My setup for this purpose (on Linux Mint) uses that camera, a Lumix G7, which is indeed about $500, compared to a Logitech HD Pro webcam for about $100, it is t

My setup for this purpose (on Linux Mint) uses that camera, a Lumix G7, which is indeed about $500, compared to a Logitech HD Pro webcam for about $100, it is totally worth it. I can pick up the Lumix, which uses my existing collection of micro four thirds lenses, and bring it on vacation or whatever, as opposed to the Logitech which is useless for any other purpose. The reason the Lumix is good for this is because of the "clean" HDMI output, i.e. without any camera overlays. I added to this a micro HDMI to HDMI cable ($10), a DC coupler ($22), a cheap Neewer tripod ($35) and an HDMI capture card ($15). I've optimized the card[0] and set up udev rules to use the optimized settings every time I plug it in. If I want fancier settings I use OBS. It looks orders of magnitude better than any webcam. The weakest link in the whole setup is the micro HDMI cable -- they all tend to be very rigid compared to the size of the connector and I already had to throw away one cable, it helps to attach all wires with velcro to the tripod to reduce wiggle. [0] http://ciko.io/posts/cheap_usb_hdmi_2/ http://ciko.io/posts/cheap_usb_hdmi_2/