My new camera setup

I recently upgraded my camera setup for the spring semester. No, I did not add any more monitors. I am still at eight. I did consider adding an iPad as an additional touch display through the OS X “Sidecar” feature, but ultimately decided against it–for now.

I am now using the Logitech Brio 4K camera. This model has been around since 2018, but it is the best web camera on the market, short of an DSLR. It is also massively backordered, due to the pandemic. I was able to obtain one from BestBuy.com.

The image quality is fantastic. And you can zoom in and out to get just the right angle. Here is an interview I streamed over Skype:

And here is a recording I did locally, without any compression:

Alas, Zoom still compresses the image quality to crap. See the brief clip of me here:

Regrettably, my students will see the poor image quality on Zoom. But I will simulcast my classes this semester over YouTube at full 720p. (I am not confident my bandwidth can handle 1080p or 4K without buffering issues).

The Logitech camera also comes with Logitech Capture software. It allows you to seamlessly switched between the web camera, and screen sharing. I need to experiment with it a bit more for class. If my plan works, I will never have to click the “screen share” button in Zoom again.