....... Epos my man... they could totally do it. the real problem is they really don't want to. And the red camera thing was just how early webcams in general worked which is why the development for red cameras was kicked off. the issue with webcams was after someone would get a webcam they wouldn't get a new one till it either crapped out, their monitor showed them a crappy image on their new monitor, or someone complained about it to them long enough that they caved and bought a new one. the problem with webcams is they hit their zenith around 2006-2008 and the drive to make a better one was lackluster at best cause people buy webcams like they buy home appliances. in fact when logitech released their first 1080p webcam it flopped. So hard that for the next decade the webcam was sold with only minor cosmetic changes on the market.-
A lot of amazing points, but I would still like to see the webcam industry push forward and make new inovations. A raspberry pi 4 costs $45 and that's with wifi, Bluetooth and a lot of other components you wouldn't need on a webcam. Yes it would probably take a lot of work to develop a better standard, and system for webcams but I do think their is a market for it. I would love to have a simple tiny webcam I could have in my desk while video calling people. Since right now I have to choose between the great mic quality of my computer or the great video quality of my phone. Like is it really crazy to expect Logitech, Sony, Elgoto, Canon, etc to make a smaller camera that hooks up directly to our computers for like $200? It would probably involve reinventing the wheel but at least it would be progress rather than this stagnation we have reached.
You can buy usb camera boards with all kinds of sensors, all you need is a quality lens. You dont need to develop anything. Its an industry standard system from machine vision & cctv cameras.
@@Deneteus Those are industrial cameras, most likely really expensive even as used. ELP has some quite cheap ones, but only one USB3.0, but that one does 1080p 50fps even in YUY2.
@@Nobody-Nowhere They are USB3/GigE cameras that you can use for anything. Compared to the Sub2R the PointGray cameras are cheaper. Try looking at the old price-lists compared to now and they aren't that expensive new. Especially compared to using a DSLR and having to buy lenses. You also have the advantage of sensor size and quality being better.
@@Deneteus Yes, i have seen those.. but they are expensive even used. The board usb 3 camera from ELP costs 70$ including shipping. Sensors on these are the much the same, CCTV sony IMX sensors mostly. You also want to stick to the small 1/2.3 sensor sizes, and avoid 1" sensors if you want to have cheaper CS mount CCTV lenses or the M12 stuff. And its not like mirrorless micro 43 costs anything, you can get olympus pen bodies with lenses for pennies. Probably for 50$.
Your video has always been very good. There is one thing though, it's your audio. Your audio is amazing, rich and solid. Whatever you are doing is working really well. Anyway, thank you for the video. 😊👍👍
Found out my S10 could connect to my PC and I can have full control of it there. Even take video and what not. Thought it was a great way to have a really good picture for streams but I found out there isn't an app dedicated for streaming like I want. Still have to use DroidCam and stuff like it to work with OBS. So disappointed. *sigh* Oh well.
You can use "VXG RTSP Server" app to stream to OBS via RTSP. You can use Wi-Fi or USB tethering for that. Main disadvantage a year ago was a lag, that can be quite high with long streams, but maybe that problem is gone now.
1-on your S10 look for an app called "newtek NDI" its not available on google play. 2-on your OBS, install NDI source from their official website (note that NDI source will eat up ~20% of your cpu when activating the plugin in OBS) 3-on your OBS add NDI source as a new source or scene. 4-on your S10: open the app, select HD, and press record and the feed will appear in OBS 5-profit?.....
A raspberry pi which costs $35 can easily run two 4k 30fps cameras at once. All your arguments about webcams not being able to have the processing power, you just made up in your head and you delivered them as though they were facts.
I think the issue is that with the webcams, the companies making them just want the largest profit margin possible. Consider the IHS BOM and manufacturing reports on many smartphones, where you will see the best smartphone camera (by dxomark score) having a BOM cost of $14. There are many SOCs that have an image processor that can handle 4K video, but cost around $10. For example look at some of the mediatek SOCs. A webcam company could make a striped down version of the amazon fire stick (same SOC, but less RAM, less storage, and no networking hardware), and wire in a smartphone camera sensor, and it would work.
This, sorry, but you can tell me all day about "reasons" it might be hard to improve webcams today. But the only hing that's stopping them is their profit margins. Maybe we should tell Logitech their losing thousands of customers to old dedicated camera's being hooked up to stream directly to computers and their killing their own market? Might light a fire under their asses.
I've been using the Logitech C920 for a few years but time to get better image, so I just bought the elgato 4k link so this week I should start using my Canon M50 as webcam, let's see how that goes!
Owlnonymous/pinball streaming! I've heard the pinball community moan about the quality of webcams for years* deadflip has an equipment list, basically old handycams/action cameras were the betweeners of webcams and vlog cameras with clean hdmi out the used a5000's on ebay look attractive, the issue with pinball&lighting is a majority want the light show from the game itself in a dimly lit room, I'm uncertain which is to blame.. streamers bandwidth, their mobile rigs to encode with, or poor low light performance when it comes to 60fps pinball capture, you'll see the ball skip around the playfield too often on logitech cams for example. *I understand why, all of them want a 3 camera setup and that may mean x3 the cost (doesn't have to be)
USB 3 (especially the latest revisions) can absolutely provide the bandwidth necessary to connect a camera sensor to your computer. In most cases it's PCI-E.
I have been on this trip of figuring out how one might make a viable webcam in 2019. The webcam performance is atrocious even by 2015 midrange phone standards. In 2017, Allwinner V3s processor became available. It's intended as a processor for action cameras and picture frames. It's basically a cut down Android/Linux tablet processor with just one core, but it can also be programmed bare-metal to avoid startup delay. It has a camera interface that will take midrange camera modules from a few years back, it has debayering and partial acceleration for JPEG and MPEG and H264 encoding, it actually includes a full GPU, and it can be a USB 2.0 hispeed device, and it has 64MB builtin RAM. It makes do easily with low-density cheap board layouts. It has a cost impact - processor, power management, tiny boot ROM for a minimal system, etc - of just about $6 at scale. It's entirely viable for a product with sub $80 MSRP. Now there's a little problem, that USB 2.0 only nominally gives you 2.5W of power, while the processor and sensor would add up to closer to 5W, but i have a gut feeling that displayless and only doing camera things it can be managed to push it down, but it's going to be a bit tight. It might also be sensible to just ignore the USB spec and draw more power, because that's basically how many USB hard disks and some other devices have worked for a LONG while and it has been alright. Basically every USB port is also a USB Charging port nowadays with 7.5W available on it. Image quality for internet transmission is not necessarily about resolution and framerate, it's about adjustability in sensible terms, less noise, better low-light behaviour, better colour reproduction, so i don't feel USB 3 SuperSpeed is an absolute necessity... but then unfortunately paper specs sell products, and if you offer another USB2 1080p webcam, you probably simply won't be able to sell it no matter how great it is in all other regards. As far as USB3 goes, i think Rockchip has some tablet processors which can do that, but i haven't done an in depth analysis, there would likely be hurdles. I think Cypress Semiconductor has been aiming for something there really. They have a huge lineup of EZ-USB FX3 chips with general purpose data processing horsepower, CMOS sensor camera interfacing (several standards for multiple sensor generations, including fairly recent ones), USB3 SuperSpeed, and with little dead weight, definitely intended for UVC cameras besides other USB3 devices. Unfortunately even at scale those are $13-ish chips, and that not even considering other components. I think this would push the product closer to $160 pricepoint. Wonder whether someone figured out yet what the Brio is made out of, chances are, cursory examination will not reveal much, since they have a habit of getting chips customised and disguised for themselves. I recall i saw a number of inexpensive cameras in China that are industrial automation and microscope attachment C-lens-mount cameras usually with an HDMI out and a USB UVC port. They tend to have a bunch of buttons on the body and a little film button remote, which operate a menu that looks suspiciously similar to cheap dashboard and action camera menus in presentation if not necessarily in content, with colour, exposure and digital zoom settings and retain them, the menu is temporarily visible via HDMI and UVC while operated. I think i probably mentioned. Maybe the good lenses and sensible settings can salvage the otherwise likely low-tech engineering of those things, i think it would be a curious test.
I just did a deep dive with the Brio on my channel to get the best possible results and believe it to be the best webcam out there currently. I used the c920 for the longest time. Even with this new “streamcam” I would recommend the Brio due to the price relativity and ultra wide feature. But you have to light it properly. None of these webcams except the older C920 know how to handle “auto” settings properly.
Why not just throw in an older Snapdragon or other Android processor into one of these webcams to handle the video processing? They’re already designed to do it, and economics of scale have rendered many of them super cheap.
Please do a Logitech BRIO 4K vs Facebook Portal 12 MP camera comparison. Have you checked out FB Portal the 15 inch model? Or the 10 inch or TV one? Yes I know it comes from FB, a company with dicey privacy reputation but they got this one right. It comes with a button to disconnect the camera+mic and also a lens cover. I would like you to compare quality of video from its camera vs BRIO. Recently, FB Portal also added live streaming to FB with a private audience.
Why not connect your phone to your computer and then use the phone's camera? The processing could be done on the phone itself before it gets sent to the computer.
So far, it seems like “iVCam” on iOS supports USB, so that should at least make it more stable than something over wi-fi. The second option would be to use the QuickTime screen recording functionality on a Mac which gives you a high quality screen capture of your iOS device. It would require a few work arounds to get it to work as a traditional webcam, though.
For high quality, sure. But considering the quality you get for the file size, a 1080p 30fps webcam is worth it. When doing an interview with my parents, I chose a Logitech C922 over a GoPro Hero Black after comparing. I wanted something good enough under $500
Just saw a vid on the Streamcam from Alpha Gaming and it was really something to hear his take on this product. I can't wait to see what you think. In a nutshell "Streamers are still looking for a solid solution, the "streamcam" has features they really didn't ask for and would probably never use along with questionable marketing; oh and only a 78 degree field of view." Should be very interesting indeed!
I've wondered about this as well. I think if you can save for a mirrorless DSLR, that's the way to go. If you're a streamer, you're hopefully also making videos for UA-cam, so you can use the camera for both. Great vid, Adam!
It would be ex-flippin'-tremely nice if webcams were possible to be of as high-quality as a DSLR or mirrorless camera, but the driver issues are the biggest problem that I seem to have lucked out on. Unless the even-cheaper-than-the-c920 c615 doesn't have those issues.
Why dont you use a DSLR or mirrorless as your webcam, if you want that quality? Its nothing more than the difference in sensor size. Webcams use the same sensor size as action cameras, it originates from CCTV cameras. 1/2.3" Its small, but all that says is that you need a quality lens for the tiny pixels and lots of light.
@@xHadesStamps no they are no, you can pick one used for less what these fancy webcams go, all you need is a hdmi capture dongle to use any hdmi output camera as webcam
@@Nobody-Nowhere They tend to be expensive new. I go by the base price as that's what I tend to buy (I don't trust used for a multitude of reasons. DO NOT ASK!!!!). Plus, they are big, and something I don't have room for. Also, as far as an HDMI capture card goes, ones designed for cameras tend to have the plug built-in, in which case I can tell you I'd need an extender. And no. I would not use a game console capture card.
@@Nobody-Nowhere Oh, and I also don't trust myself with a DSLR or mirrorless. I have dropped my webcams several times, and they've survived (they are light). If I dropped a mirrorless or a DSLR, it would not have survived.
Except that they can make a $99 4k action cam so the only thing holding back webcams in imagination or more likely a small market. Most people think their laptop one is fine or they buy an 3-4 year logitech. Anyone wanting more uses has been forced to just move all the way up to a real camera - so in essence the market fixed itself (maybe not really)
@@EposVox I would disagree, the Sony sensor in some if better than most webcams and they have the processing power - heck a RaspberryPi 4 is close to enough. I just think either they don't care to or they have analyzed the market and decided it is too small for them
I'm currently looking to upgrade my webcam. I currently have an old Logitech webcam that maxes out at 720P which was fine for the video chat I had with a celebrity and Zoom calls but now I'm considering getting into streaming on UA-cam and/or Twitch and would prefer to have a better quality webcam pointed at my face. I also looked into getting an old smartphone that I can rig into a webcam with an app on either iOS or Android. I was gonna go for a no name brand webcam that was in 1080P because they are still cheaper than getting a used iPhone or even a used Samsung phone on eBay that have either 1080P or even 4K cameras already in them which would be better than even the best webcams on Amazon right now. I'm shocked that phone cameras have vastly improved while webcams remained stagnant over the past decade.
This is a topic I've been scratching my head over for some time. I've just purchased pinnacle 26 ultimate and am using thd multicam capture software that let's you capture 6 usb cameras at once. What in your opinion would be a good choice of entry level camera that I could buy 6 of? I tried a so called 4k camcorder from amazon and the quality is shocking. I jeed something as clean as you stream on.
Thanks for always sharing good info. After seeing the results of having a dedicated camera for video, especially when that video is more long-lived than live streams, I have more realistic expectations of my webcam. It's great, but you can't expect a $100 webcam to give you the same high-quality image that you get from higher-end cameras and custom lenses. You couldn't expect a $100 camera to give you those kinds of results. All things considered, the budget webcams we have are great for the money and that's all they really need to be to maintain adoption, so we probably won't see them moving the industry anytime soon. I do think a disruptor to the market would be nice to see. I'm not sure how realistic it is, but we'll see.
I wonder if you could do a Thunderbolt camera that uses the CPU for processing. I mean, it's basically PCIe straight into the bus. Especially on threadripper, could be killer.
As per usual this was an awesome engaging, fun, in-depth very informative & interesting video, Adam. 😁 👌 As you know I've recently picked up the Sony A5100 to use as my live-streaming camera for my content creation. That being said, I do have a Logitech C920 laying around currently being unutilised provided that I can get the proper lighting setup and the settings of the webcam optimised properly I may very well end up using it as a secondary angle/viewpoint on my streams i.e. showing off my desk setup for example. 😄 👍 👍 Cheers man! 🍻
Check out Z-Cam. You can do a 4K, 4 camera live using only a gigabit router. Not exactly web camera, but less hardware than HDMI. Plus you can control each camera via a web browser while it's streaming.
I'm surprised no ones crowd sourced one yet. It really should not be more than 250$. I think your phone argument has some flaws, the Cronos High speed camera is an FPGA, older arm chip and some ram. I'm certain it could be done fairly easily but why do that when you can sell people a 400$ webcam that costed you 50$
@@EposVox They actually do, though. Even the base model Apple M1 has a pretty advanced ISP that’s borrowed from the iPhone A series chips. But we have the other problem you mentioned later in the video that I didn’t know about when writing that comment…oops…should’ve watched the whole video first :p The way a smartphone camera sensor connects to the ISP is through a high speed direct serial interface like MIPI, etc. USB 3 even won’t cut it for such advanced real time processing of that much data.
M1 does, because it's the SoC used in all of their hardware now - but that isn't "image signal processing" for any arbitrary webcam connected to it. It will be manually coded/developed only for the specific cameras used in their hardware, and yes it needs a direct connection.
@@EposVox Intel 12th Gen core also has integrated ISP on chip, I believe any webcam should be able to use their functions so long as they've developed it into the driver. But even Apple's own webcams on the best model M1 Max MBP aren't very good compared to flagship phones. I think it has more to do with the connection to ISP (USB vs direct serial) and sensor size / quality. Just does not make economical sense to build a sick ass webcam into a laptop or even a standalone webcam. The cost is so high like you said it's already in mirrorless DSLR and camlink price territory :(
Its a balancing act....usb bandwdth, wifi bandwidth, acceptable quality....cheap webcams are perfect, smaller sensors can operate for days without overheating, just plug in and create, more options and more things to tweak is not a good thing.
So tempting just to buy a black magic camera and get a resolve studio license in the process. Have you thought about using a PTZ camera with a capture card?
I've reviewed a couple; some don't even need a capture card. ua-cam.com/video/whd_p4XGNdU/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/WSHeQuDifes/v-deo.html They're good for... certain use cases but they definitely lack the high-end feel of even a cheaper mirrorless camera.
I tried a phone camera app the other day that sends the feed to a website to be accessed via wifi. Picture quality and FPS was nice. The problem was when I tried to put it in OBS boy it suffered. But I have a poor computer. So I wonder if on a good PC if it will work better?
Can you do a video on fpga encoding for live streaming? Twitch uses xilinx fpgas to transcode the h.264 to vp9. Theoretically fpgas can give you x264 "placebo" or "slowest" in real time at 8k+
It's because fpga's do it "mechanically", there's no cpu executing a bunch of transformations going pixel after pixels. The byte stream just flows through the fpga, and "comes" the other side encoded.
Theoretically speaking, you're also speaking of chips that cost an incredible amount of money or literally don't exist, if you're trying to hit an arbitrarily large goal like highest quality, lowest latency, and 8K resolution. Plus you can't circumnavigate and outpace the underlying format on latency. One of the cornerstones of H264 bandwidth-efficiency is that it uses frames from the past AND the "future" to encode/decode any given frame. So a quick recap, I-frame is a keyframe or a frame that can be decoded without knowledge of any other frame; P-frame is a predicted frame, a frame that consists of some prior frame plus some motion compensation plus difference information; and B-frame is a bidirectional predicted frame, it's basically a morph between two other frames, one from the past and one from the future. Naturally I-frames are pretty big, P-frames are about 10 times smaller in size, and B-frames are a couple times smaller yet. But how can a frame be from the future? It's because there must be inherent encoding latency that corresponds to the difference between the first B-frame of the sequence cycle and the next I-frame, and the next I-Frame must in fact come before current B-frame in the stream and must have already been decoded. So the only way you can have "realtime" encoding is by getting rid of B-frames and destroying the format efficiency, so you can not achieve "placebo" efficiency, not even close. And against almost 15 frame format-inherent latency, what does it even matter whether your CPU/GPU encoding solution inserts 2 extra frames of latency? Furthermore Twitch doesn't even use VP9 at any sort of scale. It uses it on maybe a handful streams, it's basically a test deployment to prepare for other things, ultimately AV1. These are Amazon EC2 F1 instances. How much FPGA compute capacity is needed for a single stream? IDK. What's the energy consumption? Difficult to say, depends a lot on the application, but i'm willing to bet, for video encoding in particular, GPU Compute might win or come close, even disregarding dedicated encoders. I think the EC2 F1 hardware is the VU9P, around $40,000 per chip. FPGA is simply not cost efficient for the amount of compute capability you get. It remains to be seen, you can burn a lot of money on transcoding to save a few bits, and if you rebroadcast same stream to tens thousands of people, you'll still save money. Needless to say FPGA transcoding is completely irrelevant for prosumer/creative use.
Twitch doesn't do ANY VP9 transcoding at scale, and mainly uses quicksync for the transcoding that is happening. Just because a FPGA can do one codec at X speed does not mean it can do another, that's not really how FPGAs really work. Plus the software suite they have tuned to a specific chip is not something that would be available to me to play with anyway. And yeah definitely not placebo
@@SianaGearz If real time chat interaction is a lesser priority, than more latency (and thus B frames) could be acceptable. By default OBS sets 2 B frames (at least for QuickSync) anyway. I wasn't aware that Twitch wasn't deploying VP9 at scale, as AWS has the FGPA instances you mentioned, and Twitch doesn't exactly advertise the delivery codec used, and Twitch is quite stingy with the bandwidth, and Xilinx's documentation/marketing on transcoding with FPGAs suggests that Twitch saved billions, although the onus is on me for that thinking, and swallowing their marketing hook, line, and sinker. 8K here was a reference to how x.264 falls apart for streaming at 4k (as EposVox's video on the Threadripper 39xx series shows), obviously no one will be streaming 8k (except NHK in Japan, but that is completely different). I don't think amazon is paying $40k for their VU9Ps😂. According to Xilinx, using their NGCodec IP you can get, I believe, around 8-32 streams of 1080p to 4k (can't check bc NGcodec site is down) on one fpga card (alveo u200 and up). Since Nvidia doesn't sell Nvenc cards, for dedicated transcode servers, FPGAs make sense, but for prosumers and creatives, yes FPGAs are not worth (a quadro will consume the same as an FPGA, ~225-250w, but the quadro can really only do maybe 4 streams of 4k at most (and maybe not even 60 fps), while the fpga can handle probably at least 16 streams of 4k60, not to mention you can scale FPGAs linearly, even across servers, to meet any demand.).
Ultimately the problem comes down to form factor - with phones because of the form factor, everything is tightly integrated hence it is always justifiable to make things better and smaller, and to buy a new phone every year or so. with tight integration, you want everything to be the best since you cant upgrade it after. while on the PC, because of how modular and upgradable it is, people tend to only focus on the components that give them the most value per dollar spent and a webcam is one of the least needed component, the mentality on PC is always been CPU/GPU performance so only those two components get most of the spotlight and they are usually the two focus when people are upgrading their PC. if PC are tightly integrated, all other aspects of PC can be pushed... but it is really hard to change that aspect of PC due to how the general public perceive. Imagine PC are tightly integrated, we could have good webcam, accelerometer, gyroscope, game controller, VR headset and the "high end" perhiperals we are using as the default - the PC industry could be very different and exciting.
Why don't you try the Blackfly USB3 Machine Vision camera with the massive Sony IMX249 1/1.2" sensor with 1920x1200 resolution? Or the Blackfly S USB3 with IMX178 with 1/1.8" 3072 × 2048 for $449. That gives you the highest resolution USB cameras with uncompressed YUV2 and fairly low latency. These are compatible with XSplit.
A lot of people want 60fps in a webcam, I mean it should be standard tbh. When I watch a stream with a webcam and I see its like a awkward 35 - 45 (yes I can tell what 45 FPS looks like) it puts me off. To think my Galaxy S8 has a better selfie camera than most webcams screws with me it's 2020 not 2000s you would think by now we found the tech and smashed all the problems we had... Well obviously not with webcams which is a shame because not everyone has space for a big DSLR as a webcam or hell even a compact camera. I just want something for sub 100 bucks that can make me look clear and be 60fps and not look like its from 2000, they should also remove mics from webcams man coz no one uses em
They definitely shouldn't remove the mics given that the primary market for webcams - which isn't content creators - absolutely does use them, and removing such an option benefits no one.
#QUESTION: How about using a flagship smartphone camera as a stand in for a webcam? A lot of people have say, a Galaxy Sx or Iphone whatever already and heck sometimes more than one ( keep old, get new, use old as webcam, bam? ), so how do you think it would fare? Even better, could you test it?
so u tell me i do the impossible because i stream with my phone as a webcam. there is nearly nooo latency and its not lagging at all. why should it be impossible to use a mobile phone or am i missing a point
I hear what you're saying, but no. I have hooked old dslr camera's, with minimal processing power towards their early tech liveview, onto my computer directly streaming their image without a capture card using a little power cable so no battery. This tech is old and cheap and works, you can add a separate power cable to a webcam build and make sure the webcam doesn't heat up with minimal effort. Using slightly better lenses, slightly better censors ( there is a ton of better cheap tech out there) and they might even hook up an old smartphone processor that is plenty for the camera.. and you probably can still make major profit selling it for 70 bucks. This webcam market is simply horrific, there is no place you will get poorer bang for your buck, besides maybe security cameras, and it's simply because they can. Here's the thing, I don't need a 4k webcam. But one that's actually sharp (not digitally sharpened) with a slight dof just because the glass is a bit better with half decent software and just the pixels that are in the censor actually being quality ones.. that should be doable right? And it is, it's just about waiting for one company to be like "hey guys, you know what.. I am not going screw people over and actually make a good webcam". Seeing as this is what Sony did on the slr market, I expect them to maybe do this?
How does using a camera with a capture card (the very alternative to Webcams I refer to) mean somehow you can make great cheap Webcams? The tech inside those cameras cost far more than 70 dollars to manufacture. Hell, decent glass alone is at least 70 bucks, if not thousands.
@@EposVox with decent glass I don't suggest they go and make us a sony 35mm 1.4 equivalent, but just a bit better is a long way in webcam world, maybe provide some clip-ons that allow closer or wider views, macro, that are decent just as another selling gimmick, they seem to like those. I don't expect 4k from a webcam either but the pixels being about half the quality my 3 year old phone has would be nice when they claim 1080p HD. Someone else already mentioned there are decent tiny camera sensors and processors we know have a low price (compared to what we pay for them in let's say a phone) that could actually be easily used for webcams and improve the quality. I've simply just hacked into older live view dslr camera's and simply streamed their live view via usb. This seems a good affordable way which I'd advice anyone over spending money on any kind of webcam. Like you said, using capture cards is the alternative, but by the time one has all the bits and bobs to make this possible you usually have spent quite a bit if you're buying everything new. And it's just weird that all we got as an answere for that from the webcam market is mediocre stuff for quite a lot of money. With false advertisement, images shot with much better cameras used left and right in the marketing to boot. As if they haven't lied enough making us pay 150,- for a product that might have cost them 20 maybe 30 bucks to produce, maybe another 10,- per unit for software if sales are bad but so far I've only seen features I've already seen with their other software in a new coat on the streamcam. Add. I haven't slept for 48h so I messes this up. I was suggesting old tech, that has gotten cheap, can easily be used in webcams to improve them. Even if there's usb, processor and budget limits. Using the old dslrs as an example, not using capture cards, just the desktop live shooting preview software and an usb cable, probably not even capable of 3.0. Honestly, I think I can get better quality out of a old digital canon powershot than the Logitech now readily available.
@@EposVox if possible try this out www.aliexpress.com/item/4000449399638.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.127d4e37KInpR6&algo_pvid=455b0b45-c936-4d6e-a79d-1f89d7ba92f2&algo_expid=455b0b45-c936-4d6e-a79d-1f89d7ba92f2-3&btsid=7c515897-cd7a-46ca-9ab3-b6e11a29c8f1&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_10,searchweb201603_53
Not really sure about the Desktop processor being slow. Slow compared to what? A flagship mobile CPU may seem faster than a flagship desktop CPU because there is less information to process. Look at the file sizes on your phone compared to your desktop. In actuality, a desktop CPU is punching way more numbers in the same amount of time. Whether you notice that is a different story. Enough of my geeky criticizing, lol. I agree with you on the rest of the video.
Phone CPUs have fixed-function compute for processing the image sensor data, along with a direct full-speed bus to the sensor, whereas a webcam is always stuck with the latency and speed of USB. That’s why you always see camera improvements of phones paired with new CPU upgrades
@@EposVox thanks for replying. I agree with you on that. At 5:29 you stated how desktop processors are slow at doing anything. By "anything" did you mean in the context of processing an image? I originally took "anything" to mean standard computing tasks. That is irrelevant to the topic of your video, so I apologize if I misinterpreted your statement.
Well I think (this was forever ago) I more meant compared to dedicated compute units for a given task. I.e. cpu video encoding vs gpu encoding, etc. CPU is a general purpose processor but always slower than dedicated ASICS/FPGAs/micro code instruction sets for a given task
@@EposVox I'm surprised you remember as much as you do. When I made the first comment. I mistook the release date of your video to be Feb 11, 2021 lol. I totally agree with you. I'm just starting to get into camera tech, while I am more tuned into PC tech. Overall, I enjoyed the video and found it informative. Thanks for chatting.
@@EposVox There's a MIPI CSI on there, which is 1080p30. Through this interface, exactly two cameras are officially supported, Sony IMX219 and OmniVision OV5647, which both are 1080p30, and support higher framerates at lower resolutions. Camera support is in a closed source blob, so you can't just add a different sensor. The CSI is a VideoLogic peripheral, which includes also JPEG, MJPEG and H264 dedicated encoders. Pi Zero can be USB device via USB OTG port - on a full size Pi, the device function is locked out due to integrated hub and the OTG port is hardwired as host.
Seems like the investment into webcams is so low by consumers that we would rather use a camera that actually shoots like a 'pro' ish device. If there were super solid webcams on the market, more of us would go live and stream exponentially.
And yet whenever more expensive, but better webcams (BRIO, RealSense cameras) are introduced, they're not bought up as much. High quality camera-ing can't be done for the price of an 8 year old $40 C920
Having a shitty affordable little C920 doesn't prevent you from streaming. It's an involved endeavour that fundamentally requires bits of expertise in a huge number of areas - you need to light yourself, you need to pick up and process your voice, you need to set up the capture, you need to balance the computational resources and the performance needs of streaming software with the performance needs of something that you do want to stream like your game or your creative software or whatever, you need to take into account your internet connection quality, you need to manage the audience by entertaining it and moderating chat, you need to compose the presentation and branding, you need to be aware and follow the streaming platform rules, which a surprising number of people fail to do, you need to promote yourself to existing audience to retain it. While amount of expertise in most of each of the areas is at the base line relatively minor and various software approaches are tried which keep making things just a little bit easier, the sheer number of areas of expertise that it touches makes it a fundamentally complex endeavour.
Cellphones use MIPI over CSI most modern phones are using 4 lanes. The upper spec for mipi can do 2.8GBps per lane that's bytes not bits. But anyone can easily figure out the bandwidth needed by a cmoss sensor every pixel has 4 sub pixels hdr sensors have 10bits per sub pixel sdr have 8bits per sub pixel so a HDR 4k sensor has 8,294,400 pixels X 4 sub pixels x 10bits = 331,776,000 bits per frame / 8 = 41,472,000 bytes per frame so a single raw hdr 4k frame is 39.55MB this X the fps of 60 = 2,373MB/s that's more then Any SSD can write if that was your ISP they'd advertise it as 18,984mbps lol far more then USB 3.2 gen 2 can actually do because most of the usb ports on your intel based pc are tied to a chipset with only 4 pcie gen 3 lanes that needs to pass data for all the things your chipset has control of like sound, SATA, and so on.
@@victornpb compression requires processing this is where webcams fall apart processing power cost money good sensors cost money and good sensor tuning cost a lot of money and time in RD. Honestly i want a web cam that's really just a big FPGA 1/2.3 sensor that's only 1080P 120 fps and cs mount lenses nope don't want auto focus or microphones. I do want hdmi out with 4:4:4 or true 10bit HDR.. but also USB 3 suport with HEVC, with lossless and lossy modes. While we are at this point integrating 2 small deapth cameras like intel real sense for on board background subtraction. I might just design and build my dream web camera on my own lol. Joe R. Hardware engineer Motorola Solutions inc.
But what stops you from attaching a smartphone to a computer as if it was a webcam? (aside from shitty software). PS I asked this very same question on the very same video you did a while ago.
What really boggles my mind is Apple - the studio display and even the MacBook Pro cameras are total garbage, while the iPhone cameras, even the lowest model iPhone FRONT facing camera is a million times better - WHY?!
Great content thanks. As you're very critical, I'm sure you'll appreciate my critique of your vocal EQing - too bright. You're compensating for lack of high end on the RE20 mic. You're pushing the treble too harsh. You'd be better off with a SM7B or a condenser mic.
So in short no major company has taken on the task of moving things forawrd. Probably because there isnt much money in it after a certain price threshold. If samsung or sony[for example] decided they wanted to make a much better webcam they probably could with thier eyes closed. Honest just how muich money is there to be made in a dissruptive high performance webcam?
I don't get it. Every point you make you also refute. Connection to pc: already done with things like stadia. Tiny sensor and processing power: cheap $150 phone has it. It can't be this small for this price: people have Google nests that are bigger and cost $60 and do less. Only the driver situation could be something. Maybe just design one yourself and do a kickstarter. Or work with a phone maker like Huawei so you can connect one to the pc and use their camera tech.
Nest doesn't function as a webcam nor hold up any up-close video quality that people would want over what Webcams for a produce. Stadia has literally nothing to do with this. I didn't refute anything.
Tons of cheap(sub 100) action cams stream 720/60 & 1080/30 over usb now. Wide FOV, better sharpness than a Logi, and they usually come with enough mounts to put them anywhere.
@@EposVox Beg to differ, outperforms all the webcams in low light, and the sharpness overall is better than a logi. Is it on par with a camlink etc, NO, but that's not the point I made. I've got a solid year+ of real world use footage to prove it. For the same price, most of them are FAR above the webcams. Find me a better streaming cam for 40$, I'll wait ;)
@@ScooterJackson I mean... there's also hundreds of these action cams available so we have used different ones. The ones I used are not any sharper over USB in useful ways. And IMO "for $40" is a moot point, when this insistence on absurdly low prices is why webcam tech has stayed locked in 2012.
This isn't "explaining" why it cannot be done, you are just "saying" that it cannot be done. I, as a computer engineer, do not see what exactly prevents the digitized but raw data from an external sensor to be streamed onto a computer, for the computer to then process it. What is the bitrate of this information stream, that it cannot be passed over 5/10/20 Gbps USB? What magical instructions are these, that Qualcomm's Snapdragon has, my Surface Pro's Intel laptop CPU has, but my desktop CPU doesn't? Given that you did not explain anything, and vacuously insisted on your stance, unfortunately you almost sound like you do not know anything.
The technical explanation of how the image pipeline works (which does involve a dedicated processing chip for the camera and feeding to the Snapdragon CPU) doesn't *really* benefit anyone here. Your Surface Pro laptop has a USB webcam, as every laptop does. It doesn't have what a phone has.
I do not think that logi will make, with these new release, what they are advertising. Just trash my brios cause just are junk, called drivers control, pick your pick. I the end g7 with cam link will.do the job
So phones can actually be used as a webcam, and will be better than a dedicated camera until you get in to decently expensive cameras. I'm not even talking about using an ipcam app. You can 100% just use a capture card with it.
....... Epos my man... they could totally do it. the real problem is they really don't want to. And the red camera thing was just how early webcams in general worked which is why the development for red cameras was kicked off. the issue with webcams was after someone would get a webcam they wouldn't get a new one till it either crapped out, their monitor showed them a crappy image on their new monitor, or someone complained about it to them long enough that they caved and bought a new one. the problem with webcams is they hit their zenith around 2006-2008 and the drive to make a better one was lackluster at best cause people buy webcams like they buy home appliances. in fact when logitech released their first 1080p webcam it flopped. So hard that for the next decade the webcam was sold with only minor cosmetic changes on the market.-
A lot of amazing points, but I would still like to see the webcam industry push forward and make new inovations. A raspberry pi 4 costs $45 and that's with wifi, Bluetooth and a lot of other components you wouldn't need on a webcam. Yes it would probably take a lot of work to develop a better standard, and system for webcams but I do think their is a market for it. I would love to have a simple tiny webcam I could have in my desk while video calling people. Since right now I have to choose between the great mic quality of my computer or the great video quality of my phone.
Like is it really crazy to expect Logitech, Sony, Elgoto, Canon, etc to make a smaller camera that hooks up directly to our computers for like $200? It would probably involve reinventing the wheel but at least it would be progress rather than this stagnation we have reached.
You can buy usb camera boards with all kinds of sensors, all you need is a quality lens. You dont need to develop anything. Its an industry standard system from machine vision & cctv cameras.
Flir has a whole line of cameras that have HD and USB3 and GigE but I never see reviews posted. I posted on his Sub2R video about it.
@@Deneteus Those are industrial cameras, most likely really expensive even as used.
ELP has some quite cheap ones, but only one USB3.0, but that one does 1080p 50fps even in YUY2.
@@Nobody-Nowhere They are USB3/GigE cameras that you can use for anything. Compared to the Sub2R the PointGray cameras are cheaper. Try looking at the old price-lists compared to now and they aren't that expensive new. Especially compared to using a DSLR and having to buy lenses. You also have the advantage of sensor size and quality being better.
@@Deneteus Yes, i have seen those.. but they are expensive even used. The board usb 3 camera from ELP costs 70$ including shipping. Sensors on these are the much the same, CCTV sony IMX sensors mostly.
You also want to stick to the small 1/2.3 sensor sizes, and avoid 1" sensors if you want to have cheaper CS mount CCTV lenses or the M12 stuff.
And its not like mirrorless micro 43 costs anything, you can get olympus pen bodies with lenses for pennies. Probably for 50$.
Your video has always been very good. There is one thing though, it's your audio. Your audio is amazing, rich and solid. Whatever you are doing is working really well. Anyway, thank you for the video. 😊👍👍
Found out my S10 could connect to my PC and I can have full control of it there. Even take video and what not. Thought it was a great way to have a really good picture for streams but I found out there isn't an app dedicated for streaming like I want. Still have to use DroidCam and stuff like it to work with OBS. So disappointed. *sigh* Oh well.
Cant you capture the window of the application.
With the streamlabs app you can stream to a dedicated ip address and get the feed to obs or slobs. It will add a delay but quality is smooth
just get a camlink and a usb c to hdmi dongle.
You can use "VXG RTSP Server" app to stream to OBS via RTSP. You can use Wi-Fi or USB tethering for that. Main disadvantage a year ago was a lag, that can be quite high with long streams, but maybe that problem is gone now.
1-on your S10 look for an app called "newtek NDI" its not available on google play.
2-on your OBS, install NDI source from their official website (note that NDI source will eat up ~20% of your cpu when activating the plugin in OBS)
3-on your OBS add NDI source as a new source or scene.
4-on your S10: open the app, select HD, and press record and the feed will appear in OBS
5-profit?.....
A raspberry pi which costs $35 can easily run two 4k 30fps cameras at once. All your arguments about webcams not being able to have the processing power, you just made up in your head and you delivered them as though they were facts.
I think the issue is that with the webcams, the companies making them just want the largest profit margin possible. Consider the IHS BOM and manufacturing reports on many smartphones, where you will see the best smartphone camera (by dxomark score) having a BOM cost of $14. There are many SOCs that have an image processor that can handle 4K video, but cost around $10. For example look at some of the mediatek SOCs.
A webcam company could make a striped down version of the amazon fire stick (same SOC, but less RAM, less storage, and no networking hardware), and wire in a smartphone camera sensor, and it would work.
This, sorry, but you can tell me all day about "reasons" it might be hard to improve webcams today.
But the only hing that's stopping them is their profit margins.
Maybe we should tell Logitech their losing thousands of customers to old dedicated camera's being hooked up to stream directly to computers and their killing their own market? Might light a fire under their asses.
you've easily explained a lot of stuff I've wanted to know for a while, thank you and well done
I've been using the Logitech C920 for a few years but time to get better image, so I just bought the elgato 4k link so this week I should start using my Canon M50 as webcam, let's see how that goes!
Congrats!
Owlnonymous/pinball streaming! I've heard the pinball community moan about the quality of webcams for years*
deadflip has an equipment list, basically old handycams/action cameras were the betweeners of webcams and vlog cameras with clean hdmi out
the used a5000's on ebay look attractive, the issue with pinball&lighting is a majority want the light show from the game itself in a dimly lit room, I'm uncertain which is to blame.. streamers bandwidth, their mobile rigs to encode with, or poor low light performance when it comes to 60fps pinball capture, you'll see the ball skip around the playfield too often on logitech cams for example.
*I understand why, all of them want a 3 camera setup and that may mean x3 the cost (doesn't have to be)
Unfortunately UVC drivers also don't like it when you go past 2 of the same webcam, too haha
USB 3 (especially the latest revisions) can absolutely provide the bandwidth necessary to connect a camera sensor to your computer. In most cases it's PCI-E.
I have been on this trip of figuring out how one might make a viable webcam in 2019. The webcam performance is atrocious even by 2015 midrange phone standards.
In 2017, Allwinner V3s processor became available. It's intended as a processor for action cameras and picture frames. It's basically a cut down Android/Linux tablet processor with just one core, but it can also be programmed bare-metal to avoid startup delay. It has a camera interface that will take midrange camera modules from a few years back, it has debayering and partial acceleration for JPEG and MPEG and H264 encoding, it actually includes a full GPU, and it can be a USB 2.0 hispeed device, and it has 64MB builtin RAM. It makes do easily with low-density cheap board layouts. It has a cost impact - processor, power management, tiny boot ROM for a minimal system, etc - of just about $6 at scale. It's entirely viable for a product with sub $80 MSRP. Now there's a little problem, that USB 2.0 only nominally gives you 2.5W of power, while the processor and sensor would add up to closer to 5W, but i have a gut feeling that displayless and only doing camera things it can be managed to push it down, but it's going to be a bit tight. It might also be sensible to just ignore the USB spec and draw more power, because that's basically how many USB hard disks and some other devices have worked for a LONG while and it has been alright. Basically every USB port is also a USB Charging port nowadays with 7.5W available on it.
Image quality for internet transmission is not necessarily about resolution and framerate, it's about adjustability in sensible terms, less noise, better low-light behaviour, better colour reproduction, so i don't feel USB 3 SuperSpeed is an absolute necessity... but then unfortunately paper specs sell products, and if you offer another USB2 1080p webcam, you probably simply won't be able to sell it no matter how great it is in all other regards.
As far as USB3 goes, i think Rockchip has some tablet processors which can do that, but i haven't done an in depth analysis, there would likely be hurdles.
I think Cypress Semiconductor has been aiming for something there really. They have a huge lineup of EZ-USB FX3 chips with general purpose data processing horsepower, CMOS sensor camera interfacing (several standards for multiple sensor generations, including fairly recent ones), USB3 SuperSpeed, and with little dead weight, definitely intended for UVC cameras besides other USB3 devices. Unfortunately even at scale those are $13-ish chips, and that not even considering other components. I think this would push the product closer to $160 pricepoint. Wonder whether someone figured out yet what the Brio is made out of, chances are, cursory examination will not reveal much, since they have a habit of getting chips customised and disguised for themselves.
I recall i saw a number of inexpensive cameras in China that are industrial automation and microscope attachment C-lens-mount cameras usually with an HDMI out and a USB UVC port. They tend to have a bunch of buttons on the body and a little film button remote, which operate a menu that looks suspiciously similar to cheap dashboard and action camera menus in presentation if not necessarily in content, with colour, exposure and digital zoom settings and retain them, the menu is temporarily visible via HDMI and UVC while operated. I think i probably mentioned. Maybe the good lenses and sensible settings can salvage the otherwise likely low-tech engineering of those things, i think it would be a curious test.
I just did a deep dive with the Brio on my channel to get the best possible results and believe it to be the best webcam out there currently. I used the c920 for the longest time. Even with this new “streamcam” I would recommend the Brio due to the price relativity and ultra wide feature. But you have to light it properly. None of these webcams except the older C920 know how to handle “auto” settings properly.
What about the c925e?
Holo Scope not even worth the time honestly.
@@TristanPope why not? It's 100 retail but there's alot of then on eBay open box for like 30 bucks
Because it's a conference cam with nothing upgrading it over the C920 other than audio
@@EposVox oh ok thanks
Why not just throw in an older Snapdragon or other Android processor into one of these webcams to handle the video processing? They’re already designed to do it, and economics of scale have rendered many of them super cheap.
Please do a Logitech BRIO 4K vs Facebook Portal 12 MP camera comparison. Have you checked out FB Portal the 15 inch model? Or the 10 inch or TV one? Yes I know it comes from FB, a company with dicey privacy reputation but they got this one right. It comes with a button to disconnect the camera+mic and also a lens cover.
I would like you to compare quality of video from its camera vs BRIO. Recently, FB Portal also added live streaming to FB with a private audience.
Why not connect your phone to your computer and then use the phone's camera? The processing could be done on the phone itself before it gets sent to the computer.
Well thus far there aren't any options for that which transmit very good quality. NDI, over USB, it all comes out like poop.
@@EposVox I think a high quality stream would be possible if this idea were given a little more love by some app developer out there.
So far, it seems like “iVCam” on iOS supports USB, so that should at least make it more stable than something over wi-fi. The second option would be to use the QuickTime screen recording functionality on a Mac which gives you a high quality screen capture of your iOS device. It would require a few work arounds to get it to work as a traditional webcam, though.
For high quality, sure. But considering the quality you get for the file size, a 1080p 30fps webcam is worth it. When doing an interview with my parents, I chose a Logitech C922 over a GoPro Hero Black after comparing. I wanted something good enough under $500
Just saw a vid on the Streamcam from Alpha Gaming and it was really something to hear his take on this product. I can't wait to see what you think. In a nutshell "Streamers are still looking for a solid solution, the "streamcam" has features they really didn't ask for and would probably never use along with questionable marketing; oh and only a 78 degree field of view." Should be very interesting indeed!
I've wondered about this as well. I think if you can save for a mirrorless DSLR, that's the way to go. If you're a streamer, you're hopefully also making videos for UA-cam, so you can use the camera for both. Great vid, Adam!
The R in DSLR is for reflex. There is no such thing as a mirrorless-DSLR.
It would be ex-flippin'-tremely nice if webcams were possible to be of as high-quality as a DSLR or mirrorless camera, but the driver issues are the biggest problem that I seem to have lucked out on. Unless the even-cheaper-than-the-c920 c615 doesn't have those issues.
Why dont you use a DSLR or mirrorless as your webcam, if you want that quality? Its nothing more than the difference in sensor size. Webcams use the same sensor size as action cameras, it originates from CCTV cameras. 1/2.3" Its small, but all that says is that you need a quality lens for the tiny pixels and lots of light.
@@Nobody-Nowhere DSLR's and mirrorless tend to be expensive! That's why
@@xHadesStamps no they are no, you can pick one used for less what these fancy webcams go, all you need is a hdmi capture dongle to use any hdmi output camera as webcam
@@Nobody-Nowhere They tend to be expensive new. I go by the base price as that's what I tend to buy (I don't trust used for a multitude of reasons. DO NOT ASK!!!!). Plus, they are big, and something I don't have room for. Also, as far as an HDMI capture card goes, ones designed for cameras tend to have the plug built-in, in which case I can tell you I'd need an extender. And no. I would not use a game console capture card.
@@Nobody-Nowhere Oh, and I also don't trust myself with a DSLR or mirrorless. I have dropped my webcams several times, and they've survived (they are light). If I dropped a mirrorless or a DSLR, it would not have survived.
Except that they can make a $99 4k action cam so the only thing holding back webcams in imagination or more likely a small market. Most people think their laptop one is fine or they buy an 3-4 year logitech. Anyone wanting more uses has been forced to just move all the way up to a real camera - so in essence the market fixed itself (maybe not really)
This 99 dollar action cams don't actually look any significantly better than Webcams. They're just used outdoors with a crapton more light.
@@EposVox I would disagree, the Sony sensor in some if better than most webcams and they have the processing power - heck a RaspberryPi 4 is close to enough. I just think either they don't care to or they have analyzed the market and decided it is too small for them
I'm currently looking to upgrade my webcam. I currently have an old Logitech webcam that maxes out at 720P which was fine for the video chat I had with a celebrity and Zoom calls but now I'm considering getting into streaming on UA-cam and/or Twitch and would prefer to have a better quality webcam pointed at my face. I also looked into getting an old smartphone that I can rig into a webcam with an app on either iOS or Android. I was gonna go for a no name brand webcam that was in 1080P because they are still cheaper than getting a used iPhone or even a used Samsung phone on eBay that have either 1080P or even 4K cameras already in them which would be better than even the best webcams on Amazon right now. I'm shocked that phone cameras have vastly improved while webcams remained stagnant over the past decade.
This is a topic I've been scratching my head over for some time. I've just purchased pinnacle 26 ultimate and am using thd multicam capture software that let's you capture 6 usb cameras at once. What in your opinion would be a good choice of entry level camera that I could buy 6 of? I tried a so called 4k camcorder from amazon and the quality is shocking. I jeed something as clean as you stream on.
Thanks for always sharing good info. After seeing the results of having a dedicated camera for video, especially when that video is more long-lived than live streams, I have more realistic expectations of my webcam. It's great, but you can't expect a $100 webcam to give you the same high-quality image that you get from higher-end cameras and custom lenses. You couldn't expect a $100 camera to give you those kinds of results. All things considered, the budget webcams we have are great for the money and that's all they really need to be to maintain adoption, so we probably won't see them moving the industry anytime soon. I do think a disruptor to the market would be nice to see. I'm not sure how realistic it is, but we'll see.
I noticed bpscustoms' trolling in the chat... nice :-D
I wonder if you could do a Thunderbolt camera that uses the CPU for processing. I mean, it's basically PCIe straight into the bus. Especially on threadripper, could be killer.
Eh maybe.
As per usual this was an awesome engaging, fun, in-depth very informative & interesting video, Adam. 😁 👌
As you know I've recently picked up the Sony A5100 to use as my live-streaming camera for my content creation. That being said, I do have a Logitech C920 laying around currently being unutilised provided that I can get the proper lighting setup and the settings of the webcam optimised properly I may very well end up using it as a secondary angle/viewpoint on my streams i.e. showing off my desk setup for example. 😄 👍 👍
Cheers man! 🍻
What about the NDI software and stuff for Android and Apple? It connects with OBS and Stream Labs, allowing wireless streaming Cameras?
Thus far the quality is poor, latency high with desync, and not a good time
Check out Z-Cam. You can do a 4K, 4 camera live using only a gigabit router. Not exactly web camera, but less hardware than HDMI. Plus you can control each camera via a web browser while it's streaming.
The cheapest E2 is like $800, that's way out of the budget of people who just want a webcam lol
@@EposVox Yes, we are out of webcam territory for sure. But multi-cam 4k switching inside OBS with no switching hardware is dope.
Very insightful! Thanks for sharing this information.
I'm surprised no ones crowd sourced one yet. It really should not be more than 250$.
I think your phone argument has some flaws, the Cronos High speed camera is an FPGA, older arm chip and some ram. I'm certain it could be done fairly easily but why do that when you can sell people a 400$ webcam that costed you 50$
Don’t modern processors from Intel and Apple have image signal processors onboard though?
Not in the way you’re thinking, no
@@EposVox They actually do, though. Even the base model Apple M1 has a pretty advanced ISP that’s borrowed from the iPhone A series chips.
But we have the other problem you mentioned later in the video that I didn’t know about when writing that comment…oops…should’ve watched the whole video first :p
The way a smartphone camera sensor connects to the ISP is through a high speed direct serial interface like MIPI, etc. USB 3 even won’t cut it for such advanced real time processing of that much data.
M1 does, because it's the SoC used in all of their hardware now - but that isn't "image signal processing" for any arbitrary webcam connected to it. It will be manually coded/developed only for the specific cameras used in their hardware, and yes it needs a direct connection.
@@EposVox Intel 12th Gen core also has integrated ISP on chip, I believe any webcam should be able to use their functions so long as they've developed it into the driver. But even Apple's own webcams on the best model M1 Max MBP aren't very good compared to flagship phones. I think it has more to do with the connection to ISP (USB vs direct serial) and sensor size / quality. Just does not make economical sense to build a sick ass webcam into a laptop or even a standalone webcam. The cost is so high like you said it's already in mirrorless DSLR and camlink price territory :(
Its a balancing act....usb bandwdth, wifi bandwidth, acceptable quality....cheap webcams are perfect, smaller sensors can operate for days without overheating, just plug in and create, more options and more things to tweak is not a good thing.
So tempting just to buy a black magic camera and get a resolve studio license in the process. Have you thought about using a PTZ camera with a capture card?
I've reviewed a couple; some don't even need a capture card. ua-cam.com/video/whd_p4XGNdU/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/WSHeQuDifes/v-deo.html
They're good for... certain use cases but they definitely lack the high-end feel of even a cheaper mirrorless camera.
My guy asking the real questions.
I tried a phone camera app the other day that sends the feed to a website to be accessed via wifi. Picture quality and FPS was nice. The problem was when I tried to put it in OBS boy it suffered. But I have a poor computer. So I wonder if on a good PC if it will work better?
OBS Ndi?
Can you do a video on fpga encoding for live streaming? Twitch uses xilinx fpgas to transcode the h.264 to vp9. Theoretically fpgas can give you x264 "placebo" or "slowest" in real time at 8k+
don't you think FPGA's are a little too technical for this channel?
It's because fpga's do it "mechanically", there's no cpu executing a bunch of transformations going pixel after pixels. The byte stream just flows through the fpga, and "comes" the other side encoded.
Theoretically speaking, you're also speaking of chips that cost an incredible amount of money or literally don't exist, if you're trying to hit an arbitrarily large goal like highest quality, lowest latency, and 8K resolution. Plus you can't circumnavigate and outpace the underlying format on latency. One of the cornerstones of H264 bandwidth-efficiency is that it uses frames from the past AND the "future" to encode/decode any given frame.
So a quick recap, I-frame is a keyframe or a frame that can be decoded without knowledge of any other frame; P-frame is a predicted frame, a frame that consists of some prior frame plus some motion compensation plus difference information; and B-frame is a bidirectional predicted frame, it's basically a morph between two other frames, one from the past and one from the future. Naturally I-frames are pretty big, P-frames are about 10 times smaller in size, and B-frames are a couple times smaller yet. But how can a frame be from the future? It's because there must be inherent encoding latency that corresponds to the difference between the first B-frame of the sequence cycle and the next I-frame, and the next I-Frame must in fact come before current B-frame in the stream and must have already been decoded. So the only way you can have "realtime" encoding is by getting rid of B-frames and destroying the format efficiency, so you can not achieve "placebo" efficiency, not even close. And against almost 15 frame format-inherent latency, what does it even matter whether your CPU/GPU encoding solution inserts 2 extra frames of latency?
Furthermore Twitch doesn't even use VP9 at any sort of scale. It uses it on maybe a handful streams, it's basically a test deployment to prepare for other things, ultimately AV1. These are Amazon EC2 F1 instances. How much FPGA compute capacity is needed for a single stream? IDK. What's the energy consumption? Difficult to say, depends a lot on the application, but i'm willing to bet, for video encoding in particular, GPU Compute might win or come close, even disregarding dedicated encoders. I think the EC2 F1 hardware is the VU9P, around $40,000 per chip. FPGA is simply not cost efficient for the amount of compute capability you get. It remains to be seen, you can burn a lot of money on transcoding to save a few bits, and if you rebroadcast same stream to tens thousands of people, you'll still save money.
Needless to say FPGA transcoding is completely irrelevant for prosumer/creative use.
Twitch doesn't do ANY VP9 transcoding at scale, and mainly uses quicksync for the transcoding that is happening.
Just because a FPGA can do one codec at X speed does not mean it can do another, that's not really how FPGAs really work.
Plus the software suite they have tuned to a specific chip is not something that would be available to me to play with anyway.
And yeah definitely not placebo
@@SianaGearz If real time chat interaction is a lesser priority, than more latency (and thus B frames) could be acceptable. By default OBS sets 2 B frames (at least for QuickSync) anyway. I wasn't aware that Twitch wasn't deploying VP9 at scale, as AWS has the FGPA instances you mentioned, and Twitch doesn't exactly advertise the delivery codec used, and Twitch is quite stingy with the bandwidth, and Xilinx's documentation/marketing on transcoding with FPGAs suggests that Twitch saved billions, although the onus is on me for that thinking, and swallowing their marketing hook, line, and sinker. 8K here was a reference to how x.264 falls apart for streaming at 4k (as EposVox's video on the Threadripper 39xx series shows), obviously no one will be streaming 8k (except NHK in Japan, but that is completely different). I don't think amazon is paying $40k for their VU9Ps😂. According to Xilinx, using their NGCodec IP you can get, I believe, around 8-32 streams of 1080p to 4k (can't check bc NGcodec site is down) on one fpga card (alveo u200 and up). Since Nvidia doesn't sell Nvenc cards, for dedicated transcode servers, FPGAs make sense, but for prosumers and creatives, yes FPGAs are not worth (a quadro will consume the same as an FPGA, ~225-250w, but the quadro can really only do maybe 4 streams of 4k at most (and maybe not even 60 fps), while the fpga can handle probably at least 16 streams of 4k60, not to mention you can scale FPGAs linearly, even across servers, to meet any demand.).
Damn, only reading the title, I know this will gonna be good!
Ultimately the problem comes down to form factor - with phones because of the form factor, everything is tightly integrated hence it is always justifiable to make things better and smaller, and to buy a new phone every year or so. with tight integration, you want everything to be the best since you cant upgrade it after. while on the PC, because of how modular and upgradable it is, people tend to only focus on the components that give them the most value per dollar spent and a webcam is one of the least needed component, the mentality on PC is always been CPU/GPU performance so only those two components get most of the spotlight and they are usually the two focus when people are upgrading their PC. if PC are tightly integrated, all other aspects of PC can be pushed... but it is really hard to change that aspect of PC due to how the general public perceive. Imagine PC are tightly integrated, we could have good webcam, accelerometer, gyroscope, game controller, VR headset and the "high end" perhiperals we are using as the default - the PC industry could be very different and exciting.
Why don't you try the Blackfly USB3 Machine Vision camera with the massive Sony IMX249 1/1.2" sensor with 1920x1200 resolution? Or the Blackfly S USB3 with IMX178 with 1/1.8" 3072 × 2048 for $449. That gives you the highest resolution USB cameras with uncompressed YUV2 and fairly low latency. These are compatible with XSplit.
What about a PCIE? Would that work as a middleground?
I can only thank Sub2r for existing
Webcams are a thing of the past for me now
so you aren't using a sub2r webcam then... you are instead using a normal camera?
@@Elrinth "sub2r webcam" that's like if i said the c920 is a dSLR
I'm using a GoPro Hero 5 with a capture card. Works pretty well.
Which capture card?
StreamCam is quite disapointing imo, this webcam should have been what the c922 should have been when it came out.
A lot of people want 60fps in a webcam, I mean it should be standard tbh. When I watch a stream with a webcam and I see its like a awkward 35 - 45 (yes I can tell what 45 FPS looks like) it puts me off. To think my Galaxy S8 has a better selfie camera than most webcams screws with me it's 2020 not 2000s you would think by now we found the tech and smashed all the problems we had... Well obviously not with webcams which is a shame because not everyone has space for a big DSLR as a webcam or hell even a compact camera. I just want something for sub 100 bucks that can make me look clear and be 60fps and not look like its from 2000, they should also remove mics from webcams man coz no one uses em
They definitely shouldn't remove the mics given that the primary market for webcams - which isn't content creators - absolutely does use them, and removing such an option benefits no one.
Smartphones: We have Full HD and 4k 60fps!
Webcams: HD?
720p@30 and this with good lighting, if you have a normal ceiling lamp it will half to 12fps, I'm not even talking about that noise tho...
My phone: "Where's my 4K and 60 FPS??"
"Sorry, phone, but you're a bit too cheap for that"
#QUESTION:
How about using a flagship smartphone camera as a stand in for a webcam? A lot of people have say, a Galaxy Sx or Iphone whatever already and heck sometimes more than one ( keep old, get new, use old as webcam, bam? ), so how do you think it would fare? Even better, could you test it?
so u tell me i do the impossible because i stream with my phone as a webcam. there is nearly nooo latency and its not lagging at all. why should it be impossible to use a mobile phone or am i missing a point
That’s not what I was calling impossible.
Fantastic explanation vid. And ripped straight from Twitch. Talk about optimization lol
Get the most out if your content!
I hear what you're saying, but no. I have hooked old dslr camera's, with minimal processing power towards their early tech liveview, onto my computer directly streaming their image without a capture card using a little power cable so no battery. This tech is old and cheap and works, you can add a separate power cable to a webcam build and make sure the webcam doesn't heat up with minimal effort.
Using slightly better lenses, slightly better censors ( there is a ton of better cheap tech out there) and they might even hook up an old smartphone processor that is plenty for the camera.. and you probably can still make major profit selling it for 70 bucks.
This webcam market is simply horrific, there is no place you will get poorer bang for your buck, besides maybe security cameras, and it's simply because they can.
Here's the thing, I don't need a 4k webcam. But one that's actually sharp (not digitally sharpened) with a slight dof just because the glass is a bit better with half decent software and just the pixels that are in the censor actually being quality ones.. that should be doable right?
And it is, it's just about waiting for one company to be like "hey guys, you know what.. I am not going screw people over and actually make a good webcam".
Seeing as this is what Sony did on the slr market, I expect them to maybe do this?
How does using a camera with a capture card (the very alternative to Webcams I refer to) mean somehow you can make great cheap Webcams?
The tech inside those cameras cost far more than 70 dollars to manufacture. Hell, decent glass alone is at least 70 bucks, if not thousands.
@@EposVox with decent glass I don't suggest they go and make us a sony 35mm 1.4 equivalent, but just a bit better is a long way in webcam world, maybe provide some clip-ons that allow closer or wider views, macro, that are decent just as another selling gimmick, they seem to like those.
I don't expect 4k from a webcam either but the pixels being about half the quality my 3 year old phone has would be nice when they claim 1080p HD.
Someone else already mentioned there are decent tiny camera sensors and processors we know have a low price (compared to what we pay for them in let's say a phone) that could actually be easily used for webcams and improve the quality.
I've simply just hacked into older live view dslr camera's and simply streamed their live view via usb. This seems a good affordable way which I'd advice anyone over spending money on any kind of webcam.
Like you said, using capture cards is the alternative, but by the time one has all the bits and bobs to make this possible you usually have spent quite a bit if you're buying everything new.
And it's just weird that all we got as an answere for that from the webcam market is mediocre stuff for quite a lot of money.
With false advertisement, images shot with much better cameras used left and right in the marketing to boot.
As if they haven't lied enough making us pay 150,- for a product that might have cost them 20 maybe 30 bucks to produce, maybe another 10,- per unit for software if sales are bad but so far I've only seen features I've already seen with their other software in a new coat on the streamcam.
Add.
I haven't slept for 48h so I messes this up.
I was suggesting old tech, that has gotten cheap, can easily be used in webcams to improve them. Even if there's usb, processor and budget limits. Using the old dslrs as an example, not using capture cards, just the desktop live shooting preview software and an usb cable, probably not even capable of 3.0.
Honestly, I think I can get better quality out of a old digital canon powershot than the Logitech now readily available.
@EposVox What about POE Camera ?? I know they are big but there are some 4k once on a lot of Chinese sites
they don't exactly make for great webcams...
@@EposVox if possible try this out
www.aliexpress.com/item/4000449399638.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.127d4e37KInpR6&algo_pvid=455b0b45-c936-4d6e-a79d-1f89d7ba92f2&algo_expid=455b0b45-c936-4d6e-a79d-1f89d7ba92f2-3&btsid=7c515897-cd7a-46ca-9ab3-b6e11a29c8f1&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_10,searchweb201603_53
I'm not sure if I should be happy or not that this webcam might not surpass the brio I just bought less than a month ago?!
Is the Kinect good for a webcam?
No
Thank God you weren't around when they wanted to put computer-like high performance in a handheld device like a phone. Whew 😅
Not really sure about the Desktop processor being slow. Slow compared to what? A flagship mobile CPU may seem faster than a flagship desktop CPU because there is less information to process. Look at the file sizes on your phone compared to your desktop. In actuality, a desktop CPU is punching way more numbers in the same amount of time. Whether you notice that is a different story. Enough of my geeky criticizing, lol. I agree with you on the rest of the video.
Phone CPUs have fixed-function compute for processing the image sensor data, along with a direct full-speed bus to the sensor, whereas a webcam is always stuck with the latency and speed of USB. That’s why you always see camera improvements of phones paired with new CPU upgrades
@@EposVox thanks for replying. I agree with you on that. At 5:29 you stated how desktop processors are slow at doing anything. By "anything" did you mean in the context of processing an image? I originally took "anything" to mean standard computing tasks. That is irrelevant to the topic of your video, so I apologize if I misinterpreted your statement.
Well I think (this was forever ago) I more meant compared to dedicated compute units for a given task. I.e. cpu video encoding vs gpu encoding, etc.
CPU is a general purpose processor but always slower than dedicated ASICS/FPGAs/micro code instruction sets for a given task
@@EposVox I'm surprised you remember as much as you do. When I made the first comment. I mistook the release date of your video to be Feb 11, 2021 lol. I totally agree with you. I'm just starting to get into camera tech, while I am more tuned into PC tech. Overall, I enjoyed the video and found it informative. Thanks for chatting.
We like it alot
I just stumbled upon the Zoom Q2n-4K I think it might have potential.
@Netluxe TV yea it seems that the video is not the best. But viewed as a good microphone with a descent camera attached it's a steal,
What about crafting a "webcam" using raspberry pi for processing power?
Ehh most of the cameras for pi are low res or low fps and there isn't a fast enough interconnect available
@@EposVox There's a MIPI CSI on there, which is 1080p30. Through this interface, exactly two cameras are officially supported, Sony IMX219 and OmniVision OV5647, which both are 1080p30, and support higher framerates at lower resolutions. Camera support is in a closed source blob, so you can't just add a different sensor. The CSI is a VideoLogic peripheral, which includes also JPEG, MJPEG and H264 dedicated encoders. Pi Zero can be USB device via USB OTG port - on a full size Pi, the device function is locked out due to integrated hub and the OTG port is hardwired as host.
Seems like the investment into webcams is so low by consumers that we would rather use a camera that actually shoots like a 'pro' ish device. If there were super solid webcams on the market, more of us would go live and stream exponentially.
And yet whenever more expensive, but better webcams (BRIO, RealSense cameras) are introduced, they're not bought up as much. High quality camera-ing can't be done for the price of an 8 year old $40 C920
@@EposVox That's the kicker!
Having a shitty affordable little C920 doesn't prevent you from streaming. It's an involved endeavour that fundamentally requires bits of expertise in a huge number of areas - you need to light yourself, you need to pick up and process your voice, you need to set up the capture, you need to balance the computational resources and the performance needs of streaming software with the performance needs of something that you do want to stream like your game or your creative software or whatever, you need to take into account your internet connection quality, you need to manage the audience by entertaining it and moderating chat, you need to compose the presentation and branding, you need to be aware and follow the streaming platform rules, which a surprising number of people fail to do, you need to promote yourself to existing audience to retain it.
While amount of expertise in most of each of the areas is at the base line relatively minor and various software approaches are tried which keep making things just a little bit easier, the sheer number of areas of expertise that it touches makes it a fundamentally complex endeavour.
For Twitch streaming you don't need a blockbuster quality camera image. You don't need ultra detail in a face in the corner. It makes no difference.
they should sell micro 4/3 webcams it would be a great product
For smartphone webcams... DroidCamX
Cellphones use MIPI over CSI most modern phones are using 4 lanes. The upper spec for mipi can do 2.8GBps per lane that's bytes not bits. But anyone can easily figure out the bandwidth needed by a cmoss sensor every pixel has 4 sub pixels hdr sensors have 10bits per sub pixel sdr have 8bits per sub pixel so a HDR 4k sensor has 8,294,400 pixels X 4 sub pixels x 10bits = 331,776,000 bits per frame / 8 = 41,472,000 bytes per frame so a single raw hdr 4k frame is 39.55MB this X the fps of 60 = 2,373MB/s that's more then Any SSD can write if that was your ISP they'd advertise it as 18,984mbps lol far more then USB 3.2 gen 2 can actually do because most of the usb ports on your intel based pc are tied to a chipset with only 4 pcie gen 3 lanes that needs to pass data for all the things your chipset has control of like sound, SATA, and so on.
but that's uncompressed, you need that much ram but not that much bandwidth down the wire.
@@victornpb compression requires processing this is where webcams fall apart processing power cost money good sensors cost money and good sensor tuning cost a lot of money and time in RD. Honestly i want a web cam that's really just a big FPGA 1/2.3 sensor that's only 1080P 120 fps and cs mount lenses nope don't want auto focus or microphones. I do want hdmi out with 4:4:4 or true 10bit HDR.. but also USB 3 suport with HEVC, with lossless and lossy modes. While we are at this point integrating 2 small deapth cameras like intel real sense for on board background subtraction.
I might just design and build my dream web camera on my own lol.
Joe R.
Hardware engineer
Motorola Solutions inc.
But what stops you from attaching a smartphone to a computer as if it was a webcam? (aside from shitty software). PS I asked this very same question on the very same video you did a while ago.
Software and bandwidth so far
Nothing stopping you. iPhone + iVCam app + iPhone cable = webcam for PC. Allows for iso and exposure adjustment as well.
I use Logitech I have good lighting. And I get a fantastic video. Very happy with it.
We can see here a casual user with low expectations and no clue about tech devices
besser nicht Thanks
@@stuartwrigglesworth9339 no problem have a nice day
besser nicht Thank you and the same to you.
What really boggles my mind is Apple - the studio display and even the MacBook Pro cameras are total garbage, while the iPhone cameras, even the lowest model iPhone FRONT facing camera is a million times better - WHY?!
I don't believe this really. If a CPU can't process the video, a GPU certainly can.
Great content thanks. As you're very critical, I'm sure you'll appreciate my critique of your vocal EQing - too bright. You're compensating for lack of high end on the RE20 mic. You're pushing the treble too harsh. You'd be better off with a SM7B or a condenser mic.
Hope they're improved the webcams
I am using my phone as a webcam over network and it works fine.
which app? I bought eppocam but it is flaky, sometimes it crashes and doesn't give you any control, like exposure, focus, shutter...
@@victornpb ip webcam on my phone and obs on pc
zcam e2c would make a nice high end streaming webcam
So in short no major company has taken on the task of moving things forawrd. Probably because there isnt much money in it after a certain price threshold. If samsung or sony[for example] decided they wanted to make a much better webcam they probably could with thier eyes closed. Honest just how muich money is there to be made in a dissruptive high performance webcam?
I don't get it. Every point you make you also refute. Connection to pc: already done with things like stadia. Tiny sensor and processing power: cheap $150 phone has it. It can't be this small for this price: people have Google nests that are bigger and cost $60 and do less. Only the driver situation could be something.
Maybe just design one yourself and do a kickstarter. Or work with a phone maker like Huawei so you can connect one to the pc and use their camera tech.
Nest doesn't function as a webcam nor hold up any up-close video quality that people would want over what Webcams for a produce.
Stadia has literally nothing to do with this.
I didn't refute anything.
Amazing
FIRSTH
funny because i cant get my smartphone or gopro9 to look half as good as my 60 logitech camera
Tons of cheap(sub 100) action cams stream 720/60 & 1080/30 over usb now. Wide FOV, better sharpness than a Logi, and they usually come with enough mounts to put them anywhere.
Most of the cheap ones are a really crappy, also mjpeg, 1080i signal over USB. No auto focus since it's fixed focus, not much better than webcam
@@EposVox Beg to differ, outperforms all the webcams in low light, and the sharpness overall is better than a logi. Is it on par with a camlink etc, NO, but that's not the point I made. I've got a solid year+ of real world use footage to prove it. For the same price, most of them are FAR above the webcams. Find me a better streaming cam for 40$, I'll wait ;)
@@ScooterJackson I mean... there's also hundreds of these action cams available so we have used different ones. The ones I used are not any sharper over USB in useful ways.
And IMO "for $40" is a moot point, when this insistence on absurdly low prices is why webcam tech has stayed locked in 2012.
So now we are looking for comparisons of the new Streamcam vs Brio vs C920 (and/or C930)
What about the c925e?
SUB2R HYPE!
So what you are saying is just use my phone?
Also most people I am sure would be ok with a bit bigger form factor so that point makes no sense to me.
0:25 UA-cam gonna file the lawsuit to Logitech, oh no...
Well I bought one of the new logitech ones we'll see how it is soon streaming some PC building.
This isn't "explaining" why it cannot be done, you are just "saying" that it cannot be done. I, as a computer engineer, do not see what exactly prevents the digitized but raw data from an external sensor to be streamed onto a computer, for the computer to then process it.
What is the bitrate of this information stream, that it cannot be passed over 5/10/20 Gbps USB?
What magical instructions are these, that Qualcomm's Snapdragon has, my Surface Pro's Intel laptop CPU has, but my desktop CPU doesn't?
Given that you did not explain anything, and vacuously insisted on your stance, unfortunately you almost sound like you do not know anything.
The technical explanation of how the image pipeline works (which does involve a dedicated processing chip for the camera and feeding to the Snapdragon CPU) doesn't *really* benefit anyone here.
Your Surface Pro laptop has a USB webcam, as every laptop does. It doesn't have what a phone has.
I don't think Snapdragon 400 series is that expensive tho..
I do not think that logi will make, with these new release, what they are advertising. Just trash my brios cause just are junk, called drivers control, pick your pick. I the end g7 with cam link will.do the job
chats not moving, fake
So phones can actually be used as a webcam, and will be better than a dedicated camera until you get in to decently expensive cameras. I'm not even talking about using an ipcam app. You can 100% just use a capture card with it.