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Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

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Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#781

Post by pezezin »

PeterisP wrote: post #159
grenoire wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The geo-locking of model numbers is one of the vilest practices I've seen. I don't see it going away for any reason, it'll only be possible to combat by intl. legislation... but how do you even legislate that?

I don't see it going away as there are valid reasons for doing so for small but important market differences. If you're making some device (for example, washing machine) which has a power cord and a knob for some mode selection with writing on it, then for the exact same internals you need different models where the power cords are different (USA, UK, Germany and Japan each require different plugs) and the writing on…

Japan uses the same power plugs as the USA.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#784

Post by raesene9 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #171
raesene9 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends what you're looking for I guess. The brio's been fine for me for video conferencing and even the odd conference talk.

Hard to justify the ($200) price. You can literally buy an entire smartphone with two cameras for the cost of a Brio. It is pretty clear that there's no competition in the webcam market, and that the offerings have stagnated for years.

The Brio's price isn't purely on the camera quality, a decent chunk of that price was the integration with Windows Hello. Now, of course, that doesn't matter if you're not using Windows, but the market it seems designed to cater to , is Windows users.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#785

Post by angusiasty »

You can buy one, just don't look for a webcam. What you need is good camera and lenses. I'm using Sony A6400 with decent lenses and video quality is amazing, but this setup probably costs much more then most people would be willing to spend on a webcam.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#786

Post by brianwawok »

kelnos wrote: post #708
brianwawok wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. Take that $15 and apply to 8 other things. The memory. The speaker. The keyboard. Your $500 laptop is now $600. Your competitor is still $500. You lose.

We're not talking about a budget $500 laptop. My laptop cost me over $1500 and its camera sucks. I did not shop based on price; I shopped based on specs and features.

$10 saved is $10 saved. That's how you increase margins, right?

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#788

Post by TheRealPomax »

Already__Taken wrote: post #498
TheRealPomax wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then there's folks at the mid end, who buy an $80 Razer Kiyo purely for the decent video with built-in ring light so you're never backlit, with a separate $99 microphone and $150 audio interface. Buying all the bits separately gets you what this author wants, just not in a single tidy package.

The price for audio stuff seems truly out-of-this-world compared to everything else. I get microphones have a lot of design/testing that might justify it. But all the interfacing gear seems ridiculous.

I'm not sure I follow, you consider $100 for a microphone that sounds like you're standing next to the person instead of listening to them over the internet expensive?

As for audio interfaces: if you don't want one, don't buy one, get the same mix as USB version instead of XLR, and done.

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#789

Post by dathinab »

dathinab wrote: post #634

This is the mid-range webcam you might be looking for: https://www.amazon.com/AVerMedia-Streamer-Wide-Angle-Webcam-... Following some independent YouTube review this seems currently the best webcam for streaming you can get. Through it's focused on the streaming use-case and has some design decisions which are quite good for that use-case but make it sub-par (for the price) if used for some other use-cases. EDIT: And…

It seems there are some problems with this camera.

I read/saw some positive reviews including at least one which I don't think was buyable.

Which opens interesting questions, like if the review sample isn't the same as the normally sold version or if I misjudged that person :-(

Re: Why can’t you buy a good webcam?

#790

Post by majewsky »

PeterisP wrote: post #159
grenoire wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The geo-locking of model numbers is one of the vilest practices I've seen. I don't see it going away for any reason, it'll only be possible to combat by intl. legislation... but how do you even legislate that?

I don't see it going away as there are valid reasons for doing so for small but important market differences. If you're making some device (for example, washing machine) which has a power cord and a knob for some mode selection with writing on it, then for the exact same internals you need different models where the power cords are different (USA, UK, Germany and Japan each require different plugs) and the writing on…

> you need different models where the power cords are different

That should only affec the power brick, and hence the overall SKU, not the notebook itself.

> the writing on the device is printed in different language and with customizations such as Celsius vs Fahrenheit.

What writing is there on notebooks except for keyboard labeling and the product name? The certification label on the back already shows all labels for all countries.

> You can't sell the exact same laptop model in every market because the keyboard layouts are different.

Keyboard layouts are somewhat orthogonal to regions. I'm German, but use US-layout keyboards.

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