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Sony cameras can now be used as webcams for Mac

support.d-imaging.sony.co.jp

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Re: Sony cameras can now be used as webcams for Mac

#61

Post by mjsweet »

mjsweet wrote: post #60

I have a Sony ZV-1. It took a bit to get it going but I'm now seeing the crispest image in OBS on a webcam that I have ever personally used. Coupled with the shallow depth of field with the ZV-1's fast(ish) lens it's a huge step up from my 2016 MBP 720p webcam.

So far I have tested the following: Skype: "No device found" (laptop closed) Zoom: Only FaceTime HD Camera detected Quicktime: Captures only the Imaging Edge Webcam logo screen OBS: Works great - added a "Sony Camera" perfectly first time

If anyone wants me to try something else, let me know.

Re: Sony cameras can now be used as webcams for Mac

#62

Post by floatingatoll »

asimpletune wrote: post #36
floatingatoll wrote: post #9

Mac support is implemented using a CoreMediaIO plugin, hinting that they are not updating the camera firmware to speak USB webcam, which prevents driverless use of the device: /Library/CoreMediaIO/Plug-Ins/DAL/ImagingEdgeWebcam.plugin Could someone with a Sony camera please verify on macOS 10.15 (with ASR enabled) whether this webcam support is usable from within Apple's desktop FaceTime app? What protocol version an…

I tried it and I haven’t been able to use it for literally anything.

Thank you for confirming that.

Re: Sony cameras can now be used as webcams for Mac

#63

Post by floatingatoll »

evan_ wrote: post #38
floatingatoll wrote: post #9

Mac support is implemented using a CoreMediaIO plugin, hinting that they are not updating the camera firmware to speak USB webcam, which prevents driverless use of the device: /Library/CoreMediaIO/Plug-Ins/DAL/ImagingEdgeWebcam.plugin Could someone with a Sony camera please verify on macOS 10.15 (with ASR enabled) whether this webcam support is usable from within Apple's desktop FaceTime app? What protocol version an…

If you copy the FaceTime app and save it with a different name ("FaceTime copy") you can run that and it will let you pick any webcam, even virtual ones. If you do this you need to remake the copy whenever the OS update or else Spotlight will crash whenever your phone rings. (took me awhile to figure that one out) I don't know whether or not this will get the Sony driver working. Obviously it would be better if it ju…

That’s a bug worth reporting - it shouldn’t crash, and it’s trivial to accidentally duplicate an app!

Re: Sony cameras can now be used as webcams for Mac

#64

Post by herpderperator »

We should also look at addressing the issue of conferencing tools not actually being able to handle true high quality streams like you might get on Twitch or YouTube Live. My Canon EOS R and L lens may look great in 60fps through an HDMI capture card, but what point is there when it's still going to be a 24fps 360p[0] video stream on Zoom even if I choose the HD option? Sure, the pandemic is somewhat to blame[1], but I'm just using Zoom as an example.

Google Meet goes up to 720p maximum.[2]

Google Duo doesn't do 1080p unless you're on a Samsung S20. Not even Pixels suppoprt it.[3]

WhatsApp does great 1080p video calls on your phone (I think? I haven't verified this), but you can't make video calls on desktop clients.

Skype seems to be the only consumer-facing free cloud video conferencing tool that will do 1080p and look good, but I haven't tried in years -- the redesign and general clunkiness drove me (and everyone else, seemingly) away from it. I can't believe support for 1080p video calls in 2020 is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I stumbled upon TrueConf[4], and might give them a go with my setup to see if I can get an actual 2020-esque video call going between my family. TrueConf appears to be self-hosted, which I guess is why there's no restriction on quality (takes bandwidth and transcoding out of the picture for the service provider, so zero cost per call.) Although this may be great for me, it's certainly not for the average joe, so the aforementioned industry-wide issues still need to be addressed and quite frankly I find it embarrassing that we have such low quality video calls in 2020.

[0] https://www.dropbox.com/s/h88yrdu2gu9kh59/zoom.png?dl=0

[1] https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/207347086-Group-HD

[2] https://www.dropbox.com/s/u74x9g89mtts6ho/meet.png?dl=0

[3] https://www.gsmarena.com/google_duo_will_be_integrated_into_...

[4] https://trueconf.com/

Re: Sony cameras can now be used as webcams for Mac

#65

Post by rektide »

rektide wrote: post #54
dylan604 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That still misses the point. People want the look of a larger sensor that the tiny ones in a phone's camera. Shallow depth of field, different lenses, filters, etc that a fixed lens fixed aperture lens on a small sensor does not allow.

I'd cite portrait mode as counter-example. The optics are irrelevant if the software can emulate the look. And thus far, from what I understand, portrait mode systems have not had to use the depth sensors/lidar that's available!!! I would be very wary of assuming the larger format optics are necessary or helpful! The look can be done. There are some advantages retained by the larger sensor but it's a category that wi…

This post is obviously wrong, in that you cannot hack the same quality out of a smaller cheaper lighter sensor. There's a lot that will remain out of reach. Yet still, there's a lot that can be done to bring the appeal of one to the other.

Re: Sony cameras can now be used as webcams for Mac

#66

Post by seltzered_ »

asimpletune wrote: post #36
floatingatoll wrote: post #9

Mac support is implemented using a CoreMediaIO plugin, hinting that they are not updating the camera firmware to speak USB webcam, which prevents driverless use of the device: /Library/CoreMediaIO/Plug-Ins/DAL/ImagingEdgeWebcam.plugin Could someone with a Sony camera please verify on macOS 10.15 (with ASR enabled) whether this webcam support is usable from within Apple's desktop FaceTime app? What protocol version an…

I tried it and I haven’t been able to use it for literally anything.

I just tried it as well and haven't had luck. Tried doing this:

- installing the linked 'imaging edge webcam' software.

- restarting

- hooking up my sony camera (it's compatible per the list) over usb

- opening Quicktime Player, going to "new movie recording", selecting "Sony Camera (Imaging Edge)"

- Instead see a logo for the software (instead of the camera output) but no connection. Tried futzing with opening camera in Movie mode, AUTO, with/without SD card, etc.

Dear Sony, if you're reading this please take your time and do the approach the parent commenter suggested of updating the camera firmware so it can act as a true USB webcam. I expect the experience to be more along the lines of:

- Plug in USB

- See mode selection screen on camera (you already have this).

- Select 'Webcam'

- Things just work.

Re: Sony cameras can now be used as webcams for Mac

#67

Post by anonymousab »

synackrst wrote: post #56
novok wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Camera companies are stuck in some sort of car company stagnation loop it feels like, limiting themselves as pro tools. The only one approaching innovations was samsung, and they peaced out years ago. * No touch-id in the shutter button * No cell phone connectivity / android app support to instantly share your photos to insta, fb, etc & to sync as you go. * No ordering prints right in the camera * No google pixel / i…

This is slowly changing, at least with some of the high-end consumer/prosumer Sony cameras. I'd like to see some of the other features in your list added, but Sony's past slowness to add features doesn't inspire much hope that they will be added any time soon. All of the recent (4+ years) cameras have a "share to mobile" feature, where the camera acts as an AP, and your phone connects to pull photos from it. You can…

> All of the recent (4+ years) cameras have a "share to mobile" feature, where the camera acts as an AP, and your phone connects to pull photos from it. You can either pick the photos to transfer on the camera or on the phone, and it works pretty well for posting to social media, or instantly sharing.

In the case of Nikon, the proprietary app for doing this was quite terrible, across all of their cameras that I tried it with. They released a firmware that opened up things up in the past year, though; better late than never. There have been brute-forced reverse-engineered alternative solutions but they have always been a pain to set up, use and maintain.

I suspect the other manufacturers' apps wouldn't be much better.

Re: Sony cameras can now be used as webcams for Mac

#68

Post by chiefgeek »

Joeri wrote: post #35
gonehome wrote: post #6

It's kind of wild to me how there's such a product vacuum for this stuff. I've dug around and the only real option is an HDMI capture card paired with a decent camera (I read this Sony software option is lower quality, but at least it's progress). LG camera setups target businesses and are generally overpriced crap (I have one - the LG meetup) with proprietary connections and mediocre cameras, and crappy mics/softwar…

I was experimenting today with using my iphone as a webcam. It seems to work best with camo, and the image was way better than the builtin webcam of my imac or any regular external webcam. But I found it surprising how niche this still is. There seem to be no standard mounts for sale for easily clipping an iphone on the top of a laptop or imac, and the software situation is unsatisfying.

I've used Camo since beta and it is very solid. Image quality is great and it just works. Agree with you about a way to mount the phone, however.

Re: Sony cameras can now be used as webcams for Mac

#69

Post by ihuman »

mjsweet wrote: post #61
mjsweet wrote: post #60

I have a Sony ZV-1. It took a bit to get it going but I'm now seeing the crispest image in OBS on a webcam that I have ever personally used. Coupled with the shallow depth of field with the ZV-1's fast(ish) lens it's a huge step up from my 2016 MBP 720p webcam.

So far I have tested the following: Skype: "No device found" (laptop closed) Zoom: Only FaceTime HD Camera detected Quicktime: Captures only the Imaging Edge Webcam logo screen OBS: Works great - added a "Sony Camera" perfectly first time If anyone wants me to try something else, let me know.

Here's the compatibility list for the mac obs webcam plugin. I wonder if Sony's driver has the same issues.

https://github.com/johnboiles/obs-mac-virtualcam/wiki/Compat...

Re: Sony cameras can now be used as webcams for Mac

#70

Post by dognotdog »

floatingatoll wrote: post #9

Mac support is implemented using a CoreMediaIO plugin, hinting that they are not updating the camera firmware to speak USB webcam, which prevents driverless use of the device: /Library/CoreMediaIO/Plug-Ins/DAL/ImagingEdgeWebcam.plugin Could someone with a Sony camera please verify on macOS 10.15 (with ASR enabled) whether this webcam support is usable from within Apple's desktop FaceTime app? What protocol version an…

FaceTime, Safari, and on Big Sur, apparently even QuickTime Player can no longer use 3rd party CoreMediaIO DAL plugins due to codesigning/sandboxing/SIP issuess.

The short of it is that generally within the SIP (system integrity protection) domain, no 3rd party code is allowed to be loaded.

3rd party apps can generally be made to work by removing codesigning, but Apple's stuff is generally very intertwined with services not contained in the app-bundle, making this kind of surgery a lot more difficult. I have personally not been able to get this to work for FaceTime on 10.14 despite best efforts.

An interesting thing Sony seems to do here that others haven't is that they bypass the PTPCamera agent that normally comes on, presumably to directly drive the camera through their own lower level PTP library Lja_PTP_USB.dylib.

Disclaimer: I'm the author of https://ptpwebcam.org, which works much the same for Sony/Nikon/Canon cameras

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