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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

#421

Post by delta_p_delta_x »

deskr wrote: post #352
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #28

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…

Exactly. But why does he need to buy a USB capture card and HDMI cable? He can just hire someone to come and record the videos for him. They'll also do the post processing. Why does he even even record the videos himself? He can just hire actors to do what he wants, probably a lot better. And what's the whole thing with buying a camera? He should just buy a studio and hire a crew to manage all that stuff.

This is what's called a slippery slope.

A capture card and HDMI cable together cost less than $100. Hiring someone will be at least an order of magnitude more expensive—and more so the more people you hire.

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

#422

Post by bluGill »

wodenokoto wrote: post #371
virtualritz wrote: post #224

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…

That does sound completely absurd. How many people buy apps on their high end camera? Doesn’t sound like it was worth developing an App Store for it.

Back in 2010 the app store was the hot new thing and everyone had visions of how they would put on in their product. Most of them realized it was a stupid idea before they got around to writing code for it (much less release), but some of it escaped to the public.

Sometimes the idea of apps might make sense (this is arguable, but lets not go there) but the old buy it on a real computer (phone allowed) and then load it is correct.

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

#423

Post by Damogran6 »

Saris wrote: post #382
virtualritz wrote: post #224

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…

That's pretty wild for such a popular brand. My panasonic G9 just has that stuff built in.

It's part of the enshittification cycle. I'd been a Nikon camera user and figured I'd upgrade...reviewing Nikon, Cannon and Sony, the new startup...Sony was the only body at that pricepoint that also had a motor in the body to let older class have auto-focus...that was a feature the other two were gatekeeping at higher priced bodies.

Now that they're established, its time to chip away and add shareholder value.

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

#424

Post by wat10000 »

dghughes wrote: post #203

This reminds me of Samsung and the SPO2 the oxygen sensor on the S8+ (I think) phone. All was well until one day an update disabled access to the sensor. Worse it was only for Canada where it was blocked. The access to the physical sensor on a phone I had owned for a few years, gone. Oh but you could buy their new watch that had an SPO2 sensor on it. Disabling a physical component on a device a person owns and has ow…

Only disabling it in Canada sounds like a legal or licensing issue. Still Samsung’s fault for not working that out ahead of time, but probably not a cash grab.

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

#425

Post by throwaway48476 »

immibis wrote: post #335
walthamstow wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hoo boy we have some classics in that category in the UK. My personal fave is when morning TV host Lorraine Kelly successfully argued she wasn’t hosting as herself but acting a character called Lorraine Kelly, with very favourable tax consequences.

Alex Jones argued this, with the obvious implication, that whoever buys Infowars also owns the character of Alex Jones, and Alex Jones cannot play Alex Jones any more without infringing their copyright. (But I suspect this incoming government doesn't care to apply logical consistency to his case)

Perhaps IP law has jumped the shark.

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

#426

Post by panzi »

walthamstow wrote: post #316
halgir wrote: 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...

Hoo boy we have some classics in that category in the UK. My personal fave is when morning TV host Lorraine Kelly successfully argued she wasn’t hosting as herself but acting a character called Lorraine Kelly, with very favourable tax consequences.

I'm not from the UK, but wasn't there also a cake Vs biscuits thing for tax reasons?

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

#428

Post by TheJoeMan »

jolmg wrote: post #167

> and they should—due to the lack of standards—provide software that allows you to use their cameras as intended. There is a standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_video_device_class

devil's advocate, but this is not "using the cameras as intended". This is a camera for photography, I don't think a common person would see it and think "this is intended as a webcam".

On the one hand, perhaps this fixed software should be a one-time purchase and not a subscription. However, if this software was provided for free, what incentive would the management at Cannon have for investing into updating the software for MacOS when it inevitably breaks? I think there is a small subset of users using this camera as a webcam, and frankly I'm surprised Cannon even has an official app.

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

#429

Post by spokaneplumb »

helboi4 wrote: 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?

The broader question of why companies are able to keep pushing us ever closer to the maximum we’d conceivably be willing to pay for a given good, is probably best answered with “we stopped trust-busting a few decades ago, so competition sucks and keeps getting worse”.

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

#430

Post by marcosdumay »

tommica wrote: post #154
halgir wrote: 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

And also, they are an "on your face" depiction of the dehumanization of the Holocaust victims...
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