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Comment by bradlys | Hacker News Reader

I hate to say this but it’s almost entirely not worth it.

The image quality only shows up here because they’re uploading images that they took from the camera locally. Trying doing it with Zoom.

The compression is absolutely terrible. You’re gonna find that you spent a lot of time and money only to see a decent quality image on your side. Everyone else is gonna see the same muddy mess that they always saw.

The image is always bad due to the compression. If you’re a twitch steamer or something where you’re doing a 50mbps bitrate then whatever. But for most folks - there is little to no improvement. Your best way to improve image quality would be to improve lighting. Even a good camera will have a bad image with bad lighting.

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Respectfully, I have to disagree. I have a similar setup to the one in the article (Sony A6400 + Simga 30mm f1.4) and the difference in image quality is dramatic _even over Zoom_. It is such an improvement that, in my experience, almost every first meeting that I have with someone over Zoom the other participant will remark on how good my picture is. The perception of "quality" has little to do with resolution issues or compression artifacts and far more to do with good framing/focal length, focus depth and bokeh all of which a good camera setup has in spades and all of which webcams lack.

The lens and sensor makes the biggest difference here - paints a completely different picture due to capturing light in the way were used to seeing in tv and film.

> The lens and sensor makes the biggest difference here - paints a completely different picture due to capturing light in the way were used to seeing in tv and film.

Not really true. It's often editing + lighting that really has the strongest effect.

$100k cameras can take dogshit videos and photos when you don't know how to edit them properly or know how to light the shot.

Let's all just be honest with each other. It's an equal mix of everything. An appropriate lens, lighting, and post-production.

I have the same setup. The image quality is noticeable. People comment on it regularly, and others using DSLR webcams can always spot it due to the perfect optical blurring of the distance. It took me a while to get it to work reliably and I annoyed people getting it working right, but once I did it’s fairly solid. Sometimes the video capture freezes and sometimes the camera even shuts down, but these are rare and I know how to fix them in a second or so. I am a little disappointed that two years into broad remote work and virtual life it’s not gotten easier to have a high quality audio and video capture.

This is absolutely not true.

I worked with a guy who used a DSLR as a webcam and his picture was totally remarkable over Google Meet and Zoom. The very first thing I did was send a screenshot of the meeting's tile view to a friend, asking if he noticed anything funny about one of the videos, and he easily spotted the one I was talking about.

Every time we had a new team member join the calls, they would immediately comment on this guy's ridiculously nice picture quality and ask him what kind of camera he had.

^ this, I use a Sony RX100V with a first gen Blue Yeti and 1) They consistently connect and work better than what my Windows-using coworkers experience with hardware built into their monitors (and I regularly use Slack, Zoom, and Google Meets every day and it works seamlessly across them all) 2) As you mention every single person every single time comments when they initially see it. Like 100% of the time without fail.

IMO as an expensive consultant™ I think it improves perception and is courteous to my clients to give them a higher level of production value.

Uhh Zoom is not going to erase the improved color balance and bokeh. Although I'll agree with you when it comes to the author's claim about fine-grained facial details being improved by the camera; those you'll almost certainly lose over Zoom compression.

Compression detail per bandwidth.

With blurred background due to bokeh, more bandwidth bits are available to the face detail. Nothing to tune, that’s just how constrained bitrate compression works.

Strong disagree.

Video streaming someone's work station is about as ideal as you can imagine for most codecs. There is VERY little movement, everything is consistent and stable. Change from frame to frame is ultimately what determines how good a picture looks at a given bitrate. Little change means the codecs can spend more bits on fine details.

Sorry, but have you actually compared the two? As another point of anecdata, I immediately noticed that my new coworker was using a proper camera during our first 1:1. The depth of field and crispness really stands out from your typical MacBook Pro webcam.

I think what a lot of people are underestimating is just how terrible most laptop webcams and cheap off the shelf webcams are in terms of image quality. Spending a bit on a half decent webcam can get you probably 85-90% of the way towards what you can get with a DSLR.

As someone who has actually used both setups, the DSLR setup was great but a pain to manage. Just for simplicity of my desk setup, I switched to a decently pricey webcam after doing some research for whenever I am WFH and the image quality for streaming video is very close to my Canon's. There are some tuning advantages the DSLR has that obviously the webcam doesn't give you so it will never be able to match it perfectly IMO but it is far superior to any of my laptop webcams and a far more convenient substitute.

I think you are mostly right, but I'd rank it like this (from best to worst combo of quality for time + cost):

1) "high end" webcam (~$200)

2) DSLR + capture card you already own

3) Any Webcam

[...]

10) Buying a DSLR and capture card only for this

You miss out on most of the benefits of a nice still camera when you use it this way - 90% of people will have less trouble and cost by just buying a better dedicated webcam. That said, some people need a nice webcam and need to produce video content - they SHOULD use this setup (or at least try it). Purpose-made webcams are "bad" as general purpose cameras but good at what they are sold to do - deliver good enough video that you expect to get murdered by compression.

I agree with your points of it not being worth it for most people and fixing lighting is a big factor -- however, even on zoom calls, using a proper camera / lens combo is very much noticeable compared to a regular webcam, regardless of the compression.

I've run a a6500/sigma 30 f/1.4 combo for a couple of months just for fun when COVID started and everyone noticed the quality difference. I ditched it in the end because it was way less convenient then to have a single usb webcam and nobody gives a shit about how you look.

Is this true? I know that Zoom can stream in HD, I can’t imagine the extra detail getting lost in those resolutions?

Bandwidth requirements for Group HD video

Standard HD (720p)

- 1-on-1 video calls: 1.2Mbps (up/down)

- Group video calls: 2.6Mbps / 1.8Mbps (up/down)

Full HD (1080p)

- 1:1 video calls:

-- Receiving 1080p HD video requires a minimum of 3.0Mbps.

-- Sending 1080p video requires a minimum of 3.8Mbps.

Group video calls:

- Receiving 1080p HD video requires a minimum of 3.0Mbps.

- Sending 1080p video requires a minimum of 3.8Mbps.

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/207347086-Using-Gr...

I know it says "minimum" there but it's likely going around that rate most of the time or lower. I've worked in environments where they pay tens of thousands of dollars per room to set them up with professional cameras, high end plans, etc. Compression ruins it all. May as well be a $10 webcam. There are other requirements as to how you interact with other members. You won't even get high quality unless you full screen + make it to where you can only see one member at a time.

> I've worked in environments where they pay tens of thousands of dollars per room to set them up with professional cameras

Me too. The value isn't so much in the quality of video, its things like PTZ control of the camera and preset control of the position of the camera. For example, in a larger room you can click a button 'whiteboard' on the control panel and it will pan up and zoom in to the whiteboard.

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