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

Post by jaywalk » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:14 PM UTC

dan-robertson wrote: post #138

cesarb wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #143

user5994461 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This doesn't appear to be accurate. https://www.statista.com/statistics/616210/average-internet-... Anecdotally, my local ISP has gone from everyone getting 10/1 to 100/5 in the base package in the last few years.

Post by martin_a » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

dasyatidprime wrote: post #109

dannyw wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wear a gamer headset then.

I use a Sennheiser GAME ZERO for audio calls on a regular basis, including professionally, because the sound quality is quite good for voice. (I do also use it for gaming, and for music listening.) For audio calls they're not going to see it anyway, and I don't think most of the people I talk to would care if they saw it on a video call; the design doesn't scream “business”, but the red metal tracery is the only flas…

Post by mywittyname » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

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…

Post by zippergz » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

izzydata wrote: post #141

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…

Some of the first consumer level usb 3.0 webcams capable of 60 fps only came out a few years ago. Before that it was impossible to get such framerate on a webcam because usb 2.0 did not have enough bandwidth.