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Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

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Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#241
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of when lawyers successfully argued that X-Men are not human, so that their action figures would be classified as "toys" rather than "dolls" and thus charged a lower tariff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Biz%2C_Inc._v._United_Stat...

Which is fucking hilarious when you think that a lot of xmen storyline is about them wanting to be perceived as humans

[deleted]

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#242
post #134

I have cannon r5 and previously had sony cameras. I'm bamboozeled how in this day and age software connecting cameras with PCs is so bad, not to mention tethered shooting. And the fact that 5+k camera have slow wifi chips for no reason so you cant tether via wifi just angers me. Software on the actual camera is yet another question for me, why don't we have cameras with full fledged modern OS-es running custom androi…

> Software on the actual camera is yet another question for me, why don't we have cameras with full fledged modern OS-es running custom androids for example with installable apps so you can finish a lot of stuff on the camera itself or make sharing to wherever a breeze.

A little more than 10 years ago Samsung tried that with their Galaxy NX (a bona fide DSLR running Android). It flopped and most reviewer noted that it a generally sluggish camera; a deal breaker when one of the design constraint of all their other competitor is to be reactive.

We mustn't forget that the main purpose of a camera is to take pictures, not to connect to a network.

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#243
post #95

The fact that its a subscription is what really rubs me up the wrong way. Not everything deserves to be a subscription. Why is everything a subscription these days?

So that company don't have to make new products to get your money but print money forever, milk the cow to the last drop.

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#244

That's reminds me when I was in South East Asia a few years back and wanted to do some time lapse or series photography with my Sony Alpha a7ii. A camera that I had paid close to 2k€ for (just body, no glass). It required an app to be installed on the camera that was paid-for. Which in term required the camera to be connected to a WiFi. Imagine discovering this while on a trip in the jungle or the desert or whatever…

Pentax cameras are much better at the ui and do not have any of this shit. They are also bulletproof and nearly indestructible, favoured by war photographers, and tend to have excellent spec sheets (if a bit of a a slow autofocus).

The company went bankrupt and bought by Ricoh, which I sincerely hope will keep the brand alive. Capitalism does really seem to prefer the nickel and dime approach...

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#245
post #160
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of when lawyers successfully argued that X-Men are not human, so that their action figures would be classified as "toys" rather than "dolls" and thus charged a lower tariff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Biz%2C_Inc._v._United_Stat...

Sounds like Ford putting seats in the back of their vans so they could pay less tax when importing them from Mexico, then removing them before they're sold. Looks like they've now been fined, but they got away with it for a while.

Technically the ones they got in hot water for were from EU to get around the Chicken Tax.

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That requirement is reversed in the last five years IIRC. My Sony A7-III doesn't have that, for example. Neither modern Canons, AFAIK. The funnier thing is, you can't use the videos out of your camera for commercial purposes, because the video codecs inside your camera doesn't come with commercial licenses out of the box. So if you are going to use your camera for production which you'll earn money, you need to pay c…

Hilarious. Reminds me of Pioneer CDJs as well, even on the flagship CDJ-3000 models. If you read the user manual it says: > About using MP3 files > This product has been licensed for nonprofit use. This product has not been licensed for commercial purposes (for profit-making use), […]. You need to acquire the corresponding licenses for such uses. For details, see […] Best use an open audio codec instead.

> Best use an open audio codec instead.

You will still need a separate license (or multiple separate licenses) for commercial purposes.

Music licensing is unbelievably complicated

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#248
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like "so you can't drink it" without the taxes part. Those taxes play important role in reducing alcohol consumption (though they are of course not the only tool), so making cheap ethanol poisonous and with different color closes the loophole in healthcare policy rather than opens a loophole in taxation. E.g. study: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3860576/

Every legal allowance I disagree with is a "loophole", every legal allowance I take advantage of is intended functionality.

I think if it's working as intended and as designed then it's hard to call it a loophole. Loophole would be when dying your spirit purple would change the taxation, because someone codified the color of alcohol instead of it's content.

But of course as you say it's largely semantics.

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are entirely ignoring the subscription for what should, at most, be a one-off cost. > The app is part of the implementation Give other cameras can do it, there has a standard for it since 2003, and there are F/OSS implementations for others, maybe I'm asking the wrong question and instead should have asked “why should the OP pay a subscription for their bad choice of how to implement the feature?”.

The company can charge whatever they want for this feature. Most people who can afford to use a good camera as their webcam will never use it, because they know the quality is worse and they'd rather use industry-standard HDMI. If I asked Sony for a power generator to charge my camera's battery, they could charge me a million a month if they'd like. Hopefully that would signal to me that there are better and more sta…

Indeed, we should be glad they don‘t charge us for each picture we take …

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#250

Is there a reason OP can't get themselves a $50 USB capture card and a $20 HDMI cable, and use OBS to capture the feed from the HDMI-out in the camera? Most decent capture cards also expose themselves as cameras to almost all applications. This is my setup, and it works perfectly. Nikon D7500 as a webcam. More professional setups use Atomos monitors with built-in NVMe drives mounted directly to the camera. I generall…

> a $50 USB capture card and a $20 HDMI cable

Are there any USB-connectable capture devices that can process 4K?

Everything I see tries really hard to hide the fact that while they can input 4K, they can only produce 1920x1080.

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