11 ms·

If you go this route, please make sure your system is robust and ready to go before meetings. We had to ask one employee to go back to his reliable built-in we

If you go this route, please make sure your system is robust and ready to go before meetings. We had to ask one employee to go back to his reliable built-in webcam because every other meeting started with 2 minutes of him getting his camera turned on, messing with audio inputs, getting his microphone boom in place, and fighting other quirks. He also had a tendency to drop out of long meetings when his camera overheated, at which point it was another 1-2 minutes of messing around with the camera setup. If you're going to do this, it must be reliable and ready to go before meetings. Don't be the person fighting with expensive equipment all the time just to get a marginally better image for your highly compressed Zoom video stream. This isn't a Twitch stream. We just want to talk and get down to business.

ldayley 4y ago
Agree! It took time to learn how to do this effectively while remaining mobile/nomadic, and it forced me to decide what meetings are worth it which ones aren’t. For all of the gear I have (as a filmmaker…) I fall back to using an iPad quite a bit on the road.
deathanatos 4y ago
… I mean, that's Bose QC headset's & macOS's relationship with Bluetooth, in a nutshell. Heck, I've had to fight to just get the onboard to function, particularly so in MS Teams.
NikolaNovak 4y ago
Agree 100% - This is why I eventually dropped it. I used to run a photography side gig, so I reused my full frame DSLR, nice portrait lens and lighting + cloth backdrop. But I had cables everywhere and multiple points of failure in the chain. Camera could overheat, software was wonky, something would get unplugged, and there was stress on the CPU at times too due to 3rd party apps required. Overall it just wasn't worth the effort, especially once I realized nobody cared or even really noticed. Now, absolutely, many projects are worth doing for their own sake and for your own satisfaction :). But while accomplishing it brought that satisfaction, continued use on daily bases just wasn't worth it. So I looked for a nice webcam with narrowest possible FOV (which is the opposite from what manufacturers are going for, unfortunately), put it on a tripod with ring light, and I get results that are externally undistinguishable (if not better), but FAR superior reliability. ---- Note also that photographer in me wanted to do a Portrait shot with zoom in my face. Interestingly, overwhelming feedback once I actually asked real people, is that they PREFERRED a wide shot with my office visible. Made it more human and less stark/intimidating, apparently. So as ever, don't make assumptions of your user base! :)
- skrbjc 4y ago
  What camera did you end up with that had a narrow FOV?
  - randerson 4y ago
    I can recommend a full-frame Canon RP ($999) with RF 35mm f1.8 lens ($449) as a relatively inexpensive narrow FOV setup. Edited to add: Meant Narrow DOF when writing this, but both are true if you sit close to it!
    - aaronharnly 4y ago
      OP here was referring to webcams with narrow FOVs
      - randerson 4y ago
        My bad, I read this as "narrow DOF", in which case a low f-stop helps.. Will leave the recommendation for anyone who wants a nice background blur. But perhaps go for a 50mm f1.8 if you want a narrower FOV.
    - foo92691 4y ago
      "relatively inexpensive"
      - maccard 4y ago
        Thats roughly my team's budget for a laptop.
        munk-a 4y ago
        To be honest, 1.5k is a pretty decent budget for any non-gaming laptop. It's definitely a red flag to start at a company and get a bargain bin laptop, but giving out 5k laptops to every new hire is probably just being wasteful with about 3.5k. Chairs & desks are where penny pinching is an even more dreadful flaw. If you expect someone to sit for 8 hours a day give them a good chair lest they start having back issues after two months of employment.
nunez 4y ago
He was probably using software, like Canon's Webcam Utility, to stream his camera's HDMI OUT to his computer instead of using a capture card. He likely did this because of his camera not having "clean" HDMI output (i.e. you'd see icons if he were to capture what was on his camera's screen). Software like this is extremely unreliable by comparison and consumes CPU cycles like crazy, both on the camera and on your computer. Additionally, for most cameras, the input feed used by the software goes through the camera's image processing stack as if they were using the real-time "Live View" feature (i.e. showing you the image you're going to take post-processing, i.e. real-time image processing). This often heats the camera up and causes it to shut down due to thermal overload. If you use a capture card, it captures whatever's on the screen without hitting the image processing stack, which is much less resource-intensive. The first person I interviewed with this setup had the same problem. He looked great, but the software processing the input from his camera made him lag horribly. I have a Canon M200 mirrorless SLR with an Elgato HDMI Capture card and have used it for all-day online meetings (even through OBS!) with no issues at all. Startup takes me, like, 30 seconds: turn key and fill lights on, turn camera on, press hotkey to start OBS, Krisp and Zoom, turn on video.
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  > Additionally, for most cameras, the input feed used by the software goes through the camera's image processing stack as if they were using the real-time "Live View" feature (i.e. showing you the image you're going to take post-processing, i.e. real-time image processing). This often heats the camera up and causes it to shut down due to thermal overload. If you use a capture card, it captures whatever's on the screen without hitting the image processing stack, which is much less resource-intensive. These pathways are the same. You're decidedly not getting raw video out of (most) consumer cameras via HDMI.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  > He was probably using software, like Canon's Webcam Utility, to stream his camera's HDMI OUT to his computer instead of using a capture card. No, he was using an HDMI capture card and trying to do things with OBS. > Startup takes me, like, 30 seconds: turn key and fill lights on, turn camera on, press hotkey to start OBS, Krisp and Zoom, turn on video. Which is all great and fine if you've got it perfected and you're the type of person to handle all of this before the meeting starts. But when someone shows up late to a meeting or forgets to prepare, it's far easier for everyone involve if they can just open their laptop and join the meeting with the built-in webcam instead of turning on their camera, turning on lights, starting OBS, confirming all the settings, etc.
usrn 4y ago
Honestly the video adds pretty much nothing to a Zoom meeting. You're better off without it. Maybe it's different for managers/executives but for engineers it's more of a distraction. People built Linux over email. Having audio meetings is more than enough.
- kadoban 4y ago
  Even for streamers, audio is _much_ more important than video. You can have a potato webcam and get by, but if your audio sounds like crap nobody is going to stick around at all.
  - lancefisher 4y ago
    For almost everything, audio is the most important part of video.
- Sunspark 4y ago
  Unless one of the participants has some degree of hard-of-hearing, in which case, being able to see the other person's lip movements is really helpful.
  - usrn 4y ago
    I'd be shocked if that really came through with the jitter/compression/etc. IMO Email is king for accessibility, I wish people didn't hate on it so much. Lots of these tools do real time closed-caption now anyway.
    - SeasonalEnnui 4y ago
      I guess you’re shocked then. Seeing lips is essential for me, even works in poor quality streams.
    - Sunspark 4y ago
      I love email, but not everyone does well with it. There is no tone or body language with email, you have to read into it and if you don't know what you're looking at or who you're talking with, you have to evaluate all sorts of potentially negative scenarios. Is this person a poor communicator? Are they speaking with a guarded tone because they're covering up? Are they cc:ing and bcc:ing because they're looking to burn me or protect themselves from something? etc. Emails are saved for years and resurface. They are also shared with other people and you may or may not know. Some people write long emails like reports, other people write very short emails. There is no standard. The real-time closed captions are gratefully appreciated and much needed from an accessibility standpoint, but they're not perfect. More technical words, accents, etc. all cause difficulties. If the bandwidth is good and ping time low, video conferencing works very well. You can see and hear when the audio matches the lip movements. It's awful when the audio is not in sync with the video.
munificent 4y ago
I've got a very nice mirrorless camera and glass and eventually came to the same conclusion: It's just not worth the hassle even for the improvement in image quality. However, I have found that it's absolutely worth it to upgrade to a better microphone. Just about anything is better than the mic built into most computers and better voice quality will give you more presence and make it significantly more enjoyable for others to listen to you. Wearing headphones also helps so that the computer isn't forced to do echo cancelation on the signal.
- SamPatt 4y ago
  I 100% agree. I have a decent video and lighting setup and never get comments on it, but I always get comments on my audio. It's fairly easy to get an audio interface and a xlr microphone. I always appreciate when other people have clean audio.
- FastMonkey 4y ago
  Ya, a good microphone makes a huge difference and it's just plug and play.
- Kudos 4y ago
  Every other day I have someone ask me about my mirrorless setup (I frequently have calls with new people), it is night and day to my expensive waste of a webcam.
- martin8412 4y ago
  I use a Shure SM58 for voice chats. It works great. I have less trouble with my USB XLR interface than the people using Bluetooth
- philjohn 4y ago
  I got a highish quality webcam (the Dell one with no mic, I use airpods) for this reason. It looks MUCH better than a built in webcam, not up to the level of a mirrorless camera, but not that you can really tell on a compressed stream.
- digitallyfree 4y ago
cevn 4y ago
That sounds unfortunate. After a few kinks at the beginning, I've moved to using my nikon z6 as webcam. The first kink was power delivery, I found a plug that goes into the battery slot. After that everything works flawlessly.
- CamelRocketFish 4y ago
  Could you link to the plug that you bought? I would have thought it could charge through the USB point.
ISL 4y ago
This advice goes for... life. Don't switch over from something reliable to a newer/flashier solution until the reliability of a new system gets close-enough that you won't break critical functionality. Source: Recently swapped over to a better camera, after testing it out in informal meetings and verifying reliable function...
__mharrison__ 4y ago
Yes, if you are using a camera for the webcam, it should probably be dedicated to it. Mine is a Canon M50, attached into a quick-release shoe into a teleprompter but even then it still two wires (USB and HDMI) and I also have to take out the AC power adapter to use the camera on its own. I'm using mine all the time (I do corporate training and haven't done in-person since March 2020), so it sits in the mount. I also know the correct combination of rain/blow-into-the-Nintendo dances to get OBS and other software to work with it.
DreamFlasher 4y ago
And if you don't go that route, please make sure to turn off your camera. From what I've seen people being late is more often a problem of the people and not the hardware. And if after three years of remote work, you weren't capable of getting a working microphone, camera and stable internet connection, I'd con that as a people problem, too. Working meaning you can actually hear the other person and not only their fan.
scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
Amen. Can confirm this 100% - I just spent the past two years doing robust physical tech product presentations with multi-cam setups and many different video streaming configurations. It always takes quite a bit of effort to set up and something doesn’t work right randomly all-the-fucking-time.
danielodievich 4y ago
My setup is: Older Nikon D71000 DSLR here with 17-55mm on wall-mount Elgato Cam 4k dongle mentioned in the article two good lights with nice diffusers to the left and right of my monitor facing the wall, for reflected light HyperX glowy red mike with physical mute, love that thing This gear works 100% of the time, all the time, in Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex, you name it. Bootup is definitely does some things, turning on two lights, camera on/off switch, and a small button on back of it to shift to the 1080p output. But at this point it is just seconds, muscle memory. I get a lot of compliments on quality, clearness, and the natural optical effect of out of focus blurred background. And I definitely notice other people's poor lightning, bad quality picture, artifacting of cheapo webcams or got forbid native built in laptop cameras.
- CamelRocketFish 4y ago
  For anyone struggling to find the D71000, OP meant D7100.
SkyMarshal 4y ago
>He also had a tendency to drop out of long meetings when his camera overheated, Also make sure your digital SLR or whatever expensive camera you're using as a webcam doesn't have a 30m video limit, which some do. This is one of the most recommended pieces of advice on /r/videoediting (non-professional) for new streamers. https://www.reddit.com/r/VideoEditing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/VideoEditing/ For most people, if you want better video quality for Zoom meetings or teaching Yoga online or similar, then a relatively recent smartphone camera + better lighting and microphone is more than sufficient.
- gsich 4y ago
  Doesn't apply since you are not recording.
  - httpsterio 4y ago
    Some cameras still turn off the video mode, it has been patched out in some nikon and Canon models as it's just a firmware limitation stemming from the same tax reason.
    - gsich 4y ago
      This is usually some screen timeout.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    The video limit isn't related to recording but thermals. Often they just have an in built timer to turn off video at the point they tested the camera to be getting too hot.
mkozlows 4y ago
I think the problem is that the people who are prone to do this are also prone to fiddle and over-complicate things. For the last 18 months, I've been using a wild-overkill mirrorless camera through an HDMI->USB adapter dongle thing (not the El Gato, it's one that uses a standard UVC driver so works with Linux with zero fuss). The adapter limits it to 1080p resolution, but that's plenty for webcam work, and all I do to use it is flip the power switch on the camera. The advantage in my case is huge: I have a bright window to my side (and I refuse to close the curtains and work in the dark) and a white background. My c920 would expose for the average brightness level, and made me look like I was in the witness protection program. With the mirrorless, it has more dynamic range, and also I can set the exposure manually so I always look fine and the background gets a bit blown out. I agree with people saying that better lighting (I look better when I use the Key Light as a fill light on the opposite side of the window) and a better microphone (Rode USB mic on a boom arm that I keep positioned just under what's visible in-frame -- still close enough to my mouth to get good sound without the "hey, don't forget to like and subscribe" effect) are more important, but doing a better camera is better, too.
girvo 4y ago
I just used my iPhone's rear camera as a webcam. Works surprisingly well, and had even less issues than trying to use my mirrorless Fuji cameras. Quality is substantially better than my built-in webcam, but about the same in a compressed stream as the mirrorless really.
omegalulw 4y ago
I think it's also important to highlight commercial USB webcams, like the Logitech 922. They are kinda expensive but still cheaper than a DSLR and will get you all of the low hanging fruits over webcam quality. DSLR would get you benefit on top of that but arguably, given that 720p is the common webcam resolution, you wouldn't be missing out on much. Except maybe features like improved focus and depth of field effects.
JayMickey 4y ago
Are you mandating video in meetings? Why would he need to drop when he can just turn off the camera? This seems more like a human problem than a technology problem.
neycoda 4y ago
I don't even know why anyone in your meetings needs to see each other's faces. I've been working remote for a year and eventually everyone just turned off their cams. I'm one of three out of a dozen plus that even has an avatar.

ldayley 4y ago

Agree! It took time to learn how to do this effectively while remaining mobile/nomadic, and it forced me to decide what meetings are worth it which ones aren’t. For all of the gear I have (as a filmmaker…) I fall back to using an iPad quite a bit on the road.

deathanatos 4y ago

… I mean, that's Bose QC headset's & macOS's relationship with Bluetooth, in a nutshell. Heck, I've had to fight to just get the onboard to function, particularly so in MS Teams.

NikolaNovak 4y ago

Agree 100% - This is why I eventually dropped it. I used to run a photography side gig, so I reused my full frame DSLR, nice portrait lens and lighting + cloth backdrop. But I had cables everywhere and multiple points of failure in the chain. Camera could overheat, software was wonky, something would get unplugged, and there was stress on the CPU at times too due to 3rd party apps required. Overall it just wasn't worth the effort, especially once I realized nobody cared or even really noticed. Now, absolutely, many projects are worth doing for their own sake and for your own satisfaction :). But while accomplishing it brought that satisfaction, continued use on daily bases just wasn't worth it. So I looked for a nice webcam with narrowest possible FOV (which is the opposite from what manufacturers are going for, unfortunately), put it on a tripod with ring light, and I get results that are externally undistinguishable (if not better), but FAR superior reliability. ---- Note also that photographer in me wanted to do a Portrait shot with zoom in my face. Interestingly, overwhelming feedback once I actually asked real people, is that they PREFERRED a wide shot with my office visible. Made it more human and less stark/intimidating, apparently. So as ever, don't make assumptions of your user base! :)

skrbjc 4y ago
What camera did you end up with that had a narrow FOV?
- randerson 4y ago
  I can recommend a full-frame Canon RP ($999) with RF 35mm f1.8 lens ($449) as a relatively inexpensive narrow FOV setup. Edited to add: Meant Narrow DOF when writing this, but both are true if you sit close to it!
  - aaronharnly 4y ago
    OP here was referring to webcams with narrow FOVs
    - randerson 4y ago
      My bad, I read this as "narrow DOF", in which case a low f-stop helps.. Will leave the recommendation for anyone who wants a nice background blur. But perhaps go for a 50mm f1.8 if you want a narrower FOV.
  - foo92691 4y ago
    "relatively inexpensive"
    - maccard 4y ago
      Thats roughly my team's budget for a laptop.
      - munk-a 4y ago
        To be honest, 1.5k is a pretty decent budget for any non-gaming laptop. It's definitely a red flag to start at a company and get a bargain bin laptop, but giving out 5k laptops to every new hire is probably just being wasteful with about 3.5k. Chairs & desks are where penny pinching is an even more dreadful flaw. If you expect someone to sit for 8 hours a day give them a good chair lest they start having back issues after two months of employment.

nunez 4y ago

He was probably using software, like Canon's Webcam Utility, to stream his camera's HDMI OUT to his computer instead of using a capture card. He likely did this because of his camera not having "clean" HDMI output (i.e. you'd see icons if he were to capture what was on his camera's screen). Software like this is extremely unreliable by comparison and consumes CPU cycles like crazy, both on the camera and on your computer. Additionally, for most cameras, the input feed used by the software goes through the camera's image processing stack as if they were using the real-time "Live View" feature (i.e. showing you the image you're going to take post-processing, i.e. real-time image processing). This often heats the camera up and causes it to shut down due to thermal overload. If you use a capture card, it captures whatever's on the screen without hitting the image processing stack, which is much less resource-intensive. The first person I interviewed with this setup had the same problem. He looked great, but the software processing the input from his camera made him lag horribly. I have a Canon M200 mirrorless SLR with an Elgato HDMI Capture card and have used it for all-day online meetings (even through OBS!) with no issues at all. Startup takes me, like, 30 seconds: turn key and fill lights on, turn camera on, press hotkey to start OBS, Krisp and Zoom, turn on video.

formerly_proven 4y ago
> Additionally, for most cameras, the input feed used by the software goes through the camera's image processing stack as if they were using the real-time "Live View" feature (i.e. showing you the image you're going to take post-processing, i.e. real-time image processing). This often heats the camera up and causes it to shut down due to thermal overload. If you use a capture card, it captures whatever's on the screen without hitting the image processing stack, which is much less resource-intensive. These pathways are the same. You're decidedly not getting raw video out of (most) consumer cameras via HDMI.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> He was probably using software, like Canon's Webcam Utility, to stream his camera's HDMI OUT to his computer instead of using a capture card. No, he was using an HDMI capture card and trying to do things with OBS. > Startup takes me, like, 30 seconds: turn key and fill lights on, turn camera on, press hotkey to start OBS, Krisp and Zoom, turn on video. Which is all great and fine if you've got it perfected and you're the type of person to handle all of this before the meeting starts. But when someone shows up late to a meeting or forgets to prepare, it's far easier for everyone involve if they can just open their laptop and join the meeting with the built-in webcam instead of turning on their camera, turning on lights, starting OBS, confirming all the settings, etc.

usrn 4y ago

Honestly the video adds pretty much nothing to a Zoom meeting. You're better off without it. Maybe it's different for managers/executives but for engineers it's more of a distraction. People built Linux over email. Having audio meetings is more than enough.

kadoban 4y ago
Even for streamers, audio is _much_ more important than video. You can have a potato webcam and get by, but if your audio sounds like crap nobody is going to stick around at all.
- lancefisher 4y ago
  For almost everything, audio is the most important part of video.
Sunspark 4y ago
Unless one of the participants has some degree of hard-of-hearing, in which case, being able to see the other person's lip movements is really helpful.
- usrn 4y ago
  I'd be shocked if that really came through with the jitter/compression/etc. IMO Email is king for accessibility, I wish people didn't hate on it so much. Lots of these tools do real time closed-caption now anyway.
  - SeasonalEnnui 4y ago
    I guess you’re shocked then. Seeing lips is essential for me, even works in poor quality streams.
  - Sunspark 4y ago
    I love email, but not everyone does well with it. There is no tone or body language with email, you have to read into it and if you don't know what you're looking at or who you're talking with, you have to evaluate all sorts of potentially negative scenarios. Is this person a poor communicator? Are they speaking with a guarded tone because they're covering up? Are they cc:ing and bcc:ing because they're looking to burn me or protect themselves from something? etc. Emails are saved for years and resurface. They are also shared with other people and you may or may not know. Some people write long emails like reports, other people write very short emails. There is no standard. The real-time closed captions are gratefully appreciated and much needed from an accessibility standpoint, but they're not perfect. More technical words, accents, etc. all cause difficulties. If the bandwidth is good and ping time low, video conferencing works very well. You can see and hear when the audio matches the lip movements. It's awful when the audio is not in sync with the video.

munificent 4y ago

I've got a very nice mirrorless camera and glass and eventually came to the same conclusion: It's just not worth the hassle even for the improvement in image quality. However, I have found that it's absolutely worth it to upgrade to a better microphone. Just about anything is better than the mic built into most computers and better voice quality will give you more presence and make it significantly more enjoyable for others to listen to you. Wearing headphones also helps so that the computer isn't forced to do echo cancelation on the signal.

SamPatt 4y ago
I 100% agree. I have a decent video and lighting setup and never get comments on it, but I always get comments on my audio. It's fairly easy to get an audio interface and a xlr microphone. I always appreciate when other people have clean audio.
FastMonkey 4y ago
Ya, a good microphone makes a huge difference and it's just plug and play.
Kudos 4y ago
Every other day I have someone ask me about my mirrorless setup (I frequently have calls with new people), it is night and day to my expensive waste of a webcam.
martin8412 4y ago
I use a Shure SM58 for voice chats. It works great. I have less trouble with my USB XLR interface than the people using Bluetooth
philjohn 4y ago
I got a highish quality webcam (the Dell one with no mic, I use airpods) for this reason. It looks MUCH better than a built in webcam, not up to the level of a mirrorless camera, but not that you can really tell on a compressed stream.
digitallyfree 4y ago

cevn 4y ago

That sounds unfortunate. After a few kinks at the beginning, I've moved to using my nikon z6 as webcam. The first kink was power delivery, I found a plug that goes into the battery slot. After that everything works flawlessly.

CamelRocketFish 4y ago
Could you link to the plug that you bought? I would have thought it could charge through the USB point.

ISL 4y ago

This advice goes for... life. Don't switch over from something reliable to a newer/flashier solution until the reliability of a new system gets close-enough that you won't break critical functionality. Source: Recently swapped over to a better camera, after testing it out in informal meetings and verifying reliable function...

__mharrison__ 4y ago

Yes, if you are using a camera for the webcam, it should probably be dedicated to it. Mine is a Canon M50, attached into a quick-release shoe into a teleprompter but even then it still two wires (USB and HDMI) and I also have to take out the AC power adapter to use the camera on its own. I'm using mine all the time (I do corporate training and haven't done in-person since March 2020), so it sits in the mount. I also know the correct combination of rain/blow-into-the-Nintendo dances to get OBS and other software to work with it.

DreamFlasher 4y ago

And if you don't go that route, please make sure to turn off your camera. From what I've seen people being late is more often a problem of the people and not the hardware. And if after three years of remote work, you weren't capable of getting a working microphone, camera and stable internet connection, I'd con that as a people problem, too. Working meaning you can actually hear the other person and not only their fan.

scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago

Amen. Can confirm this 100% - I just spent the past two years doing robust physical tech product presentations with multi-cam setups and many different video streaming configurations. It always takes quite a bit of effort to set up and something doesn’t work right randomly all-the-fucking-time.

danielodievich 4y ago

My setup is: Older Nikon D71000 DSLR here with 17-55mm on wall-mount Elgato Cam 4k dongle mentioned in the article two good lights with nice diffusers to the left and right of my monitor facing the wall, for reflected light HyperX glowy red mike with physical mute, love that thing This gear works 100% of the time, all the time, in Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex, you name it. Bootup is definitely does some things, turning on two lights, camera on/off switch, and a small button on back of it to shift to the 1080p output. But at this point it is just seconds, muscle memory. I get a lot of compliments on quality, clearness, and the natural optical effect of out of focus blurred background. And I definitely notice other people's poor lightning, bad quality picture, artifacting of cheapo webcams or got forbid native built in laptop cameras.

CamelRocketFish 4y ago
For anyone struggling to find the D71000, OP meant D7100.

SkyMarshal 4y ago

>He also had a tendency to drop out of long meetings when his camera overheated, Also make sure your digital SLR or whatever expensive camera you're using as a webcam doesn't have a 30m video limit, which some do. This is one of the most recommended pieces of advice on /r/videoediting (non-professional) for new streamers. https://www.reddit.com/r/VideoEditing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/VideoEditing/ For most people, if you want better video quality for Zoom meetings or teaching Yoga online or similar, then a relatively recent smartphone camera + better lighting and microphone is more than sufficient.

gsich 4y ago
Doesn't apply since you are not recording.
- httpsterio 4y ago
  Some cameras still turn off the video mode, it has been patched out in some nikon and Canon models as it's just a firmware limitation stemming from the same tax reason.
  - gsich 4y ago
    This is usually some screen timeout.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  The video limit isn't related to recording but thermals. Often they just have an in built timer to turn off video at the point they tested the camera to be getting too hot.

mkozlows 4y ago

I think the problem is that the people who are prone to do this are also prone to fiddle and over-complicate things. For the last 18 months, I've been using a wild-overkill mirrorless camera through an HDMI->USB adapter dongle thing (not the El Gato, it's one that uses a standard UVC driver so works with Linux with zero fuss). The adapter limits it to 1080p resolution, but that's plenty for webcam work, and all I do to use it is flip the power switch on the camera. The advantage in my case is huge: I have a bright window to my side (and I refuse to close the curtains and work in the dark) and a white background. My c920 would expose for the average brightness level, and made me look like I was in the witness protection program. With the mirrorless, it has more dynamic range, and also I can set the exposure manually so I always look fine and the background gets a bit blown out. I agree with people saying that better lighting (I look better when I use the Key Light as a fill light on the opposite side of the window) and a better microphone (Rode USB mic on a boom arm that I keep positioned just under what's visible in-frame -- still close enough to my mouth to get good sound without the "hey, don't forget to like and subscribe" effect) are more important, but doing a better camera is better, too.

girvo 4y ago

I just used my iPhone's rear camera as a webcam. Works surprisingly well, and had even less issues than trying to use my mirrorless Fuji cameras. Quality is substantially better than my built-in webcam, but about the same in a compressed stream as the mirrorless really.

omegalulw 4y ago

I think it's also important to highlight commercial USB webcams, like the Logitech 922. They are kinda expensive but still cheaper than a DSLR and will get you all of the low hanging fruits over webcam quality. DSLR would get you benefit on top of that but arguably, given that 720p is the common webcam resolution, you wouldn't be missing out on much. Except maybe features like improved focus and depth of field effects.

JayMickey 4y ago

Are you mandating video in meetings? Why would he need to drop when he can just turn off the camera? This seems more like a human problem than a technology problem.

neycoda 4y ago

I don't even know why anyone in your meetings needs to see each other's faces. I've been working remote for a year and eventually everyone just turned off their cams. I'm one of three out of a dozen plus that even has an avatar.