Please help me select a video recording camera for my YT channel

peligroraton

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Hi guys
I have a YouTube channel, it's doing OK now, over 80K subscribers

I teach electronic repair, I don't know if it is OK to mention my channel name here? Viewing a few of my videos would be relevant to my question.

I'll describe my current setup. I'm using OBS studio with several cameras, and do picture-in-picture in real time, then edit the video together with Davinci Resolve on another PC

I've just updated my recording PC using mostly second hand parts. It's now i7-7700K, 16Gb DDR4, RTX 2070 Super, Windows 10 64 bit on NVMe 500Gb, M2 250Gb as recording target drive, and a 4TB HDD. I have an additional PCIe 4 way USB3 card, along with the onboard 4x USB3 and 2x USB ports

Following is my recording system and I am looking for advice upgrading my cameras.

Mounted directly over my workbench I have a USB 1080p 30fps C Mount camera with 5mm-50mm manual zoom lens. This is also manual focus and aperture. - this is my main 'background' camera, it cost me about €70

On one of my monitors I have a USB 2K 30fps webcam, a cheap one from Ali Express, about € 22 and it is 'face cam' pointed directly towards me and usually displays in a small PiP window (though sometimes I expand it to full screen when recording an intro or outro to my videos.

I have another similar €20 USB 1080p 30fps webcam in a small desk tripod. This is 'instruments cam' and I position it to focus close-up on my multimeter or other test equipment as needed, it displays in a small PiP window below or to the left of 'face cam' when in use.

On my optical trinocular microscope I have another 1080p C Mount camera from Aliexpress. This one is 60 fps and has both HDMI and USB outputs, I'm currently using it on USB. This can display the view from my miscroscope in an inset PiP window but I often use it as the full screen background image, switching between bench cam and microscope cam when needed. It cost about €100 (just the camera not the microscope!!)

I also have a 60fps HDMI-USB capture card which i use to record the output of computers or graphics cards I am repairing, either PiP or full screen.

Lastly I have (but not using yet) two new Logitech Brio Ultra HD 4K webcams.

The setup works pretty well, I record and publish 4-5 videos a week. However I want to upgrade it as follows

I would like to go to at least 1080p 60fps as I often move PCBs quickly on the bench while working on them.

1440p would be a bonus, I'm not sure I need to go above that?

The main thing I want to do is to upgrade Bench Cam. I'm looking for at least 1080p 60 fps, similar or better optical zoom range than my C Mount 5mm-50mm but with auto focus. And auto optical zoom with a remote control would be ideal. The physical working distance of bench cam is about 90cm-100cm if that helps.

Upgrading it above 1080p would be nice, though not totally required, but I would still need 1080p 60fps to be selectable even if the camera supports higher resolution. This needs to either connect to my PC for live recording (and possibly live streaming) either by USB or HDMI, I could get a PCIe HDMI capture card if needed to use with bench cam, I have a few spare slots in the PC

The other problem I have is with video capture. I do quite a lot of retro PC repair, so I need to capture from VGA. Not gaming, just BIOS, Linux or Windows screen. And so far I have not got it working. I tried a couple of VGA-HDMI adapters to connect to my HDMI-USB capture device but it does not give a picture. Any suggestions gratefully accepted.

Lastly I am thinking of upgrading face cam and instruments cam using the 2x Logitech Brio, but do I really need to run these at 60fps if they are mainly in small inset PiP windows? I think OBS can sort this out for me in software.

Oh for audio I use an Audio Technica Omni Directional Condensor mic suspended above the werkbench at head height, a DJ mixer and an Audio Compressor feeding into line in on the PC.

Sorry for the length of this post, I hope I gave enough detail to help with replies, but not so much to put readers to sleep


best regards.
 
Last edited:
You just fail to give a link to your channel so one can see what your issue is.
 
You just fail to give a link to your channel so one can see what your issue is.
I wasn't sure if it was allowed to post a link

My channel is Learn Electronics Repair. I don't have a problem, I just want to upgrade further and would like autofocus, remote controlled optical zoom and 1080p 60fps, if a camera supports that resolution and also has higher resolutions available then all the better.

Here is the latest video I published


At 00:45 I am using bench cam + face cam (PiP)
At 03:20 I'm using bench cam + face cam (PiP) + instruments cam (PiP)
At 07:28 I'm using bench cam + face ca + instruements cam but you can see the manual focus on bench cam has drifted out a bit
At 11:12 I am using bench cam + HDMI capture + face cam but bench cam is out of focus a bit
At 18:52 I am using microscope cam + face cam (PiP)

As mentioned earlier it all works (currently at 30fps) but bench cam is manual focus manual optical zoom 5mm-50mm manual aperture, the focus tends to drift, or sometimes the item on the bench is raised up, and I want to replace this camerawith something that is 1080p 60fps (or better), autofocus and optical zoom using a remote control, or cable, rather than having to rotate the zoom and focus rings on the lens manually.

I hope that helps you to help me

best regards
Richard
 
I'm not convinced you need Camera-advice... the 2-fan video-card (?) was rather too close-up for me and you do talk quite quickly ...
Let me say..when one is face-to-face on a mutual subject, that's no prob. since any missed word can be guessed ... So, mates' conversations miss very little... BUT tech is (I Presume?) for folk that are trying to learn... so by definition they need to be led by the material presentation. There should be some Intro... =what will be covered and Reference to any prior work, or pdf's (data sheets), so you won't need to repeat what is already known by the audience.

Frankly it's VERY DIFFICULT to pitch correctly... very few folk will be "at" the pitch-level... some will know v.little and others will want to move on to the interesting stuff (er, hence my suggestion of showing what will be covered.).
More high-tech may be what is needed ( hence yr followers), but it's likely to be difficult to find the right-level. Some presenters do... but they are v.rare, IMHO. Obvious mistakes is to repeat oneself ( so a script is needed) and to avoid covering the view with hands, arms, soldering-irons etc... Lighting is another issue... esp. with close-ups. Yr YT sound-level is about-right... but WDIK? + Don't add music to distract//drown it out... should you want to move-on up..etc.

Good Luck.H.
 
I tried a couple of VGA-HDMI adapters to connect to my HDMI-USB capture device but it does not give a picture.
Were the adaptors just simple cables with the correct sockets on each end? If so then there is a good reason for them not working - VGA is 100% analogue and HDMI is 100% digital. It therefore requires electronics to convert from 1 to the other, and most likely a power supply for the converter.

For close video uses I would suggest you do not want to use auto-focus on the cameras as small movements will cause the camera to refocus on something else.

Mark.
 
Thanks for the replies
@MarkE19
No the VGA-HDMA adapters I tried were not just cables

The HDMI-USB adapter I use is this one, and it works fine connecting, for example, a PC or graphics card as the video source.

The two VGA-HDMI adapters I tried are these ones

Neither give a picture. I'm trying to do it this way VGA->HDMI->USB because all the VGA->USB adapters I have found are the wrong way round, USB input to VGA output

On the close up video (18:52 in the above video links) I'm using my microscope and I don't need to use auto focus as the distance between the item and the lens does not change

It's when using the C-Mount 5mm-50mm camera above the bench which is not quite so closeup, that I have the focus problem. The manual focus tends to drift, or if I move the object on the bench closer to the camera I continually have to change the focus manually. Here is another good example, my latest video published yesterday. You can see when i am lifting the laptop to show the LEDs on the edge of it I lose the focus. The current system I have is very difficult to work with for this reason



At 00:33 the multimeter is out of focus
At 03.25 the front edge of the laptop is out of focus when i am explaining what happens with the power LED
At 04:10 the whole rear of the laptop is slightly out of focus when I turn it upside down
At 11:36 the laptop screen is badly out of focus

I do know enough to understand some of this (especially at 11:36) is a depth of field issue, but if I reduce the aperture on the camera (it's manually adjustable) ti increase the depth of field then the image is too dark

@12harry
I appreciate your comments but my subscriber base don't seem to have an issue with my video presentation. I've already grown the channel from zero to over 82K subscribers in less than two years, and that is considered to be pretty good going in the niche that I operate. Based on current growth I'll hit 100K sometime back end of April this year, and not many electronics channels have more than 100K - though there are a few in the mid-high hundreds of thousands and a couple at least over 1 million but all of those have been around for 6-8 years or more. I have no prior experience of video production, I've had to learn all this myself from the ground up, and of course as is evident from my post here I am still trying to improve further


Richard
 
maybe the camera is too close causing the DOF issue. bit further away and longer lens. then may be able to get as you want in PP. Just a guess of course
 

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