Webcam: What Do I Need To Look For?

[brandondrury]

I'm doing quite a bit more video work on many levels and it seems having a quick and dirty way to capture my beautiful, gorgeous face while I'm explaining this stuff may give my videos the sex appeal that is currently going to waste.

The only problem is I'm a total idiot when it comes to consumer electronics and I can't even stand reading up on it. It's all too "consumery".

So what does my black ass need to look for in a webcam? 1080p wouldn't suck. I have no idea why I'd need a remote control, but all the instructional videos of girls taking their clothes off seem to utilize this feature.

My setup is a bit crazy, but as is I'm capturing my screen on my recording computer with a Blackmagic card on my video computer. The audio comes from Bus 5/6 on the console. I really don't want to have to use the audio on the webcam so hopefully however I end up capturing this won't fight me there. I'm assuming the audio interface portion of these webcams is your usual USB variety and easily defeatable.

Any thoughts?

Brandon

[bozmillar]

Are you looking to do live streaming stuff or record tutorial stuff with screen captures and whatnot?

I know it doesn't really matter, but when I see a video that looks like a good camera was used with good lighting and good sound, the creditably instantly goes up 1000%. Nothing is worse than watching a video on how to eq vocals and listening to their sound through the camera mic, it's just lame, even if the info is good.

[brandondrury]

I have two motives for this.

1) When I'm doing screen capture tutorials I'd like the ability to cut in to me talking into the camera every once in a while to bust up the boredom some.
2) I did the interview with Danny Danzi last night via Skype and it would have been cool to do video with this.

This camera I'd have setup to face me when I'm working. For most of my videos I turn around to talk simply because this makes more sense in the room and dumb people are more impressed by the stupid shit I've bought.

I guess I could solve the problem by using a lav mic instead of one of my LDCs for the videos and then when I turned around the sound wouldn't change. That could work. It would involve editing for all the videos. In the past I've thought lavs sounded like 10 turds smashed into one.

Which....thinking out loud....I'm not sure if audio can ever sound good live. So maybe I just need to accept the fact that I need to spend 3-4x times as long to officially edit the thing.

I do have the fancy lights and HD camera. Maybe I just need to work those into some kind of better workflow. Hmmm.

Brandon

[Stan_Halen]

I guess I could solve the problem by using a lav mic instead of one of my LDCs for the videos and then when I turned around the sound wouldn't change. That could work. It would involve editing for all the videos. In the past I've thought lavs sounded like 10 turds smashed into one.

Didn't you say at one time you had a shotgun mic for some video work? (maybe you just borrowed it?) That might not be any better if you're turning around, but if you can position it just right and some distance it might work better than those others? Just a thought.

[wankerone]

Sounds like you want three video streams or recordings. You have good lights so I would not bother with a web cam but I would get a pretty cheap digital cam, regular cam that captures video. Put it on a stand and capture the whole shoot live from a different angle. You are not going to broadcast live so cutting it together is no big deal. But the different shots do make it look more pro quality. Make sure you have a camera stand. The only problem is retakes. You can just keep going or stop and start the cams. Change in camera angles hides all the retakes though. In our documetary thing we shot the interviews with two cameras at the same time. Great for interviews. I sound like a moron, but the shots def make it more pro. If you watch this for like a minute you get a scene fade and angle change in the interview. But for straight up talking it makes you look better and it is more interesting. I started it at 6:33. Don't bother going much past a minute and a half. We used a cheap boom mic about three feet away, a lavalier, and three lights. The cameras are pretty good for this but we shot plenty of stuff with like $150 digital cams that came out great, bright lights mean everything with them.
Picture Perfect - Face The Facts Documentary - YouTube

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