December 2nd 03, 09:42 PM
I realized that with the price of the cheaper dv camcorder, I saw in ads for $300, that this
was getting low enough in price that it is aproaching webcams. The thing is that camcorders
have 4 things that cost money in addition to the camera that wouldn't be needed for a computer
1. A 3 inch or so color LCD
2. A tape recording drive
3. A viewfinder
4. Support to be portable and work with a battery.
Since we all know that webcams don't have the quality of a real camera because they make
the computer handle handle the video; the more expensive route has been to use a
camcorder and plug it into a firewire capture card on you're computer right?
BUT I want to know if any company has realized that they could simply make a dv camera
"webcam" that has firewire out that would actually perform as a real camera. This would send
video out of the firewire port. You would get the color, resolution, constant frame rate of 24fps
etc. and this would be a giant step. The price would be closer to the $100 range that people
spend for a good webcam and it would not have the performance stereotype of a webcam.
It would be a "real camera". Anybody else follow? This makes too much sense! Make sure
you know I'm not talking about webcams that simply connect to a computer using firewire, that
don't actually use firewire to send pure video. For example if you plug the webcam into a tv
with firewire and you don't get a picture then its not a real camera, its that thing we have been
calling a webcam because it splits the job of a camera with your computer to do the work of
making an image.
was getting low enough in price that it is aproaching webcams. The thing is that camcorders
have 4 things that cost money in addition to the camera that wouldn't be needed for a computer
1. A 3 inch or so color LCD
2. A tape recording drive
3. A viewfinder
4. Support to be portable and work with a battery.
Since we all know that webcams don't have the quality of a real camera because they make
the computer handle handle the video; the more expensive route has been to use a
camcorder and plug it into a firewire capture card on you're computer right?
BUT I want to know if any company has realized that they could simply make a dv camera
"webcam" that has firewire out that would actually perform as a real camera. This would send
video out of the firewire port. You would get the color, resolution, constant frame rate of 24fps
etc. and this would be a giant step. The price would be closer to the $100 range that people
spend for a good webcam and it would not have the performance stereotype of a webcam.
It would be a "real camera". Anybody else follow? This makes too much sense! Make sure
you know I'm not talking about webcams that simply connect to a computer using firewire, that
don't actually use firewire to send pure video. For example if you plug the webcam into a tv
with firewire and you don't get a picture then its not a real camera, its that thing we have been
calling a webcam because it splits the job of a camera with your computer to do the work of
making an image.