Today’s Webcams Are Boring, So I Brought Back a Classic

Also what is the output? Can it do 1080p60? Forgive my naivety if I am asking something obvious

If you have a mirrorless that has a clean HDMI out signal, I highly recommend it.

for example:

1) hang on the wall with official display

2) sit on the table with official display

3) hang on wall with tiny display

4) hang on wall with epaper display

5) outdoor webcam

6) indoor tilt/shift webcam

7) webcam on top of monitor

8) small server case with space for gpio breakout inside and ports either routed to the back or through grommets

I mean heck, I've ordered a raspberry pi on amazon and I recall it was "#1 selling barebones" so I think there is money in it.

Meanwhile, I have a slightly tweaked version of uvc-gadget that does not jump to 100% CPU when the camera is off: https://github.com/rcarmo/uvc-gadget

Are there any good lenses out there that don't cost a lot?

I could not find any good demo videos from the Rpi HQ camera. There are either macro shots showing the background blur, or some terrible medium range ones.

If a good lens costs an arm and a leg, it is probably still cheaper to buy used entry level mirrorless camera, and it will also have autofocus.

I really wish there were better webcams and I would not have to result some bulky mirrorless/dslr or iphone with droidcam.

1. This doesn't work on OSX yet. Works really well in windows though.

2. There's no microphone. I'm looking for a directional mic setup for the rpi but haven't found anything I'm satisfied with yet.

3. The 6mm lens is total crap. The 16mm lens is decent but the zoom makes it difficult to use as a webcam. I'm still looking for a good rectilinear lens in the 4mm to 8mm range that has minimal distortion and doesn't cost an arm and a leg (after all, the whole point of this is to do it on the cheap). There's no obvious candidate yet.

4. Commonlands has a couple M12 lenses that look promising. I'd prefer a C mount but you have to go with what's available. I'm going to pull the trigger on one of them to test out when I get back from vacation.

5. Arducam has a bunch of lenses, but I find them to be very strange. Maybe it's a language barrier issue, but the videos and the marketing copy are all very odd and don't quite tell you what you want to know. It feels like a Chinese company masquerading as an English company. It's all weird enough that I'm not ready to pull the trigger and purchase one of their lenses.

6. Focusing is a pain in the ass with all these lenses. You will not have the same experience as a typical webcam but once you have the focus dialed in things look great. Just don't move.

7. The HQ camera is very capable but it's limited by the bandwidth limitations of the pi interface. 1080p 30fps is the max you'll get. Don't expect 4k video.

For those that weren’t around at the time it’s hard to overstate just how over the top ubiquitous that ad campaign was.

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[1] https://wiki.preterhuman.net/Connectix_QuickCam

Quickcam now fails to provide a hardware ID but the Intel works.

No Intel drivers this old built into Windows 10 any more or from Windows Update, but there was no need for Windows 9x or the matching VfW or WDM drivers on the original CD.

By the time Windows XP came out there were built-in NT WDM drivers for Intel cams right there in the INF & SYSTEM32 folders.

In Windows 10, pointing Device Manager manually to those XP folders gets the cam working without any need for compatibility mode or anything.

Then the Windows 10 Camera App can not detect the installed WDM cam, but Expression Encoder or VLC have no problem at all.

Incidentally if you are using Windows 10 on a primary partition of a system booting in BIOS (not UEFI) mode, that means you traditionally have a WINDOWS folder on your NTFS _C:_ volume, not much differently than in previous decades. Ideally your NT6 BOOT folder would be on your C: volume too, and that partiton would be Actively bootable instead of some separate hidden boot partition. The NT6 BOOT folder migrated toward hidden during Windows 7 support period. Both NT5 & NT6 work with either combined or separate Boot & System partitions.

So you're basically ready to install XP alongside W10 (without reformatting of course) into its own dedicated folder other than WINDOWS. I suggest the folder WINXP instead of the WINNT name that was also shared by W2K and earlier NT. The XP setup routine will prompt you to create a different folder on your target volume if there is already a WINDOWS folder there. You will have already needed to rename the W10 Program Files folder to something like Program10Files so it will not be replaced by the XP install. The only other folder written by XP setup is Documents And Settings, so there will be a real folder there when finished and W10 can handle it no differently than the default symlink it carries for backward compatibility.

Simply XP setup will overwrite the bootsector of your Active volume with an NT5 NTLDR-seeking version, put NTDETECT.COM, BOOT.INI, and NTLDR on the root of your Active boot volume next to the NT6 BOOTMGR and BOOT folder already there, and write the three WINXP, Program Files, & Documents and Settings folders to C:.

And act like you no longer have Windows 10 unless you know better.

Windows 10 is of course still properly installed too, but it will need a BOOTMGR-seeking bootsector again which can be easily replaced from the command prompt of W10 install media using the BOOTSECT.EXE command. Before you boot back to Windows 10, you need to also rename the new Program Files folder to something like ProgramXPFiles, and rename Program10Files back to plain Program Files.

Then it will act like you don't have XP any more

So then you add an NTLDR entry to the W10 boot menu using BCDEDIT.EXE, not a difficult exercise, and you get freedom of choice.

When XP boots it doesn't use the Program Files folder anyway until you actually try to run a program residing there.

So you can do file management, and lots of other things when booted to XP whenever you want with fewer headaches many times than NT6.

Even without drivers for all your devices, none of them current either, and default low-resolution graphics.

Too bad going forward Intel is discontinuing BIOS support leaving only UEFI on its branded mainboards.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/reviews/B00001U0AJ/

> If you have a slow computer (less then 200mhz) the pictures will be a bit fuzzy and the lighting is bad.

https://www.amazon.com/Electop-Male-FireWire-Female-Adapter/...

All those problems went away when I switched to pi zero. Other problems invited themselves though.

I have been using an old smartphone as webcam for quite some time now, and I got to say it works quite well. The only problem is the power supply, because video recording draws a lot of power it drains the battery even when it's plugged in.

Of course, an out of the box solution with UVC would be much nicer!

Those are, I believe, rather simple to adjust.

I often use my own barebones WebRTC thingy for 1:1 meetings and get crisp video.

Most people's Zoom video is poor quality because it's "garbage in, garbage out". Barely-passable camera, and lighting that's actively hostile to picture quality, because nobody cares as long as your face is more or less visible.

It's true that the bandwidth isn't there to push 4k. But being decently lit, with a real depth of field, large sensor and aperture, and the flattering effect of a good focal length, all adds up. I look a lot better than the other people on the call, and people notice and comment on that.

This isn't worth a few grand on its own. But if you have other uses for decent video and photography equipment, or just find yourself needing an expensive hobby, you'll get a substantially better effect with it.

And I haven’t done anything about my lighting which is pretty terrible. At least I can set the exposure for my face regardless of whether the background ends up solid white or black.

I recently upgraded to a gaming laptop with no camera at all, and for a moment thought my remote working life would be burdened by expensive and clunky extra hardware to avoid seeming ineptly suited to working from home. Instead it's only burdened by awkward phone placement, but the image quality is much better than before.

Never had anyone say that with my laptop integrated cam on wifi. My guess is that now that every laptop has a camera and a mic just above the keyboard, we are just used to seeing shitty images and hearing garbled sound but apparently, it does make a difference.

it will take years before good quality webcams become the norm. we are only just starting to see them with built in IR sensors in mid to higher end models