Tell HN: Toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and now web cams • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by user5994461 » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:47 PM UTC

apetresc wrote: post #165

Milner08 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you're living but that's not true. Home broadband has gotten a lot better over the last 10 years here in the UK. I don't know anyone (admittedly I don't know many in the countryside) who can't stream at 1080p. Even 4K Netflix is often fine.

He's referring to upload, not download, since that is the relevant metric when talking about using a webcam.

Yes about upload, but I want to say as well that Netflix is a special subject anyway.

A 1080p video on Netflix today has lower quality (bitrate) than a 720p video on Youtube 5 years ago. The only reason Netflix HD works for so many people is because Netflix has lowered the standard of what was considered HD.

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

#182

Post by beamatronic » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:48 PM UTC

Noticed this too! Was considering posting about it here also.

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

#183

Post by wegs » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

throwaway55554 wrote: post #123

On Amazon, there are some lesser known brands still available. I wonder how well those actually work.

My experience: Better than Logitech.

A $10 webcam I picked up 5-10 years ago vastly outperforms my fancy Logitech which my work bought for me.

Coincidentally, eBay, AliExpress, etc. have a bunch of cheap ones, but with long lead times (shipped from China). I can't vouch for specific models.

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

#184

Post by NikolaNovak » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:52 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…

Agreed; I tried to find a non-wide angle webcam and failed. All of them seem to have a tiny, old sensor and a crappy plastic wide-angle lens.

Now I'm using my Nikon d800 with 85mm lens to get a video feed that doesn't suck and pick up my entire messy home office - but it's an overkill, messy, and reduces lifespan of my camera. Boo all around!

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

#185

Post by runawaybottle » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

Raed667 wrote: post #8

Also Nintendo Switch, where it is now selling for (450$~650$) when you used to be able to find it for (250$~$300).

I was trying to get a Oculus Quest around Christmas, and it simply could not be had (out of stock everywhere, and listed for over double the price on EBay - no pandemic needed).

I guess companies really are just making exactly the number of units they need to make, nothing more.

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

#186

Post by rpvnwnkl » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

MrGilbert wrote: post #136

lima-lima wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In US english, handy means convenient

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

#187

Post by vincentmarle » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #169

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…

The Meeting Owl Pro appears to be an exception to the innovation complacency. https://www.owllabs.com/meeting-owl

Ah yes, the Owl Pro. The thing that we wasted 5-10 minutes every meeting on to get it to work.

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

#188

Post by distant_hat » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #144

ceejayoz wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Upload bandwidth for 95% of homes in the US is the same as it was almost 20 years ago. It’s so bad it’s not even advertised. If you have access to fiber, then you’re very lucky in the US. I would also say 5mbps upload is hardly an upgrade. A single FaceTime call uses a couple mbps, so it’s probably just enough for that, assuming everyone in the neighborhood isn’t uploading too, which they are nowadays.

Really is it that bad? I'm in third world India and get 200Mbps up and down at about $20/month.

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

#189

Post by x0x0 » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #169

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…

The Meeting Owl Pro appears to be an exception to the innovation complacency. https://www.owllabs.com/meeting-owl

We have a couple and they're good. Not great, but good. But they're a nice midpoint between laptop cams and mics (crummy), $100 jabra gear which is not much better, and $10k zoom rooms. We have them in all our conference rooms.

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

#190

Post by ceejayoz » Wed, Apr 08, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #181

apetresc wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's referring to upload, not download, since that is the relevant metric when talking about using a webcam.

Yes about upload, but I want to say as well that Netflix is a special subject anyway. A 1080p video on Netflix today has lower quality (bitrate) than a 720p video on Youtube 5 years ago. The only reason Netflix HD works for so many people is because Netflix has lowered the standard of what was considered HD.

The video on YouTube five years ago was encoded with a far less effective codec. H265 uses half the bandwidth of H264 for the same quality of video, for example; raw bitrate isn't a useful indicator of quality if the codecs differ.