webcams

Dave is a YouTuber, and when he streams live, it works better using LTE and his smartphone than his webcam and desktop using Wi-Fi. Leo says that in theory, they should be the same. Leo says that his Logitech C930 webcam could be misconfigured. Or, he could consider better lighting. Better lighting is always an improvement and helps the camera to pick exposure, color saturation, etc. At the end of the day, though, his LG smartphone probably just has a better camera.

Ed bought a Wyze Cam, but he doesn't have a smartphone to control it. Leo says that he would need to get a cell phone or at least a tablet for it to work. eBay is a good place to get one for cheap. Can he run it from a computer using BSD? Leo says probably not. BSD is a good OS, but it's not used by very many people. Also, Wyze hasn't created a desktop app yet.

He could use an Android emulator like Bluestacks, but he may need Windows or Linux to run it.

Leon is a knife and armor blacksmith and makes videos on YouTube. He wants to improve the video quality over a webcam that he uses. He also needs a better microphone. Leo says webcams have a built in microphone that work close up, but from a distance, he'd really need an off camera mic. A USB microphone would work, since Leon uses a webcam. He would just need to configure it in the webcam software while capturing.

Melanie finally managed to get her Gmail fixed. After the computer tech removed malware from her computer, her webcam doesn't work. Leo says that there's a lot of people out there that know a lot about computers and considering how bad tech support has gotten, they can be valuable help. But sometimes they can break more than they can fix, and this is one example of that. Leo suspects that while the tech was cleaning out the malware, the malware attached itself to a file and it was then removed. Or, he wiped out Melanie's browser plugins. It's hard to tell.

Isaiah has a video podcast and he's looking for a better camera with which to shoot not only in his studio, but also on location. Leo says that camcorders are on their way out, but they're still around. He'll want one that has live video out (via HDMI is best) that he can then connect to his PC (the HDMI port has to be on his PC as well). It really comes down to how much he'll want to spend, and if he already has a still camera, then chances are he already has a camera to do the job.

John wants to set up webcams on his property and access them at work. Leo says he won't want to host those at home. He'll want to use a third party service for that. It has to run multiple cameras and from all angles through one stream, though. Leo recommends Nest Cams, which he can access online. Streaming all of those cameras will kill his bandwidth, but using one would be fine. It would send the stream to DropCam and then he can access it through a browser which can be accessed by multiple computers.

Brennan has Windows 10, but his webcam app is crashing. Leo has a hunch that there's a driver issue, and that going to the manufacturer website and updating all the drivers would solve it.

Leo also says to try another program that can use the camera to see if it works. If it doesn't, then it's definitely the camera driver. If it doesn't crash, then it's the camera app that's causing the problem.