Why is Adobe Podcast Studio capturing my Elgato Facecam 4K at only 1280×720 instead of 1080p or 4K?

I am experiencing substantial video-quality degradation when recording video directly in Adobe Podcast Studio using an Elgato Facecam 4K.

Hardware / source

• Camera: Elgato Facecam 4K
• Camera Hub reports the camera operating at 3840×2160 (2160p) at 30 fps
• The image in Elgato Camera Hub is sharp, detailed, and properly exposed
• Browser: Google Chrome on Windows

Problem

Video recorded in Adobe Podcast Studio is substantially softer and lower-detail than the image being produced by the camera. The loss is obvious in facial detail, hair, clothing texture, text/background detail, contrast, and overall sharpness.

I initially thought OBS Virtual Camera might be causing the degradation, so I tested both configurations:

1. Elgato Facecam 4K → OBS → OBS Virtual Camera → Adobe Podcast Studio
2. Elgato Facecam 4K → Adobe Podcast Studio directly, with OBS completely removed from the video path

The substantial quality loss remains when the Facecam is connected directly to Adobe Podcast Studio, so OBS does not appear to be the cause.

I then checked what Chrome is actually receiving from the camera while Adobe Podcast Studio is actively recording.

Using chrome://webrtc-internals, the Adobe Podcast media-source (kind=video) reports:

• width: 1280
• height: 720
• framesPerSecond: 30
• track.discardedFrames: 0
• track.totalFrames: 6440
• track.deliveredFrames: 6440

In other words, Adobe Podcast Studio appears to be acquiring the camera at 1280×720 @ 30 fps, even though the Facecam is operating at 3840×2160 @ 30 fps.

The zero discarded frames are also important because this does not appear to be a case of the computer failing to keep up with the camera stream.

WebRTC Internals also shows an active outbound VP8 video layer at frameHeight=360. I understand that this may represent Adobe's WebRTC preview/network layer rather than the resolution of the locally recorded master.

Additional test

I downloaded the separate/original Adobe recording rather than relying solely on the video displayed inside the Adobe editor. The original recording is somewhat better than the Adobe editor/project representation, but it still shows a substantial loss of fine detail compared with the image coming directly from Camera Hub.

Therefore, the degradation appears to be occurring at or near the camera-acquisition stage rather than simply being caused by the final Adobe export.

What I am trying to determine

1. Is 1280×720 currently the maximum camera acquisition resolution in Adobe Podcast Studio?

2. If not, why is Podcast Studio/Chrome acquiring a 4K-capable Facecam at only 1280×720?

3. Is there a setting or supported method to make Podcast Studio acquire the camera at 1920×1080 @ 30 fps?

4. If Podcast Studio intentionally limits camera acquisition to 720p, why can a project be exported as 1080p when the underlying camera source has apparently been acquired at only 720p?

5. Are there plans to provide user-selectable camera recording resolution/quality settings?

I specifically purchased and use a high-quality 4K webcam for video podcast production, so the difference between the camera's image and the Adobe Podcast recording is significant.

One additional issue: I originally attempted to submit this through Adobe Community's Report a Bug workflow. After selecting “None of these match your issue” and clicking Continue, the next page loaded completely blank. I therefore had to submit this as an “Ask a Question” post instead.