Some people are not satisfied with a webcam from their notebook or an old webcamthey bought many years ago.
My brother decided he wants to try streaming. Some people can just do a thingand other people want to research all the bits and pieces beforehand. Our chathistory is comparable in length to all my other chats combined, so I learned alot of it as well. The craft is full with small details and inconveniences. Free slots x12.
He found that there are basically no good webcams. A lot of the time an imagequality is meh, and the rare presence of 4k is usually not better than 1080p,because resolution is not quality. Some camera apparently does upscaling from1080p to 4k in its driver, indicated by poor quality and high CPU load. He alsohas a really good camera, Fujifilm X-T1. It can't be used as a webcam whenconnected to a USB port. Usually it's possible to buy an HDMI-to-USB converter,but his camera can't output a live stream into HDMI, only a recorded video.
This is the best webcam available for online streaming, and it goes above and beyond to make you look your best, even under poor lighting. The best option for streaming. Integrated LED lighting and image optimization modes provide a clear image in all conditions. Features 1080p, 720p, 480p, and 360p resolution modes. The Logitech C270 Webcam can be gotten for as little as $20 or less! It's wholly adequate with enough light. It only does 720p and it's USB2 so I can't enthusiastically recommend it but it's OK again, if you throw light at it. In the dark is just a webcam. Ok just to clarify, of course a wide angle can become narrower by cropping and most decent webcams have software to do this, but you lose quality, so I am wondering if there is: 1. A webcam with a fixed not-very-wide angle lens OR 2. A webcam with a zoom lens which can therefore become not-very-wide by zooming.
So we had an idea — maybe it is possible to create a good webcamourselves. Would anybody care? Well, it's almost 2021 now, streaming is still onthe rise, pandemic is going strong and video meetings are everywhere. People arewilling to spend some money, as indicated by countless videos on YouTuberegarding the problem.
Let's start with defining what is a good webcam.
A good webcam, in my opinion, is a device that provides a decent sound quality,at least on par with recent MacBooks, and an image quality on par with topsmartphones, such as iPhone 11/12, Huawei P40 Pro, etc. As smartphones have agood image quality, then we could probably manufacture a webcam from smartphoneparts that are cheap and easily available. How hard can it be?
If you've read at least a couple of articles on the topic of video production,you will know that to make quality content from the technical standpoint youneed three things, in that particular order:
- Sound
- Light
- Video quality
Let's discuss these properties and later how to manufacture it.
Sound🔗
Macaw 1 0 1. If you have a recent MacBook, it provides a decent sound quality with itsthree-mic array. I haven't researched it and don't know much about othernotebooks' audio quality. If you have a desktop PC, you have to have someexternal mic anyway.
If the web camera has shitty audio quality, you'll have to buy additionalgear. When I researched the topic, one of the recently released webcams(available from October 2020) with RRP of $180 was producing a sound as if aperson sits in a big plastic barrel with a closed lid. Their voice was verymuffled with lots of resonant rattles. That level of quality wasn't acceptable10 years ago, how this piece of gear could have been produced in 2020 escapes myunderstanding.
There are many good enough USB mics for $50+, you also can buy a great XLRmicrophone for $100, but then you'll need an external sound card with phantompower supply. A decent one can easily cost you $200.
With almost any of these options you'll have to install and configure somesoftware that will provide sound level compression, noise suppression (becauseyour notebook fans are spinning like hell) and won't produce clicks in theprocess.
I would like my webcam to do this by itself, no rattling, minimized echo, etc.
Light🔗
A lot of what makes a picture great comes from lighting the scene in a correct way.
The simplest thing is to sit in a room so the window is in front of you and theSun isn't shining into a lens from behind your shoulder.
Webcam cannot provide decent lighting capabilities by itself, so I won't spendmuch time here. There is a webcam byRazerwith a built-in LED circle, but it's necessarily small, always shines from awebcam direction and is mostly a gimmick.
We can rely somewhat on the good sensor here. If it provides good dynamic range,HDR capabilities and good low-light performance, then a patch of sunlight on thewall won't turn everything else black, or a poorly lit room won't turn into agray noisy picture with a bleak silhouette.
Image quality🔗
It's impossible to get a good lens and image sensor into a notebook lid, becauselids are very thin. They're often something like 4 mm thick all together, andthere is no escaping physics. Of course, it's possible to put a webcam into athick part below the lid, but then it'll be useful for expressing anger at ourcolleagues with wide-open nostrils and not much else.
Maybe some crazy engineer in the future will develop an array of small sensorswith an array of tiny lenses and somehow combine all that into a good imagequality, but we don't have this tech yet. Any smartphone with a good camera hasthat camera with an ugly protruding lens as a thickest part of the phone.
So, if you want something better than a notebook's webcam, you can get someLogitech webcam with an image quality going back to 2012. It's still better thana laptop, but nowhere close to current smartphones.
What if you want better still? The next option is to install an app on the phoneand use it as a webcam. This gives a very good image quality, but it's veryinconvenient and in some applications doesn't work at all. For some reason itisn't always presented in applications as an option when choosing a videosource.
I don't want to constantly attach, detach, charge my phone and tune the position ofa small tripod. What's the next option?
The next option is to just buy a mirrorless photo-camera with a big fat 4/3' oreven APS-C sensor. It will cost $500+ for a new one (you can buy used forcheaper). You will also need some gear to hold the camera in place, as it won'tjust rest on the top of the screen like a regular webcam. You also need anHDMI-to-USB video grabber, and you need to be sure that the camera you buy canoutput full resolution live onto that HDMI. Also make sure that it's possible toturn off all on-screen info like 1/100s F3.5 ISO 800, which is useful whenyou're shooting photos and videos through viewfinder, but not so much whenyou're in a video meeting. This feature is called 'Clean HDMI'.
Of course, you will have a lot of control over the whole stuff — set adiaphragm, get good bokeh, set ISO, set white balance, etc. Do you actually needit? Well, some of you do, and a lot of you do not. I learned all that stuff whenI was 16, but now I'm pretty happy with how my phone chooses everything for meand just does great photos.
Light🔗
A lot of what makes a picture great comes from lighting the scene in a correct way.
The simplest thing is to sit in a room so the window is in front of you and theSun isn't shining into a lens from behind your shoulder.
Webcam cannot provide decent lighting capabilities by itself, so I won't spendmuch time here. There is a webcam byRazerwith a built-in LED circle, but it's necessarily small, always shines from awebcam direction and is mostly a gimmick.
We can rely somewhat on the good sensor here. If it provides good dynamic range,HDR capabilities and good low-light performance, then a patch of sunlight on thewall won't turn everything else black, or a poorly lit room won't turn into agray noisy picture with a bleak silhouette.
Image quality🔗
It's impossible to get a good lens and image sensor into a notebook lid, becauselids are very thin. They're often something like 4 mm thick all together, andthere is no escaping physics. Of course, it's possible to put a webcam into athick part below the lid, but then it'll be useful for expressing anger at ourcolleagues with wide-open nostrils and not much else.
Maybe some crazy engineer in the future will develop an array of small sensorswith an array of tiny lenses and somehow combine all that into a good imagequality, but we don't have this tech yet. Any smartphone with a good camera hasthat camera with an ugly protruding lens as a thickest part of the phone.
So, if you want something better than a notebook's webcam, you can get someLogitech webcam with an image quality going back to 2012. It's still better thana laptop, but nowhere close to current smartphones.
What if you want better still? The next option is to install an app on the phoneand use it as a webcam. This gives a very good image quality, but it's veryinconvenient and in some applications doesn't work at all. For some reason itisn't always presented in applications as an option when choosing a videosource.
I don't want to constantly attach, detach, charge my phone and tune the position ofa small tripod. What's the next option?
The next option is to just buy a mirrorless photo-camera with a big fat 4/3' oreven APS-C sensor. It will cost $500+ for a new one (you can buy used forcheaper). You will also need some gear to hold the camera in place, as it won'tjust rest on the top of the screen like a regular webcam. You also need anHDMI-to-USB video grabber, and you need to be sure that the camera you buy canoutput full resolution live onto that HDMI. Also make sure that it's possible toturn off all on-screen info like 1/100s F3.5 ISO 800, which is useful whenyou're shooting photos and videos through viewfinder, but not so much whenyou're in a video meeting. This feature is called 'Clean HDMI'.
Of course, you will have a lot of control over the whole stuff — set adiaphragm, get good bokeh, set ISO, set white balance, etc. Do you actually needit? Well, some of you do, and a lot of you do not. I learned all that stuff whenI was 16, but now I'm pretty happy with how my phone chooses everything for meand just does great photos.
All that sounds pretty involved, isn't it? It is a lot of time to research whatyou need, how to set it all up, and a lot of money too.
Manufacturing it🔗
So there is a market gap between so-so webcams for $100-200 and a full-blownsetup with a mirrorless camera, an external mic and lighting panels that willcost almost a grand or two, if you're so inclined.
I thought that it is a good idea to create an 'upmarket' webcam for $250-300that will provide good audio and video quality, on par with current smartphones,actually using the same parts. As smartphones are made in tens of millions, allrelevant parts should be cheap and easily obtainable.
I quickly contacted some people who could help me do the project — firmwareengineer, electric engineer and a company that does mechanical design.
What features are needed for a good webcam for streamers and video meetings?Audio: good parts (mics and ADC), good mechanical design and assembly (sonothing would rattle), and some post-processing. We certainly want somebeam-forming capabilities to be able to focus on the person in front of thewebcam, so we will need more than one microphone, maybe up to 4. These parts areeasy to obtain, there are many in stock, it's not a problem.
Even if I think that 4k is not needed, I'm pretty sure it's really a requirementto have in an upmarket webcam, as it will be really hard to sell a pricey webcamthat can only do 1080p.
Also would be very nice to have some neural network inference on the chip, so wecan run some AI stuff directly on the webcam without bothering a user's computerthat can be busy with other things.
I easily found a three-piece assembly for the iPhone 11 Pro for fifty bucks,two-piece from a Huawei P40 Pro for twenty five and a one-piece from P40 Lite forten dollars. That's with a lens, and bought in retail. Does it mean it costspeanuts (less than $5 for a sensor) to buy in bulk to produce my own webcam?Well.. Maybe. I can't just go and buy a couple thousands of these sensors. I'mpretty sure I can buy a couple thousands of replacement parts for phones, butsensors themselves are not sold freely. It's easy to buy some 'random' sensorthat was around for years and most certainly has 'meh' quality by today'sstandards, but we need a good one, with good dynamic range, HDR capabilities andlow-light performance.
I wrote to several vendors asking them what are the prices and conditions, andbasically their answer is either silence or 'we'll sell it if you will buyhundreds of thousands per year'.
I've found suitable System-on-Chips, and it's the same — if we want to havehardware 4k encoder, it's either 'sorry, it was a demo part and we don't do it',or 'we have limited support capabilities, so we can only sell if you will buyhundreds of thousands, maybe you want some SoMs from our partners?'. It isactually possible to buy System-on-Modules even in very small quantities, butit's going to be pretty expensive and will be good for a prototype, but forproduction it will blow past our budget. System-on-Module will cost almost thesame as the web camera itself.
Oh, and a lead time (from order to shipment) is systematically 16+ weeks. Itmeans they have no stock and will place an order at semiconductor foundry, haveit produced, packaged and sent to customer. Swiftly.
It means I cannot just build five hundred webcams, see how good are they sellingand build a couple thousand, and so on.
There is also a plastic injection step that requires upfront investment tomanufacture molds, and of course design and engineering costs. All combined itwas tens of thousands of dollars. I was willing to risk it and was pretty surethat in the worst case scenario it would be just a cost of my experiencebuilding hardware product.
But if I have to commit to a hundred thousand units or more, it means I wouldneed to pour millions of dollars (that I don't have) to manufacture an obsceneamount of devices that I don't know how to sell.
Folx go 5 7. I thought about it for a couple of days and understood that I approached theproblem from the wrong angle at the beginning.
The actual problem is not how to build a good web camera. The real question ishow to sell it in quantity! Is it possible for me to sell hundreds of thousandsof pricey webcams per year? If I know I will sell it, I can find an investmentfor that.
Let's describe my situation here. I'm a co-founder atprophy.science which is a SaaS, and I work on itfull-time. I can probably spend 20% of my time on something else, but Icertainly don't want to abandon it completely. I also have two small beautifulkids, and I really don't want to move to Shenzhen to organize a big productionthere.
Going to market🔗
Ok, what's the current size of the market? Luckily, there are public companiesin the market, so we can go look at their reports to see if there is anythingmeaningful. And there is, Logitech says they have about $130M in revenue fromsales of PC webcams. I think they're the biggest player in the market by a longshot, and they sell something like a few millions of webcams ayear. That's.. not much?
It means that I have to sell like 10% of the Logitech shipment size, right fromthe start.
Sorry, what?
It's an established player in the market with all the distribution in place,with a very recognizable brand, and here am I, knowing nothing about how to sellhardware products, and there is seemingly no way to slither into the market andscale.
Well, maybe there is, but I don't see it. Maybe I could pull it off by divingdeep down and going full-time on the problem for years, but it seems much morerisky now.
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Also I should mention that this market is basically indefensible. Whatprevents established players from doing pretty much the same, when they will seethat there is a good niche? They just go to the same suppliers, get same orbetter parts/prices and crush a startup using their established distributionchannels.
I remember a staple phrase from a lot of interviews, something along the linesof 'If I knew how hard it would be, I wouldn't do it'. Here we are, knowing howhard it will be, and not doing it.
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I'm just going back to my SaaS, which is much more defensible, thank you verymuch.
My brother actually startedstreaming,so you can go watch him code a snake game in ClojureScript andReact.
Answering the question in title: you can't buy a good webcam because existingplayers seemingly don't think it's a good opportunity, and for newcomers themarket is hard to enter.
We're also lucky that camera manufacturers added clean live HDMI intocomparatively cheap cameras, so we don't need to spend $3000+ to set it all up.
