571–580 of 665 posts
I wonder when we'll reach a tipping point for the subscription hell that the world is moving towards. On the other hand, with the amount of consolidation and difficulty competing (especially with Lina Khan out) I'm not sure if that will ever happen.
I tend to think of insufficient competition as a root cause.
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?
You can get quite good webcams for $100–300 (from Insta360, Obsbot, Logitech maybe …) which work out of the box with USB-C and have mostly okayish software that supports changing things like brightness, white balance, etc. These however still have small sensors and cannot achieve a good shallow depth-of-field (bokeh). Running them at higher sensitivity (ISO), e.g. in darker environments, inevitably causes noise. But if you just want to participate in meetings, it does not matter. I had a Logitech StreamCam and upgraded to an Insta360 Link 2C, which is definitely much better but still not on-par with a proper camera. You should at least get a good keylight or ring light.
The next step up would be mirrorless cameras with built-in or interchangeable lenses made for vlogging, which also can be used like a webcam. They have much bigger sensors and better image quality at a pricing point of $400-1000, e.g. Sony ZV-E10 II, Fuji X-M5, Canon EOS M50 Mark II, … most of them claim webcam support with the provided software. Fuji's software is bad though, so I wouldn't recommend it on a Mac. I can't talk about the other ones. The benefit is that they also have a flip screen that you can use for better framing. They all support webcam modes.
If you have a camera that has an HDMI output and that outputs a clean HDMI signal (without any overlays), you can also buy an HDMI USB capture device and feed that into OBS, which allows you to set up a virtual webcam. There are cheap no-name USB capture cards that produce mediocre images, and more top-of-the line ones like the Elgato Cam Link. This should be the most device-independent variant where you're also not dependent on any vendor's proprietary software.
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…
Thankfully people have figured out how to add apps to some sony cameras https://github.com/ma1co/Sony-PMCA-RE https://github.com/jonasjuffinger/TimeLapse
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?
Some thoughts based on my anecdotal experience — but it depends on the price you are willing to pay. You can get quite good webcams for $100–300 (from Insta360, Obsbot, Logitech maybe …) which work out of the box with USB-C and have mostly okayish software that supports changing things like brightness, white balance, etc. These however still have small sensors and cannot achieve a good shallow depth-of-field (bokeh).…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reasons like this is why the Japanese companies are eating sh*t and are VERY interested in pushing for a US-China war just like the western companies. Everything coming out of China is way more customer friendly, usually way cheaper and getting better and better to a point that they are surpassing everything else that exists. If DJI releases a full-frame mirrorless camera with L-mount (which they are going to), Canon…
Regarding products from China being cheaper: remember that Japanese, Korean, and Western companies are the ones mostly innovating and absorbing the R&D costs. Remember how modern OLEDs were made feasible basically by LG and Samsung? Having stolen that IP[0][1][2], without any R&D costs but with dirt cheap manufacturing due to direct and indirect subsidies like relatively almost nonexistent labour protection laws, PRC…
Which camera is that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 no…
[Judge Smith] found OAN and its parent company were unlikely to prevail on the defamation claim because the challenged speech was not a statement of fact and the context of Maddow’s show made it likely her audience would expect her to make political opinions.
Putting the details of the court case aside, the judge is clearly saying that he does not believe that Maddow's show was "news" and it shouldn't be treated as such. That's what GP was pointing out: the defense of being "not news", which both shows have in common.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The revenue boost you get from this dumb shit is easily measurable and attributable. “Let’s charge our existing customers $5 for some nonsense” -> bigger bonus that year. The long term revenue hit you get from pissing off your customers is nearly impossible to measure or attribute. Occasionally you’ll see a company where the leadership believes in the long term value of not doing this crap. They might do pretty well…
> The long term revenue hit you get from pissing off your customers is nearly impossible to measure or attribute. As people become accepting of this practice I worry there won't be a long-term hit. Tech consumers don't understand what kind of services actually warrant a subscription because there's a recurring cost to the provider (renting CPU or storage capacity) versus those that are just rent seeking (ahem-- "reco…
If every car company charges a subscription for seat heaters, then maybe this will drive a few people who are on the fence to not buy a car at all, but it’s going to be a very small effect. If there’s a competitor that sucks less, the impact will be greater.
If there’s is no such competitor, then this behavior leaves an opening for one. But it’s a total crapshoot as to whether any company will actually seize the opportunity.
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…
In Germany, all storage products (e.g. USB sticks) have to pay a canon "because you could use it to pirate media". Now, if I pre-paid the canon for pirating, does it mean I'm authorized to?
Still not a fan, and probably the EUCD makes most of this useless.
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.
There was also the famous decision in the Jaffa Cake case where the VAT treatment depended on whether or not a Jaffa cake was a cake or a biscuit https://standrewseconomist.com/2023/12/31/let-them-eat-cake-... The tribunal decided that Jaffa Cakes were cakes because when they go stale they go hard like a cake whereas a biscuit tends to go soft when it goes stale.
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…
> I couldn't use my Canon SLR to record more than 30 minutes of video continuously Large sensors optimized for still photography overheat when operating continuously for video, so they feature safety limits. Sensor heat dissipation is a big problem and a major differentiating feature of top end cinema cameras.