c920 + ye olde netbook = camcorder?

[angrystan]

This is a technical question, and not camgirl-culture specific. I'm making an assumption someone who knows is lurking around here some place. I very strongly suspect someone around here knows about shooting video with the C920 rather than broadcasting out to the world. My phone takes really unimpressive video. I want to get back into making silly little videos and posting them like pretty much everyone else and her uncle is doing. I have noted that the legendary webcam is now $50, even when you pick one up at Target.

I think I want to use a C920 and an old netbook (Dell 1018) I have laying around as a flexible but unwieldy camcorder. The practical limits of this homemade device are accounted for in the video style I wish to pursue. This would not be for "broadcast" but for location recording, ideally at 720 or higher. I need an expert opinion. If anyone knows this device better than its manufacturer it's you guys. Can a crappy old, Intel-Atom netbook handle the data rate incoming from a C920? or are there other limitations I am not considering?

 

[AllisonWilder]

This is a technical question, and not camgirl-culture specific. I'm making an assumption someone who knows is lurking around here some place. I very strongly suspect someone around here knows about shooting video with the C920 rather than broadcasting out to the world. My phone takes really unimpressive video. I want to get back into making silly little videos and posting them like pretty much everyone else and her uncle is doing. I have noted that the legendary webcam is now $50, even when you pick one up at Target.

I think I want to use a C920 and an old netbook (Dell 1018) I have laying around as a flexible but unwieldy camcorder. The practical limits of this homemade device are accounted for in the video style I wish to pursue. This would not be for "broadcast" but for location recording, ideally at 720 or higher. I need an expert opinion. If anyone knows this device better than its manufacturer it's you guys. Can a crappy old, Intel-Atom netbook handle the data rate incoming from a C920? or are there other limitations I am not considering?

I don't see why it would be a problem. The first laptop I used for camming/recording purposes was a Dell similar to the one you're talking about. It couldn't hurt to pick up a C920, worst case scenario is that you have to return it.

 

[LadyLuna]

This is a technical question, and not camgirl-culture specific. I'm making an assumption someone who knows is lurking around here some place. I very strongly suspect someone around here knows about shooting video with the C920 rather than broadcasting out to the world. My phone takes really unimpressive video. I want to get back into making silly little videos and posting them like pretty much everyone else and her uncle is doing. I have noted that the legendary webcam is now $50, even when you pick one up at Target.

I think I want to use a C920 and an old netbook (Dell 1018) I have laying around as a flexible but unwieldy camcorder. The practical limits of this homemade device are accounted for in the video style I wish to pursue. This would not be for "broadcast" but for location recording, ideally at 720 or higher. I need an expert opinion. If anyone knows this device better than its manufacturer it's you guys. Can a crappy old, Intel-Atom netbook handle the data rate incoming from a C920? or are there other limitations I am not considering?

If the ram in the netbook can be upgraded, it will definitely not be a problem. However, if you're not sure of how to do that, the videos you'll get could come out choppy if you try to go all the way up to the full capabilities of the webcam. 320x240 will definitely work for it, possibly even 640x480. That's just the size of the picture though. For the quality of the video, the C920 is awesome. (on my clips4sale store, all the pictures are taken directly from the videos. Everything posted after May 2012 was taken with it. Everything before March 2012 was definitely the Logitech Quickcam 9000, which I believe they discontinued)

 

[angrystan]

Thank you both for some much needed perspective. I missed the window of opportunity for the $50 C920, but am carrying on.

 

[Tek]

I know this is kind of reviving a dead thread, but I thought it would be good to post this for anybody else thinking about this sort of thing.

The reason it's a bad idea to do this is because the video cards and processors in netbooks, especially the older ones, are not usually powerful enough to handle the video compression at that large of a video and still make it look good.
The C920 doesn't do any video or audio processing and leaves that to the recording program. Depending on which program and how the programmer did it, it will leave that to either the GPU or CPU.
To top it off, normally to save space, netbooks would used shared RAM with the system. Makes the process even slower.
Netbooks are fine for streaming videos, as long as the video isn't too large. I learned that the hard way.

To make the process work, you would have to have the webcam itself do the video and audio processing then send it all to the recording program. The Logitech C930e actually does this. It will allow great video with less system resources.

Hope this helps.

 

[angrystan]

The C920 doesn't do any video or audio processing and leaves that to the recording program.

Hold on. The entire object of the C920 over the Microsoft analogs and other cams is that it has an internal image processor, or have I not been paying attention?

 

[Tek]

That's what I've seen a lot of people say, but I was reading he specs of the different webcams. The C920-C offers video processing in the camera. The C920 offers it, but with "** H.264 recording requires installation of QuickTime®. " which is on the Logitech website. It means that it is software encoded, which sucks.