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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

#531

Post by frankchn »

formerly_proven wrote: post #194
franga2000 wrote: post #9

I'm not sure since I don't have any Canon gear, but it's very likely that the app just uses the PTP protocol, which is an old but stil common standard. The main ioen source implementation is libgphoto2 and there's an OBS Studio plugin to use it as a camera source, after which you can use its built-in virtual webcam mode to use it as a webcam.

Newer Nikon and apparently also some Sony cameras simply support USB UVC ("the webcam protocol"), which makes this pure plug and play, but apparently Canon doesn't. For older cameras there's a Nikon webcam utility or something like that, which does exactly what you suggest: grab preview frames via PTP and stuff them into a video source. Or you get an HDMI/USB dongle for 10$.

Recent Canons support UVC as well (specifically the R1, R5 Mark II, R6 Mark II, R8, and R50).

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

#532

Post by infogulch »

bayindirh wrote: post #239
Springtime wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. Yeah that seems to be the same AVC/h.264 'personal and non-commercial' text the 2010 article I linked centered on. MPEG-LA spoke to Engadget[1] (finally found a working link I could read) and said that a separate license for shooting commerical video isn't required and that distribution of commercial content via licensed providers (Google/Youtube, Apple, etc) is fine. It seems the one caveat, per the Engadget…

I looked around VIA-LA (which acquired MPEG-LA in 2023), and I can't see any free licenses about H.264. "Request a license" gives you an e-mail address, and that's it. There are other license models, which is about manufacturers, publishers and TV stations, etc. But nowhere it says "there's a free license for these cases, just get it from here". This all looks like a rabbit hole for me.

Can't wait for AV1 to supplant these bureaucratic rent-seekers.

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

#533

Post by bloopernova »

What setup would people recommend? I've tried using an old android phone as a webcam on macOS but it kept flaking out and needing to be reset.

What webcams, if any, have higher quality optics?

Do other SLRs do the same thing as Canon and charge a subscription?

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

#534

Post by Gormo »

veltas wrote: post #7

And this is probably because Canon corporate won't justify a budget for developing this software unless they expect separate revenue for it, even though it's clearly just value-add to the (already very expensive) hardware.

But it sounds like Canon actually invested extra development time to create crippled firmware that deviates from industry standards.

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

#535

Post by GuB-42 »

ragazzina wrote: post #3

5$ to unblock such a feature is already infuriating. But when you read the article, it explains it’s 5$ PER MONTH.

In fact, the problem is that you have to buy a subscription, with all the implications in terms of loss of control, privacy, security, etc...

$5 on a $6299 camera is nothing, just pay for it, petty but not really infuriating. Even at $500 I would simply pay should I need it. If I had reasons to buy a $6299 camera, it probably means a budget in the tens of thousands, for lenses, lighting, accessories, etc... $500 is peanuts by comparison.

But I certainly wouldn't want my very expensive setup to fail just because some server is down.

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

#536

Post by ComputerGuru »

hackingonempty wrote: post #253
bayindirh wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nominally, yes. These are checked before your movie is being distributed, and you'll most probably face legal consequences if you don't pay for your licenses. Not getting caught for some time doesn't count either. You'll pay retroactively, with some interest, probably. Licensing page is at [0]. Considering the previous shenanigans they pulled against open video and audio formats in the past [1], these guys are not sl…

If you bought a legit licensed product the doctrine of first sale means their patent rights are exhausted.[0] They can't come after you for patent infringement. Those licenses are for manufacturers making new licensed products, not users of licensed products they purchased. Can you show a single court case or even a press release where someone using a legit licensed product bought on the open market was sued for code…

I believe this is why a number of products require you to manually activate a free personal license (by clicking a button and agreeing to TOS) in the settings instead of shipping with it. You are then separately licensing the tech from the software vendor and are personally liable for infringements.

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

#537

Post by ComputerGuru »

bayindirh wrote: post #512
xyst wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wipe the EXIF data on the images when you make it public and nobody will be the wiser ;)

I’m not sure. Like how color printers write their serial numbers and date and whatnot on every page, these devices might be watermarking every video subtly, and we might not know it.

It’s not exactly watermarking; each encoder works in a different way and it’s readily possible to determine (for one versed in such matters) which encoder was used to generate a video by inspecting the structure of the raw (eg h264) bitstream. This might not work reliably enough for simpler codecs like JPEG but for something as complicated as modern video codec where there are a million ways to generate a compatible payload it is as unique as a fingerprint.

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

#538

Post by ryao »

Don’t most of these cameras have an hdmi output? During the pandemic, I assisted a local church with streaming after their plea for help reached me. We initially used a fairly cheap video camera’s hdmi output with a cheap HDMI to USB dongle to get a feed to OBS. It worked extremely well, although it was later replaced with a professional camera that had actuators to allow it to be moved via a remote during their services.

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

#539

Post by ComputerGuru »

WithinReason wrote: post #70
alibarber wrote: post #20

I also discovered that I couldn't use my Canon SLR to record more than 30 minutes of video continuously. The problem however wasn't Canon, but that I lived in a region (EU) that would have imposed a customs tariff on cameras that could do that, but by keeping it under that, the camera would be classed as a 'stills' camera and so was therefore exempt. Admittedly this is different from the case in the article - but it…

If your camera is compatible with magiclantern you could lift that limit and add some really cool features: https://www.magiclantern.fm/

I’ve come across this before and think it’s brilliant. Are you aware of any comparable firmware for Nikon users (not that I really have any complaints about what Nikon has provided, but this is likely a case of not knowing what I’m missing out on)?

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

#540

Post by smallmancontrov »

dingnuts wrote: post #510
thunky wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true though. All cable news is "entertainment news", not "news". Nobody should have been getting their "news" from Tucker Carlson, Don Lemon, or Rachel Maddow. IMO they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves news without putting entertainment in front.

Thank you for pointing this out. Carlson and Maddow made nearly identical arguments in court and if both are not mentioned in the same breath, the speakers bias is instantly displayed to anyone who is educated on this topic. > IMO they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves news without putting entertainment in front. Agreed but the average person wouldn't understand that Entertainment News was different than News.…

Carlson's texts were wild, they proved that he knew he was spreading lies and did it anyway for views. That's why Fox settled with Dominion for $787 million dollars.

Meanwhile, OAN sued Maddow for calling them Russian propaganda and her lawyers responded by flexing, doubling down with receipts under oath. Signing up for consequences if they were wrong, and receiving none because they were correct.

So no, these are not the same, and anyone who argues that they are immediately reveals themselves to be partisan hacks.

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