You may also be meeting up with pals or family members by video to ease COVID-19 isolation. How to use a Sony Alpha or Sony RX100 series camera as a webcam (Mac and.If you’ve recently joined the work-from-home brigade, you’ve probably discovered the joy (or pain) of using video conferencing apps like Zoom, Skype and Google Hangouts. Spedal Wide Angle Webcam 120 Degree 1080P HD Webcam with Microphone for Desktop or Laptop Video Conference Computer Camera for Mac or Windows TENVIS 1080P Webcam FULL HD Webcam with 120° Wide Angle, Streaming Camera with Microphone, Low Light Correction, Plug & Play, with Tripod, PC/Win/Mac OS/Skype/Zoom/YouTube, Business Conference LiveCamTwist can interpolate that Syphon data and create a readable video stream.Designed for compatibility with video conferencing applications on Windows ® and Mac computers, PTZ Pro 2 complements any audio system or speakerphone.Here’s an option you may not have thought of. Simply connect PTZ Pro 2 to the conference room computer or your laptop through USB, and you’re good to go. Even worse, you may not have a webcam at all and every store you’ve checked is out of stock.USB plug-and-play connectivity makes PTZ Pro 2 a breeze to deploy and use.There are a few pitfalls to beware of, though. 60 FOV Plug and Play for Mac Pro Laptop Desktop Computer PC Online Class.The results can even be much better than a webcam, making you the most presentable person on your Zoom call. If you own a Mac or another camera model, however, you’ll likely need to get a video capture device.Cisco TelePresence Precision 60 Video Conferencing Camera - 60 fps - 1920 x. In some cases, particularly with select Canon, Nikon and Sony models on Windows, you might not even need any extra hardware at all.
Now, here’s a quick guide on how to connect your camera and PC.Before we talk about hardware and software, don’t forget that you actually need to mount your camera somewhere. While we’re not recommending any particular camera, nearly any model will likely deliver a better image than what you have now. Luckily, we’re here to help. Canon recently unveiled the beta EOS Webcam Utility software (Windows only) that allows you to output video from select models directly to your PC. And while you can input to a USB port, most cameras can’t convert video to an IP (streaming) signal.Many Canon and Nikon models can stream video without too much effort, however, so let’s start with those. That means you can’t plug a camera into your HDMI port because it’s only capable of outputting not inputting video. The problem is that PCs don’t have built-in video capture cards. For USB-C cables, I’d recommend the Anker Powerline II and Amazon Basics for HDMI to HDMI, mini and micro cables.Connecting a fancy mirrorless or DSLR camera to a computer might not seem that hard, given that most have USB and HDMI outputs. Video Conference Camera Download And InstallAnd because it takes a while to process the camera signal, your video image will be slightly behind your audio — by about a quarter second, in my case.Still, the results were worth it. You can’t use your Canon camera’s built in microphone (nor an external microphone), so you’ll need a headset or external mic. Now, when you open Zoom, Hangouts or any other video conferencing app, you can select EOS Webcam Utility Beta as your web camera.There are a few caveats, here. Next, you turn on your camera, put it in movie mode and adjust the exposure and focus settings to get the look you want. You download and install the beta software, restart (ugh) then connect your compatible Canon camera to your computer using a USB cable. (SparkoSoft keeps a comprehensive list of supported models here.)To use it, you download and install the utility, then plug in and select your camera. It supports newer Canon and Nikon models, including the Nikon Z50, Z6, Z7, D5 and D7500. Suffice to say, I put them to shame during our weekly meeting (above).While Nikon doesn’t seem to have a webcam utility, you can go hardware-free with an app called SparkoCam (Windows only). Once you have video, then you need to use OBS Studio and add Display Capture as an input source. On your PC or Mac, you’re going to need Sony or Canon’s remote software, OBS Studio open-source streaming software and the OBS virtual cam plugin.To make this work, you first stream the Sony or Canon cameras to your computer using the remote software. First off, you’ll need a recent Sony model (including later RX100 models, A7R II and up, A7 III, A7S II and A6300 and later) that has a PC remote option under the USB connections menu. On the plus side, buying the app gets you extra features like green screen and limited video effects.If you’re willing to do a real kludge, there’s another method that works for both Sony and Canon cameras, with the bonus that it works on Macs, too (though currently not with Zoom and WebEx, see update below). The free app also puts an ugly watermark on your video, so you’ll need to pay a minimum $50 for a Canon or Nikon license. As with Canon’s utility, audio from your camera isn’t available, so you’ll need a headset or external mic and will have the same sync issues. Crazybump crackOther good models include the $100 IOGear HDMI to USB Video Capture Adapter, the $199 Blackmagic Design Intensity Shuttle, $239 Elgato Game Capture HD60s or if you want a lot of fancy switching features, Blackmagic Design’s $295 ATEM Mini (above). What you need is a USB capture device that takes the HDMI signal from your camera and converts it to a streaming USB video signal.I’d recommend the $129 Elgato Cam Link 4K, as it’s well supported and relatively cheap. For a more precise description, see this video.If you own another camera, you’ll likely need to splurge $100 and up on some extra hardware. This time, it’ll be even more out of sync with your microphone audio, but at least it works. You’ll find that the video and audio are out of sync by as much as a half a second, but OBS will let you delay the audio so the video can catch up.Then, when you go into Zoom, Skype and other apps, you’ll see OBS-camera as one of the webcam options. Finally, you turn OBS Studio itself into a webcam by setting it to output as a virtual camera (I did warn you that it was a kludge). If you really need your PC, you can use Android or iOS devices with your computer via apps like DroidCam (Android) or EpocCam (iOS). A smartphone is another option, as most video conferencing apps work on phones, too. It will stay in sync with the video and you’ll also get a lot less lag than you would with the software-only solutions mentioned above.Doing this is a lot of trouble and possibly expense, so is it worth it? For some folks, a webcam is certainly the least amount of hassle (if you can get one). Better still, they’ll accept audio input from the same source, so you can use the built-in or an external microphone for optimal sound quality. Most of the time, you just need to install the included software, plug your camera into the capture card then plug the capture card into the USB port on your computer.Once set up, any video conference app should recognize your camera as a webcam both on Mac and PC computers. The article has been tweaked to reflect that information. After a bit of work, I looked like I was in a Terrence Malick film and definitely enjoyed seeing the mild envy on my fellow editors’ faces.Update 12:57 PM ET: As pointed out by several readers (thanks Dave) and Twitter user Zoom has “ temporarily removed” macOS support for virtual cameras used by OBS and CamTwist.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorStephanie ArchivesCategories |