, but the jitter added by their crappy wifi made that a non-starter. By contrast, this product uses a USB connection, and I'm guessing would perform far better for them (and really anybody with crappy wifi, which is most people).

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#583

Post by drewg123 »

viraptor wrote: post #267
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your software works only on Windows, you've written non-portable software. Likely, you have all your core logic mixed up with Windowsy UI and now you're stuck there. If it works on Windows and Mac, you've written portable software but just can't be bothered to support Linux. At a guess the problem is that you want to ship binaries only and don't want to deal with doing all the packaging and testing for Linux. For…

When you write drivers there's no such thing as portable code. You need to target different APIs, different environment assumptions, etc. Sure, there's some common core most likely, but I think this rant is misplaced when talking about a hardware company. The software postprocessing is a different question and could be more common... But you're still specialising it for DX / v4l2+gui / whatever macos uses. That said.…

I worked for a company that did pre-infiniband HPC interconnect drivers (Myricom) in the 2000s. We supported N-different *nixes (Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, Tru64, Aix, and probably more I'm forgetting), Mac OS X and Windows in the same codebase. At least 50% of the driver and 95% of the userspace code was OS independent. In order to do this, our drivers were not "typical" drivers. Eg, we used ioctls everywhere (even on OSX) for driver/library communication.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#584

Post by imhoguy »

IshKebab wrote: post #579
imhoguy wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoom is the test of connection itself. The way it handles choppy link with slowdown then speedup technique to mask the issues, balances audio over video priority etc, just amazes me. One of the best videoconf software I used since 1990s which works in really shitty conditions (remote LTE, HSDPA).

Yeah I agree the sped up audio technique is clever. But I don't know what you mean by "Zoom is the test of connection itself". The only indication it gives you that people can't hear you is a "Your internet connection is unstable" warning and that doesn't really tell you much.

Well, Zoom dynamically adopts to whatever connection pipe you have, you get "Your internet connection is unstable" when the net is really really bad - several seconds pings and packet loses etc. If you see it too often then the test is failed :)

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#585

Post by andrekandre »

jrockway wrote: post #303
ip26 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think mics and webcams suffer a simple problem: the person who enjoys the benefit of higher quality is not the operator. Indeed, the operator may never experience how they look or sound.

That might be true, but your reputation is at stake as well. For the same reason that you might wear a suit to an important meeting, you might also take steps to ensure that your video and audio quality are presentable when you're having an important meeting virtually. (Of course, once you've paid the cost for that, you can just do a good job for all meetings. Much easier than a trip to the dry cleaners.)

  > That might be true, but your reputation is at stake as well.
anecdotally, but i see this as well, especially for interviews, people will notice the quality!

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#586

Post by Forgeties79 »

Shorel wrote: post #540
googlryas wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does this make you so angry? Laptops rarely have decent cams, because phones are afforded a greater thickness than the typical location of a laptop camera(above the screen). The webcam in my macbook has about 1/8" to work with, whereas my phone camera has almost 1/3"

External cameras like the Logitech 920 tested in the article have more than enough thickness to have better optics and better electronics than the cameras in phones. They just don't.

>they just don’t

Maybe this is out of ignorance, but just sort of assumed that’s how they keep it so cheap. Also the cameras on phones are arguably why people buy the phones they do at this point, or at the very least it’s a huge consideration given how frequently we use them. They also aren’t just for selfies and FaceTime or what have you, they’re also meant to be photography tools. They’ve completely replaced small consumer point and shoots. A laptop camera/webcam isn’t and can’t be that.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#587

Post by aksss »

httpsterio wrote: post #575
aksss wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old DSLR - I think there’s an issue with latency that you’ll find on many older DSLRs - converting out to HDMI in real-time - that makes them impractical for use as webcams. Make sure you record yourself in a test conference first and verify.

I dunno what you count as old but my 8 year old Sony A6000 has basically no latency at all. You just have to look up some reviews beforehand and make sure that the camera you're looking at supports a clean HDMI output, combined with a decent capture card you can get rather great image quality for a reasonable price. My Sony A6000 with a 35mm f3.5 lens was 350 euros second hand. Elgato capture card was 99 euros, a min…

DSLRs can be pretty old - I have a Canon EOS on on the shelf that outputs a clean 1080 picture, looks great, and is over 15 years old. Looks great, but the latency in the video signal sucks. Probably same Elgato capture card you have.

You'd think that any DSLR from, let's say, last ten years would be just fine, but it all just comes down to the internals of the cam in question. I'm just saying it's wise to check the experience on the other end before putting an old DSLR into production. Out of sync audio is more distracting than lower quality video.

Speaking of cheap cameras - don't count out older camcorders either. An older (but quality) camcorder will get you drastically better image quality and control capabilities than a webcam too, same process as hooking up an older DSLR (capture card, etc). Same challenges to be aware of with latency, and maybe moreso. I've seen a camcorder produced in last two years that had too much latency in HDMI signal to be worth the trouble - it was lower end, but just illustrates the point that component quality varies and has an impact on your use case.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#588

Post by ncmncm »

eropple wrote: post #559
ncmncm wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is no idiom "road to hoe".

Your Pollyanna view of consumer electronics and appliances is at variance from the reality. Are you by chance Libertarian?

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#589

Post by simondotau »

drewg123 wrote: post #582
simondotau wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The feature is called “Continuity Camera”.

This appears to support just photos and document scanning. And also seems to use BT and WiFi. I have a friend who lives in a high rise with incredibly crowded wifi spectrum. Anything wireless that involves latency sucks in their apartment. They tried to use an old iPhone for VC, but the jitter added by their crappy wifi made that a non-starter. By contrast, this product uses a USB connection, and I'm guessing would p…

> This appears to support just photos and document scanning.

Maybe try Googling again?

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

As for the issue with wifi, that's a legitimate shame for your friend, but isn't a reason for the feature not to exist for anyone.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#590

Post by theelous3 »

bronco21016 wrote: post #580
aksss wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cultural norms changing Like what? Greater acceptance of sirens, roosters, kids, dogs, and motorbikes in background while people talking?

Using earbuds or earphones. I suppose my comment does seem like it’s talking about background noise. My major issue is echo cancellation. Background noise is a factor that really messes with echo cancellation but, if everyone is using on/in ear audio then it becomes less of a factor.

Mic positioning and proper gain control is a big one.
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