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Webcams aren't good enough

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Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#231

Post by jacquesm »

masklinn wrote: post #181
dingleberry420 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Laptop screens are much thinner Do they have to be?

They naturally are because there's just not much there, it's just an LCD. Making them thicker means you're making them heavier and less rigid and full of nothing for 99% of their volume, making the entire laptop less wieldy (as it gets much thicker). It also means the hinge can't go as far back as the lid is now in the way (forget laptops which sit open flush). Or you have to design a completely novel (and much more…

Hm. Interesting: you could put the battery in the screen making it quite a bit thicker, and then have the base thinner, that would change the balance though and it might not be as stable when sitting open on a desk. It'd be great to have a 20 hour life laptop though.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#232

Post by m463 »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #55
pintxo wrote: post #15

As I had a Canon DSLR lying around during Covid, I have repurposed it to a webcam using Canons webcam driver: https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/se... Image quality is top notch and the ability to Zoom in/out using the zoom lense is nice. You also get some nice background blur, depending on your used lens. For power there are modified "batteries" allowing to plug the camera into AC for power.

The problem is auto focus. Only modern mirrorless (and a few DSLRs) cameras have eye detection, and are actually good at keeping the focus. Hopefully in a few years we will have cheap versions with excellent AF.

Turn it to manual focus and set the focus and depth of field appropriately?

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#233

Post by graupel »

post_break wrote: post #42

The logitech C920 can put out incredible video, if you have access to every setting. For some reason logitech puts the training wheels on and doesn't let you adjust every single setting like gain. There was an incredible app called "webcam settings" for mac that let you refine that webcam like putting a dslr into manual mode. I was able to get it so dialed in you thought it was a top of the line webcam. That software…

https://github.com/Itaybre/CameraController this replaced "Webcam Settings" for me, and it's a brilliant program to pair with the C920 and make it look great!

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#234

Post by adhesive_wombat »

Beltalowda wrote: post #194
rlei wrote: post #171

I'm the cofounder at Lumina - we're building a modern webcam designed to solve some of these problems. There's really been a lack of innovation in the entire home office space, with the webcam being particularly bad. It sucks that a decade-old product (Logitech C920) is still the bestselling product today -- that would be like if Apple stopped releasing new phones after the iPhone 4S (launched 2012), and it remained…

Does Lumina work on Linux? I can't really find anything about it (there is also a Lumina Desktop Environment for Linux it seems), and while it says "Lumina is compatible with Windows and Macintosh machine" this can mean "we don't directly support Linux, but it should work" (like Logitech), or it can mean "we have specialized drivers/software that only work on Windows and macOS".

If your software works only on Windows, you've written non-portable software. Likely, you have all your core logic mixed up with Windowsy UI and now you're stuck there.

If it works on Windows and Mac, you've written portable software but just can't be bothered to support Linux. At a guess the problem is that you want to ship binaries only and don't want to deal with doing all the packaging and testing for Linux.

For a consumer hardware company, one wonders what the benefit is to binaries-only unless you're hoping to charge a subscription for the software to run hardware you already bought. Or the software is such a mess internally that you'd feel ashamed of it were public (which I can understand, having seen commercial code). Or you have some security feature that you don't want to reveal (e.g. disallowing use of your software with third-party hardware). However, if someone wants to reverse your software methods, they'll find a way.

Perhaps naively, my thought would be that if you want to sell hardware and not software, an excellent consumer-grade and consumer-priced camera platform with an open hardware interface and a decent reference implementation would actually find a lot of uses on embedded (i.e. probably Linux) platforms.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#236

Post by zeristor »

How fast does my Internet upload connection need to be to share 4k video, the CPU fan ramps as it is on the 2019 MBP I’m using.

I’m just curious since so much internet has asymmetrical speeds with the focus on downloads.

I’m on 35/5 Mb until upgraded sometime this year I hope.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#237

Post by vorpalhex »

Terretta wrote: post #216
rlei wrote: post #171

I'm the cofounder at Lumina - we're building a modern webcam designed to solve some of these problems. There's really been a lack of innovation in the entire home office space, with the webcam being particularly bad. It sucks that a decade-old product (Logitech C920) is still the bestselling product today -- that would be like if Apple stopped releasing new phones after the iPhone 4S (launched 2012), and it remained…

First, I like what Lumina is trying to do. I pre-ordered, and since receiving the first batch, have been, and will keep, buying them. However, caveat emptor. Right now, buyers should support Lumina to support innovation in this space, but be prepared to pay a quality price while they work on it. Several ideas didn’t work out, and they’re trying to correct. Each software release is better, but I worry the hardware sen…

Is there a Mac/Linux equivalent of Xsplit Vcam? Preferably without a subscription? (One time purchase is fine)

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#238

Post by extra88 »

lucb1e wrote: post #18
pkamb wrote: post #11

If I could I'd still be using my 480p external 2003 iSight camera through an increasingly ridiculous series of dongles: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/412516/external-is... Support though has been removed from Apple Silicon Macs :( Would be a good project for someone to hack support back in.

> If I could I'd still be using my 480p external 2003 iSight camera through an increasingly ridiculous series of dongles Why? 480p does not sound better than today's mediocre webcams, does it have some amazing light balance or face detection for focus or something? I would want to do this as well for shits and giggles, a 2003 webcam with 4 dongles being nearly on par with modern webcams is fun / hackery / a conversat…

The FireWire iSight camera's image looks like ass but it's good enough for my potato face.

The camera's bundled FireWire 400 cable connects to a hard drive enclosure that also has a FireWire 800 port (the camera's cable is detachable so this could be replaced with a FireWire 400 to 800 cable). The FireWire 800 cable runs to a Thunderbolt 2 dock with a FireWire port and the dock's Thunderbolt 2 cable runs to a Thunderbolt 3 to 2 adapter connected to an Intel MacBook Pro.

I like built-in, irised camera cover though by twisting it open/closed, I often shift the position slightly. The camera's stand sits on a box wedged between the wall and my monitor; I wish I had a slightly smaller box so the camera was a little lower, closer to the top of the monitor.

I had all these parts so it was a zero dollar way to get a camera above my external monitor. I might try the free version of EpocCam with an old iPhone (too old to work with Apple's forthcoming Continuity Camera feature) but that's bound to be more fussy to start/stop.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#239

Post by vorpalhex »

zeristor wrote: post #236

How fast does my Internet upload connection need to be to share 4k video, the CPU fan ramps as it is on the 2019 MBP I’m using. I’m just curious since so much internet has asymmetrical speeds with the focus on downloads. I’m on 35/5 Mb until upgraded sometime this year I hope.

Even if the stream you are uploading is 720p, having a 4k sensor to work from is nice and will usually give you better results to a point.

For most meeting applications though, 1080p is fine with even half decent lighting.

Re: Webcams aren't good enough

#240

Post by firebaze »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #234
Beltalowda wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Lumina work on Linux? I can't really find anything about it (there is also a Lumina Desktop Environment for Linux it seems), and while it says "Lumina is compatible with Windows and Macintosh machine" this can mean "we don't directly support Linux, but it should work" (like Logitech), or it can mean "we have specialized drivers/software that only work on Windows and macOS".

If your software works only on Windows, you've written non-portable software. Likely, you have all your core logic mixed up with Windowsy UI and now you're stuck there. If it works on Windows and Mac, you've written portable software but just can't be bothered to support Linux. At a guess the problem is that you want to ship binaries only and don't want to deal with doing all the packaging and testing for Linux. For…

Could you tl'dr? My naive reading of your comment doesn't help.
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