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Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams

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Re: Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams

#131

Post by windexh8er »

vetinari wrote: post #78
buro9 wrote: post #63

I bought an Elgato CamLink instead... hooked it up to a DSLR I already owned, and it makes for a stunningly crisp and clear, high quality, webcam. Of course, using a 42.4 Megapixel sensor and a Carl Zeiss Sonnar lens it would. https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/cam-link-4k Turns a HDMI input into a USB web cam.

I used to use Gopro this way. The problem was, that Gopro runs on battery when turned on (even when not recording, just in monitor mode), but charges it only when the camera is off. With my old battery, the sessions were... short. So I managed to snatch a Brio last week, and I'm much more satisfied.

This isn't correct for, at least GoPro 6 and newer. I often times will run my GoPro with an external battery pack when doing extremely long running time lapse videos. The camera can definitely be run on external power and record - minimally a Hero 6 Black and a Hero 8 black both can be used in this manner from personal experience.

Re: Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams

#132

Post by ghaff »

skinnymuch wrote: post #96
fireattack wrote: post #5

It's has been like this for quite a while. I tried to buy a webcam for a project about 3-4 weeks ago and found they were all gone. Funny enough, at that moment, I just thought it was because Amazon had problem on stocking and delivery. I didn't even realize it's because of the high demand for remote work etc.

Makes sense. There likely weren’t that many cams to begin with. Not exactly a burgeoning market. Wouldn’t take much to be out of stock world wide.

I assume most people have webcams built into their computers and/or use their phones for these purposes. I have a highish-end external one but then I'm someone who was spending a couple hours a day on video conferences even before the current situation.

Re: Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams

#133

Post by cesarb »

TheAdamist wrote: post #110

Wyze cheap security cameras released a firmware that turns them into a webcam. Still in stock. You will also need a USB a-a cable that I didn't know existed or was legal. And a 32gb microsd. I did this last week, came in one day on Amazon prime. Under $50 for everything. Setup went okay, although the 3-4 minutes for firmware write was under a minute for me with their branded microsd. Quality is passable, lens is more…

> You will also need a USB a-a cable that I didn't know existed or was legal.

They exist, but are not allowed by the USB standard. The basic premise of the classic USB standard is that the A side provides the 5V power, while the B side consumes that 5V power. With an A to A cable, you are shorting both power supplies together.

(USB-C changes that to resistors; IIRC, the side with the pull-up resistors will initially provide the 5V power, while the side with the pull-down resistors will initially consume the 5V power. The passive adapters to classic USB just have the correct pair of resistors for the corresponding classic USB plug or socket.)

Re: Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams

#134

Post by bostik »

dannyw wrote: post #44
martin_a wrote: post #6

Look no further than simple headsets. Wanted to have a light, cheap one from Sennheiser (one of those for 20 €) for homeoffice use. Sold out on Amazon. Estimated delivery mid or late May. And it's like that for all the inexpensive "business headphones". If you want some shiny-blinky-bulky-"gamer headset", Amazon will be happy to send you a dozen till tomorrow morning. It's crazy.

Just wear a gamer headset then.

Gaming headsets are actually pretty good for video conferencing. I got a pretty cheap one (£20) from a major UK chain as a test. Has worked wonders, even if ear fit is not perfect (bit heavy compared to what I normally would wear) and sound quality sucks for music. The alternatives would have been £70+ fancy sets, but I wasn't in the mood of experimenting with those kind of ticket prices.

Others at the company have bought similar items over the past couple of weeks too, and they are an increasing presence at conference calls. I wouldn't be surprised if the non-blinkenlight variants were the next item to go on scalpers' hot list.

Re: Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams

#135

Post by cranium »

buro9 wrote: post #63

I bought an Elgato CamLink instead... hooked it up to a DSLR I already owned, and it makes for a stunningly crisp and clear, high quality, webcam. Of course, using a 42.4 Megapixel sensor and a Carl Zeiss Sonnar lens it would. https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/cam-link-4k Turns a HDMI input into a USB web cam.

I bought it two weeks ago when the delivery delay was only a couple days, and I'm really happy of that purchase. For the price of the webcam I would have bought otherwise, I can enjoy the high quality of my photo gear and have a cool and versatile HDMI-to-USB adapter. For instance, I've used it yesterday to install a Raspberry Pi in a Picture-in-Picture fashion – no messing around with my monitors to find a suitable port !

Re: Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams

#136

Post by MrGilbert »

lima-lima wrote: post #115
exabrial wrote: post #81

Couldn't we just use our smartphones on a stand?

Perhaps useful for others: I had this thought as well (that my handy camera is already a high quality webcam) and had great performance on Linux with the app DroidCam [1], which includes the V4Lloopback module when you install the desktop program and presents the android camera as a webcam at /dev/video#. Connected to my computer via USB (ADB) it shows no noticeable latency. This is a bit different to all the IP webc…

On a side note: I guess it's still "mobile" in english - "handy" is pretty german. ;)

Not sure if it's still valid, but "handy" has a different meaning in slang:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=handy

Again, a native speaker might consider different, but as a german the usage of "handy" immediatley caught my eye. :D

Re: Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams

#137

Post by ssully »

I started working from home in early March, and even then most webcams were sold out on Amazon. I ended up finding the camera I wanted on Bestbuy without any problems and it was delivered pretty quickly. I just checked again, and the same webcam I got off Bestbuy is now only available for in store pickup.

Re: Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams

#138

Post by dan-robertson »

cesarb wrote: post #133
TheAdamist wrote: post #110

Wyze cheap security cameras released a firmware that turns them into a webcam. Still in stock. You will also need a USB a-a cable that I didn't know existed or was legal. And a 32gb microsd. I did this last week, came in one day on Amazon prime. Under $50 for everything. Setup went okay, although the 3-4 minutes for firmware write was under a minute for me with their branded microsd. Quality is passable, lens is more…

> You will also need a USB a-a cable that I didn't know existed or was legal. They exist, but are not allowed by the USB standard. The basic premise of the classic USB standard is that the A side provides the 5V power, while the B side consumes that 5V power. With an A to A cable, you are shorting both power supplies together. (USB-C changes that to resistors; IIRC, the side with the pull-up resistors will initially…

I’m slightly confused by this. At first you seem to be using A and B to describe whether the connector is male/female but in the next paragraph you use the letter C to refer to the shape of the connector.

I assume in the first paragraph you mean a usb A cable with plugs on both ends

Re: Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams

#139

Post by user5994461 »

summm wrote: post #116

The webcam and video call market has stopped to improve like, 10 years ago. There's some exceptions, like the Brio, but they are worse and more expensive than a whole cheapo phone with 2 cameras. Overall we're mostly stuck with 1280x720 fixfoxus usb-2.0 crap. On the software side, things don't look better: UVC 1.5 finally does support hardware encode with bitrate control, but software support is scarce. Completely un…

Home broadband has not improved much in the past 10 years. Home users simply couldn't stream a 720p video back then and most still can't as of today.

So there is no point in making higher resolution cameras, that won't run 5 frames per second.

Besides, high-end phones have very good cameras nowadays but they sell for a $1000 and upward. The typical webcam budget is rather in the $20-30 range. If you're willing to put hundred(s) in a webcam, like businesses and streamers, there are good options.

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