End-user perspective on small office tools & technology

Webcams in 2016: Where are the USB 3.0 models?

roboshot-12-usb-front-300pxIt may seem like my long, winding exploration of webcams has stalled, but I assure you that’s not the case. I’m moving as fast as the industry will permit. The fact is that the industry just isn’t moving very quickly.

Back in October 2013 I first penned something about my hunt for a USB 3.0 webcam. At that point there were basically none to be had. A few months later when Vaddio presented their Huddlestation product on VUC472 they mentioned that USB 3.0 capable chip sets for such devices were anticipates later in 2014.

Well, it’s now well into 2016 and where are the USB 3.0 webcams? I actually get asked this question quite a bit, most recently in a tweet from George Ou of ZDNet.

While I responded to Mr. Ou, the question comes up often enough that I’d best address it here in the open.

There are some USB 3.0 webcams available. These tend to take the form of PTZ cameras for use in video conferencing situations. Minrray is a leading manufacturer of such cameras. Their North American presence (Minrray.com) is fronted by Conference Room Systems, an AV reseller in Pennsylvania. CRS offers a line of cameras branded as PTZ Optics.

True to their word, Vaddio now offers some USB 3.0 connected cameras. Their ClearShot 10 (pictured, $1700 ) is a fine example. A remote controlled PTZ camera with a 10X zoom range, it has both USB 3.0 and Ethernet connectivity. Its sibling, the RoboShot 12 ($3400) adds Gigabit Ethernet with POE+ support and HDMI video output.

What Does USB 3.0 Get You?

Both these cameras give us some insight into what’s possible when leveraging the increased bandwidth of a USB 3.0 connection to the host computer. The Ethernet connection delivers an H.264 encoded 1080p30 stream via RTSP. The USB 3.0 connection supports uncompressed 1080p60. Both connections are active simultaneously, which makes it possible to centrally monitor the compressed feeds while also making an uncompressed local recording to a computer.

Basically the USB 3.0 connection allows software that’s not written to leverage on-camera compression (UVC 1.1 allows MJPEG, UVC 1.5 allows H264) to achieve 1080p60 operation.

That was not what George Ou was seeking when he posed his question via twitter. He was seeking a webcam that could deliver a 4K uncompressed stream. More specifically, he sought a camera capable of 4K (3840 x 2160) in 4:4:4 color space. His aim being to down-sample that to a more optimal 1920 x 1080p at 10 bit color depth. Shutter Angle has a nice article on why you might wish to do this.

Sampling – 4:4:4 vs 4:x:x

chroma_subsamplingMr. Ou’s desire for 4:4:4 color sampling is notable. All the webcams I have used (many more than a normal person) sample the video frames in some kind of 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 manner. Most “video” is conveyed at 4:2:2, or even 4:2:0 sampling, where the amount of resolution in the color planes is dramatically less than the luminance portion of the image. This has long been done to conserve bandwidth and storage. It’s based on the understanding that the eye is much more sensitive to the brightness of the image than its color. A high-resolution black and white image can be overlaid by color at reduced-resolution and the eye thinks the image looks fine.

There are times when full-resolution in the color channels is helpful or even necessary. The most common being when recording green screen scenes to be composited in post-production. Recording in 4:4:4 is used to ensure that the compositing process is a clean and seamless as possible.

In reality, the matter of color channel sampling breaks down into two paths, driven by application:

  • The superior imaging provided by 4:4:4 sampling (even 8:8:8 on rare occasion) is used for production applications, where sustaining the image quality is paramount.
  • Lesser sampling schemes are deployed in distribution of the finished work, like encoding for DVD, Blu-Ray or streaming.

Mr. Ou’s goals were lofty, hardly what you’d consider “a webcam.” They had a lot more in common with the BlackMagic Design Production Cameras, although none of those cameras provide USB 3.0 connectivity. A high-end camera feeding a 4K capture card or USB 3.0 capture device is mostly like to meet his requirements.

The simple fact of the matter is that at this very moment in time there still aren’t any 4K webcams commercially offered.

An Exception..Maybe.

Ok, there may be one…sorta…from Altia Systems. This company, just a few years old, makes a USB-connected camera designed for video conference applications. It delivers a 3840 x 1080 pixel panoramic video stream . The camera actually stitches together the streams from a trio of 1920 x 1080 sensors to create the panoramic stream. It’s not a single 4K sensor.

altia-3-cameras

In truth, the Panacast 2 camera ($995) is novel. The extra large image size allows it to synthesize a kind of PTZ (they call it ePTZ)  functionality without the cost of complexity of PTZ hardware. The client application thinks it’s dealing with a normal UVC camera, but the “shot” can change in respond to UVC PTZ commands.  It works with any client app that would use a webcam.

The Panacast 2 camera has a USB 2.0 connection. It’s ability to deliver MJPEG compressed frames enables 3840 x 1080 pixel, 4:2:2 sampled, 8 bit frames at 30 frame/sec in around 100 mbps. That assumes 20:1 compression as I’ve described previously.

The Panacast 2 camera is reminiscent of the Polycom CX5000/5100/5500/8000, except that it’s not tied to Microsoft Skype-For-Business. Also, with a field of view of 180 x 54 degrees it’s panoramic, but doesn’t deliver a full 360 degree field of view.

Close

I gather that Conference Room Systems will be announcing their next generation of cameras next week. There will surely be some USB 3.0 connected models offered.  Although I doubt very much that they will offer 4K resolution. It’s more likely that they move into on-camera H.265/HEVC compression to reduce the bandwidth requirements for all the existing video formats.

Update:

As of Q1-2017 there’s finally a couple of USB 3.0 webcams. The Razer Stargazer and Logitech’s Brio.

This Post Has 12 Comments

  1. This one might be of interest: http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-broadcaster/razer-stargazer
    As far as I can see, the first USB 3.0 webcam with a reasonable consumer price. Records in 1080p30 or 720p60, and has a whole bunch of other features. It’s targeted toward gaming streamers and the like, but I can see it being useful for many other kinds of users as well. Released in Q2 2016, with a listing price of $199. I am excited to see how this turns out!

  2. FML, where are the $20-$50 usb3 webcams? if they can make a 1080p sports cams for that price then the usb bit shouldn’t cost any more than a battery.

  3. The main problem in my eyes here as I didn’t exactly read your article, admittedly, but skimmed and noticed: “that the industry just isn’t moving very quickly.” which I wholly agree with… As I too have been looking for a USB3 1080P Web Cam for over 5 years since I built my Sandy Bridge Desktop in 2011 before USB3 even hit in full force but still has 2 of those wonderful blue ports and 6 of the older non blue 2.0 ports xD… Anyways, as much I would still love manufacturers to take advantage of whatever benefits there may be outside of sheer data transfer speeds… That relies on software developers / specifically manufacturers in-house teams of people responsible for designing not the ‘extra’ software/bloatware per se but the “Firmware” as it were/is I guess still. Here we run into a whole mess of gross not-worthy-of-mentioning variables, so I won’t. What I will say is: as a long-standing participator of well… Having a “Career” in General IT for well over a decade now; if you want basically want to over simplify the problem I am trying to elucidate on it would be greed/human nature, I suppose, again however that’s just a variable and or a philosophical dilemma, at most. Certainly not a technological problem realistically though. Eh, before I ramble on all the way to Mordor [wow that sounds so much more geeky these days then it did when hardly anyone at least in my age group even knew who Tolkien was.. If it was not obvious, I was more referring to the Led Zeppelin Song, but yeah…]

    In closing if you only read this sentence: personally, I would much rather have a ~4K+~ `Thunderbolt/NFC dual mode` Webcam as my upgrade to my current Creative Labs 720P one.

  4. Hey folks..can anyone help me identify the size of the USB camera market in North America..and if 3.0 will be a key selling feature for buyers in Q4 and 2017? Any info you can provide will be appreciated.

    1. I can’t speak to market size. You need to do, or have someone do, some market research. This can likely be bought from the likes of Wainhouse.

      As to feature requirements…what buyer exactly? The market is not monolithic. There are simple desktop users, streaming production folks, enterprise video conference, etc. Are you talking cameras $1K.

      1. Thanks. I am referring only to buyers in the commercial enterprise segment. 3.0 seems great but trying to identify if this will be a key selling feature for my buyers.

        1. It seems like CRS, Vaddio & a few others think it’s important. I wasn’t so sure. I wonder if MS recently breaking application access to encoded streams will have an impact.

  5. The thing that irritates me the most about webcams hasn’t been the lack of quoted resolution and frame rates. Nobody really NEEDS 60fps from a webcam EVER, and twitch streamers are no exception to this fact. The issue is the lack of sharpness. The logitech c920 has been the standard for quite a while now, and even at 1080p, the actual sharpness of the image pales in comparison to most 720p camcorders.

    The brio is a welcome upgrade, but at $200 a piece, they’re not going to move very many units. They probably won’t see a jump in sales until the price comes down to under $150.

    But even if one were to splurge on the Brio at it’s current market price, the device is riddled with issues related to it’s resource demands as is quite clear from the amazon product reviews. A top of the line system is necessary to deliver the quality it claims to offer.

    ALL I WANT IS SHARPNESS.

    I don’t need or want 4k. And I don’t want to run the camcorder at 4k in obs just to crop or scale it back down to 1080p all in the name of that extra sharpness. Why is it that a 720p camcorder that costs less than $200 deliver superior sharpness than a 1080p webcam that doesn’t cost much less than that, and why is it that a 4k webcam can’t be made that won’t destroy my computer in the name of capturing a sharp 1080p picture?

    1. Adam,

      Amen, brother! When the C922x shipped I openly questioned the value of 720p60 in a webcam. I asked in the OBS forums. I asked on Reddit. No-one had an answer beyond, “more is better, right?”

      Sharpness is about quality of lens and sensor. I’m quite interested in the C920’s hacked to use real lenses: https://www.mgraves.org/2017/04/hacking-the-logitech-c920-c930e-webcams/

      It’s also why the sub2r camera has some real appeal: https://www.mgraves.org/2016/07/coming-soon-a-pair-of-new-usb-3-0-webcams/

      Brio is a mixed bag. It’s better in some ways, not in others. In fact is worse in some ways because it’s noisier. That’s the logic consequence of a very small sensor with high-resolution. Small sensor elements with high self -noise. OK in a well lit room, noisier than the C920/930 in a marginally lit room.

      Webcams are a mass-market, convenience item. If you want quality video “webcams” are not the appropriate choice. Get a real camera of some kind and a capture device. Real, adjustable glass lens. Deal with the reality that it won’t sit neatly on top of the monitor.

      None of that is cheap or convenient, but it delivers the goods.

    2. You could go with USB camera modules, which are UVC compliant. The Omnivision OV2710 and Sony IMX322 are good Sensors.
      e.g.
      https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2megapixel-1920-1080-MJPEG-30fps-Mini-USB-Camera-CCTV-Security-Camera-1080P-Full-HD-Camera-IR/32795422831.html
      https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Full-HD-1080P-H-264-USB-IR-Camera-SONY-IMX322-CMOS-2-0MP-Bullet-USB-Camera/32807638406.html
      https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2-8mm-wide-Lens-ATM-CCTV-Android-Linux-USB-Mini-Ir-Night-Vision-Dome-Camera-UVC/32754452715.html

      This one has a mic included, but you need to add an ir cut filter.
      https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2MP-Sony-IMX322-Android-Linux-Windows-H-264-30fps-Webcam-HD-1080P-Camera-Board-With-Audio/32775026334.html

    3. No one really cares what you decide others need or require.

      If you want sharpness, stop looking at webcams and look at actual cameras on tripods. If you want small look at gopros or the like. Not difficult.

  6. Whats with the strange desire for USB 3 on your webcam? All you need is incam compression to be at or under USB2.0 and youre fine. Be it 4K at 60fps or 1080 at 120. 60MBps is way more than enough for both of those at very high quality. So this is a bizzard angle to be looking. If you want an actual recording setup, youre not looking for a webcam.

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