A few years later when the webcam market had exploded, I remember always insisting on using Hauppauge WinTV cameras and capture cards, since those were real TV

A few years later when the webcam market had exploded, I remember always insisting on using Hauppauge WinTV cameras and capture cards, since those were real TV signal (i.e. PAL or NTSC) video cameras, and would guarantee a crisp TV resolution with usable TV framerates, unlike most webcams which were often terrible resolutions and/or atrocious framerates, and had strange proprietary signals and/or connectors, coupled with strange Windows-only drivers. The early USB cameras were before USB had the necessary bandwitdh, too, so this advice was good for many years. Hauppauge also had good Linux drivers.