Good cam / shitty cam

[bawksy]

I told her before she needed more light and I got scoffed at.

Well she's got more boobs than brains I guess.

Getting models to upgrade their cams is incredibly difficult. I've gotten scoffed at quite a few times, sometimes out-right banned because they think I'm a troll. Low-earning models can't afford to upgrade their cams, and high-earning models don't see a reason to. Other girls are just in denial.

 

[ZoeyMore]

I told her before she needed more light and I got scoffed at.

Well she's got more boobs than brains I guess.

Getting models to upgrade their cams is incredibly difficult. I've gotten scoffed at quite a few times, sometimes out-right banned because they think I'm a troll. Low-earning models can't afford to upgrade their cams, and high-earning models don't see a reason to. Other girls are just in denial.

Well that's just it- she makes bank with her current set up, so there really isn't any incentive to change. I have nothing negative to say about her- she seems like a nice person, but I haven't been in her room since then because of the horrible lighting- which contributes to the bad frame rate.

And I will say- after Tuesday and yesterday's car show, I realized first hand how crappy laptop cameras are. The difference between the laptop cam and my old Logitech was astounding!

 

[RedHot_Desire]

I know my Best Buy had the Logitech Pro 9000 on sale for $59.99. We went to buy a webcam last weekend since I couldn't get my camcorder working for that purpose and chose this one since it always recommended. We were surprised when we saw the sale price at Best Buy matched the Amazon price. We bought the last one they had. Just something to check into if you are wanting to get one!

 

[bawksy]

This girl made me laugh hard today. I dropped by her room to tell her that she's a cute girl, but she should upgrade her webcam because it's all blur. She told me it was just my eyes, and then she banned me.

Bitch is in denial, this picture speaks for itself. Bad blur, bad color.

Oh and she wasn't moving when I took this. It's not motion blur. Her cam is just that terrible.

 

[Mikeythegeek]

Allow me to add to this by featuring a girl who is pretty damn popular on another cam site, but just started on MFC on Friday night. Her popularity is despite having a pretty shitty cam that she has decided to bring with her to MFC.

 

[AmberCutie]

Allow me to add to this by featuring a girl who is pretty damn popular on another cam site, but just started on MFC on Friday night. Her popularity is despite having a pretty shitty cam that she has decided to bring with her to MFC.

She looks really cute! I hope you've advised her that investing in a $70 logitech 9000 camera would not only pay for itself very quickly but be crucial to her success int he long run.

 

[bawksy]

This is a girl was a rising star back when she first started a few months ago. You know, the type who gets a lot of hype in the lounge, with everyone speculating that she might be a new top player.

Well, her camscore has been stagnant around 2k for months now. Her attitude is part of the problem, but if I'm posting about her in this thread, you don't need to guess what the other problem is:



Even when her lighting situation isn't completely fucked, you can tell that she could still use a sharper cam.

 

[bawksy]

GabiDubroc is another former "rising star" who hit a plateau around a 3k camscore. Her cam is pretty decent, and I don't really know what's keeping her from moving up, but what the shit is up with the ghetto little microphone?

 

[Daisy]

Brutal honesty... love this thread. :-D

 

[pyrite1965]

That's just bawksy, don't worry....

or do

 

[bawksy]

Now, this thread is supposed to be about "good" models with shitty cams. There are hundreds (thousands?) of crappy models out there with crappy cams, and if I wrote about each of them, Jerbs would run out of server space.

So I stumbled across these 800-camscore girls today, and I heard one of them say "but I DO have a quality cam!!!"

Sub-par color, and even worse Pinkee-style pixelation due to low resolution capture. Frame rate and motion blur aren't horrible, so I'd put this cam at "poor" but not "Faerie-terrible".

What pisses me off is that these girls are new, kinda cute, and might have potential, but are completely oblivious to the fact that they have a poor cam. And with so many top models who have shitty cams, there's really nothing proving that having a good quality cam is even necessary.

 

[VenusFaery]

Dude, Bawsky, I would actually love your opinion on my cam and lighting (I actually know my lighting is crap, but I'm working on it.) What I really want to know is which of my cam set ups are better. I have a camcorder and a logitech 9000. Would you be willing to stop by my room some time to let me know what you think?

 

[bawksy]

Yeah if you add me to your friends list, it'll show you when I'm online. Then send me a PM when you see me online and I'll drop by.

 

[VenusFaery]

Sweet, thanks

 

[Tambourine]

I admit having a crappy camera, but it does seem to work better with some kinds of lightning, though complicated. I'd like to get a better cam but they are really expensive here in Argentina... and dont even get me started on how much it costs the shipping if i want to get it from amazon or that sort of places, and it takes forever to deliver as well.. I really want a better camera and im saving but its hard. I do have a camcorder but it doesnt work as webcam since its one of those with harddisk instead of a DV one, I try to borrow my friend's dv camera as often as i can but there is a limit to that.. Hopefully getting a good one soon.

 

[bawksy]

You can use an analog camcorder (the kind with the tapes) as a webcam, you just need the right capture equipment on your computer. And it can look good too, but it's a bit harder to do right.

You'd think a digital camera/webcam would give a better picture, but it's not necessarily the case. A lot of webcams are pieces of shit, as most of the models featured in this thread can attest. MFC only broadcasts video at 320x240, regardless of what you feed it. 320x240 is pathetically low. Just for comparison, that's about half as many pixels as standard def 480i TV. The point is, an analog camcorder can definitely saturate the MFC feed.

The challenge is making the most of the few pixels that MFC gives you. If your analog camcorder is good with your lighting situation, has minimal motion blur, and your computer can receive and digitize the image properly, you can get a fantastic MFC feed with an analog camcorder.

 

[bawksy]

Ok so VenusFaery, here's the deal with your camcorder. Actually I think the camcorder is absolutely fine, but your capture equipment on the computer end needs adjusting. I mentioned it in your chat but it has an extraordinary amount of jpeg/mpeg-style compression artifacts. This pic demonstrates what those are:



So here's a 3x zoom of your image.



Notice how you have lots of compression artifacts surrounding pretty much every straight line. Most models don't have that issue. My guess is for some reason, your capture equipment is over-compression the incoming digitized stream. This is hopefully something you can adjust, because everything else seems fine.

Or just use the Logitech 9000 :-D

P.S. remember to click on the above images to zoom in

 

[VenusFaery]

Eeep, I didnt know it looked like that on the member's side. I'll see if i can do anything about it with the camcorder. Still working on the logitech.. need to find the install disc.

 

[pyrite1965]

Eeep, I didnt know it looked like that on the member's side. I'll see if i can do anything about it with the camcorder. Still working on the logitech.. need to find the install disc.

Actually if you plug in the cam, Windows should auto detect it, and load the correct drivers. I even get software updates from Windows Update.

 

[AmberCutie]

Seems this girl has been around a couple months and looks pretty cute. Canadian, talks a lot/interacts with the members. But she looks so.... green.

I'm sure there's a setting on her cam to correct the colors, and she also needs more light in front of her instead of over her head. Too many girls depend on the light from their laptop screen to illuminate their face.

If anyone knows this cutie, maybe pass the word along?!

 

[AlexLady]

Bwasky, you said that analog cameras are harder to get right. What suggestions do you have or what common mistakes have you seen?

 

[Cassidy Nicole]

If you need the logitech software you can just get it off their website

 

[bawksy]

Bwasky, you said that analog cameras are harder to get right. What suggestions do you have or what common mistakes have you seen?

Well with an analog setup, you have two possible places where the image quality can get degraded instead of just one. The camera itself needs to be right, and then the capture equipment needs to be right too.

The camera itself is responsible for things like aperture adjustment (light sensitivity), focus, and motion blur. Most analog cameras are pretty good at all of those things. As the video is being taken, the camera needs to send the image out over an analog cable. If you use a crappy composite (yellow) cable, you can see some image degradation. S-video (black) is ideal.

Once the video makes it to the capture equipment, it has to be digitized. This is where settings make all the difference. If you capture at too high of a resolution (above 640x480), you're not gaining anything over the incoming NTSC 480i analog picture. If you capture too low, the image will appear blocky and pixelated. It's probably best to choose a resolution between 320x240 and 640x480. MFC broadcasts at 320x240, so theoretically that's the ideal resolution to choose, but most capture equipment will compress the incoming stream into MPEG or MPEG2 video, which has some compression loss. If you can crank the compression quality to as high as possible, do it. Otherwise, choosing the higher 640x480 resolution will help compensate for compression loss.

If you have a really crappy capture card, it's probably doing most of the rendering in software. That means you need to have a fast computer to keep up with the live stream.

 

[ps3guyhere]

bad cams =logitech express they work good during the day and shitty and blury at night

 

[FifthElephant]

Bwasky, you said that analog cameras are harder to get right. What suggestions do you have or what common mistakes have you seen?

Well with an analog setup, you have two possible places where the image quality can get degraded instead of just one. The camera itself needs to be right, and then the capture equipment needs to be right too.

There are also some features that are hard to get working well with webcam class hardware, that some other cameras - for example cameras aimed more at the 'security camera' market have built in.

Somewhat higher light sensitivity can be one, as well as _stupid_ zoom, and pan/tilt/zoom remote.

 

[AngelicTease]

Do you know what makes the bandwidth of a cam low? On MFC mines usually under 100kb per second, and when I move, I go all blurry so at the moment I have no choice but to sit on my arse doing bugger all coz my cam wont let me do anything fun, lol. I tried doing wii fit and where I was moving I looked like a big blurry blob.
I'm sure I do so badly on there because of just sitting on my butt doing nothing though, so it'd be awesome if someone could help/knows what the problem is! Then I wont have a numb bum so much as well, yipeeee.

 

[ZoeyMore]

I just got the new Logitech C910 yesterday (woot) and it is fucking amazing. Seriously. Amazing. Crisp, clear picture,and great audio- at least according to the people in my room.

For 100$ there is hardly no reason to go get one.

 

[FifthElephant]

Do you know what makes the bandwidth of a cam low? On MFC mines usually under 100kb per second, and when I move, I go all blurry so at the moment I have no choice but to sit on my arse doing bugger all coz my cam wont let me do anything fun, lol. I tried doing wii fit and where I was moving I looked like a big blurry blob.

Simple test.

Record the video with something else - if it looks OK - it's not really the cam.
(or it's the way the MFC software sets up the cam - which may be harder to fix, but anyway.)

Another thing that can do this with some cams is low light.

For some cameras, 'low' light can be really quite bright, and when it drops too low, to get any sort of picture at all, they slow the framerate down to 5 or 6 frames a second.

Try _lots_ more light.

Thirdly - http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/ - or whatever - your cam stream can't go any faster than the upload speed of your connection.

- this is 350K upload, which isn't terrible, but could be better.

 

[AngelicTease]

Do you know what makes the bandwidth of a cam low? On MFC mines usually under 100kb per second, and when I move, I go all blurry so at the moment I have no choice but to sit on my arse doing bugger all coz my cam wont let me do anything fun, lol. I tried doing wii fit and where I was moving I looked like a big blurry blob.

Simple test.

Record the video with something else - if it looks OK - it's not really the cam.
(or it's the way the MFC software sets up the cam - which may be harder to fix, but anyway.)

Another thing that can do this with some cams is low light.

For some cameras, 'low' light can be really quite bright, and when it drops too low, to get any sort of picture at all, they slow the framerate down to 5 or 6 frames a second.

Try _lots_ more light.

Thirdly - http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/ - or whatever - your cam stream can't go any faster than the upload speed of your connection.

- this is 350K upload, which isn't terrible, but could be better.

Do you mean, make a video with the cam?
I'll try using more light next time I go on.
This is the speed test thingy:


I use a logitech something 9000.
If it's not my webcam or the internet that's the problem, could it be the laptop?
Thanks for the help so far.

 

[FifthElephant]

Do you mean, make a video with the cam?
I'll try using more light next time I go on.
This is the speed test thingy:


I use a logitech something 9000.
If it's not my webcam or the internet that's the problem, could it be the laptop?
Thanks for the help so far.

Yes - record a video using some other video recorder software - I'm not sure what you'd use.
I would not expect it to be the laptop, when running the cam software is the CPU at 100% - if it is, that might be indicating it's struggling, but in that case others are probably best to advise - it's been a while since I've run windows, and I've no idea how the MFC girl software works.