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Comment by spiffytech | Hacker News Reader

The post-covid internet is rife with stories where people discover their classmate/coworker is a Twitch streamer because the person pops onto Zoom with high-quality lighting and camera and their picture quality is so glorious that everyone else's looks like a fuzzy classic film by comparison.

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.

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That and decent cameras were immediately out of stock. A $99 Logitech 922 gives a perfectly usable image but you couldn't find one for that price for months, if at all.

You can have a basic mirrorless with “clean” HDMI live view and MS2109 for that price, if you don’t mind buying ones that were collecting dust on someone’s shelf

I was able to get a c920x last week for $69, and while I am super happy with it, the video quality really sucks for 2020.

Ah when the iSight came out, the best thing about it was the stereo microphone array inside of it. Well, that and it looked amazing. Microsoft has a camera that looks like a crappier version of the isight called the lifecam.

> where people discover their classmate/coworker is a Twitch streamer

Link?

Anecdotally, that's how my team found out one of our co-workers does some Twitch streaming. He has a really good mic, camera and a 3-point light setup.

It's how my team had it reiterated that I like to mess around with things like this (especially when I'm already working from home).

I still just have the basic Microsoft 1280x720 USB webcam that I grabbed from the office when we left in March. Phone-as-webcam was more trouble than it was worth, but it did get me playing with OBS for better control over exposure, white balance, gamma, etc.

From there I rigged up a couple of desk lights and clamp lights I had around for better lighting. Then I got a cheap green sheet to replace the white sheet I'd hung behind me to hide the junk room I've been using as a temp office. Then I hooked up a Shure mic to the old USB audio interface I used to have hooked up for messing with guitar.

So now I've got the best sound, lighting, and video-loop backgrounds of the team. Yay? ;)

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