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gitafanatic
Participating Frequently
November 12, 2007
Question

H.264 camera type

  • November 12, 2007
  • 4 replies
  • 799 views
Flash works with all USB web cameras - but what are the limitations (if any) on using a s-video or RGB connector on a graphics card so a camera with enough quality for H.264 streaming can be used? Does Flash recognise them?

As the encoding will be greater than before, what spec. will the computer need to accomplish this?

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    4 replies

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    d3lf66
    Known Participant
    November 16, 2007
    Standard TV is less than 0.5 megapixel (720x576). HD can start from 1280x720, which is still less than a megapixel. The actual resolution is unimportant, the major factor in quality is both sensor (CCD/CMOS) size and sensitivity and lens quality. Actual megapixel is a marketing red herring.
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    gitafanaticAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    November 16, 2007
    Really useful information - thank you very much. I don't normally show emotion, but this is an exception
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    d3lf66
    Known Participant
    November 13, 2007
    Have you looked at the Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000? Fabio recommends it - up to 1600x1200, 2 megapixel, Carl Zeiss lens.
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    gitafanaticAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    November 14, 2007
    Thanks for that - i've certainly learned a lot!

    I now realise that I have been talking about full-screen quality, when what I really want is good quality, but not necessarily full screen, so I can probably do quite well with Adobe Media Encoder. But I needed to know these things to get there. I assumed, for instance, that my present set-up utilised my logitech pro 5000 fully, but now I realise there is about 50% quality available to be squeezed out of it.
    I am surprised that the Logitech you mention can do full-screen Hi-def with only 2 megapixels - the results of hi-def onscreen look amazing, and we are used to 5mp still cameras nowadays. How many pixels would it take to emulate an ordinary TV picture? Just surprised and curious...
    Grateful for the education given , ys
    A
    Adam_Walsworth
    Participating Frequently
    November 16, 2007

    A couple things to note. I would respectfully disagree that FME is only for cheap webcams. What would be the point of making advances in the codec if the only use is for webcams? FME is capable of utilizing some of the best capture cards available (osprey-560) for live streaming. I'm personally working on getting a box up and running which has a sony HD video camera running to an HDMI capture card. Now I know everyone doesn't exactly have a dual processor quad core xeon for a desktop but I do and I'm looking forward to pushing the limits on live streaming over flash.

    Adam Walsworth
    http://www.adamwalsworth.com
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    d3lf66
    Known Participant
    November 12, 2007
    on-the-fly conversion to quality FLV is certainly attainable with good quality settings - it very much depends on the spec of the encoder. Take a look at the requirements of Digital Rapids live encoder, FME live encoder and Flix live, for example. Some even do 2-pass encoding for live (VP6 though, dont know about h264)
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    gitafanaticAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    November 12, 2007
    Thanks, Hyakkidouran, I realise I should have said LIVE streaming of high quality video. Thus a high quality camera HAS to be connected to the computer. You write: "streaming means automatic conversion on-the-fly in FLV format, which isn't very high quality even at best settings, " - but with H.264 or (if On2 are to be believed) VP6-E, with on-the-fly compression (see d3lf66 below) high-quality streaming is being done.
    d3f66
    Of course, if this is not streaming, the camera does not matter as it would be shot on anything, edited, and them played...Oh I am dumb.
    What I want is LIVE streaming of high quality video. Rang up Digital rapids, and their hardware/software compression/encoding solution (involving an s-video input that is recognised by Flash Player) is around £2000 without the PC!! But that is the sort of thing needed (using On2, they haven't the info to develop H.264 with the Flash wrapper yet).
    But as I don't want to pay that much for a technology that is about to be surpassed, I would like to get at least better quality than a webcam - hence need some way to get s-video or composite to be recognised by the flash player as USB cameras have a very limited resolution.
    Thanks lots for all help so far - helps put me in the picture.
    H
    Hyakkidouran
    Participating Frequently
    November 12, 2007
    I never tried this, but I don't believe this will work, for two reasons :

    - graphics cards connectors aren't technically webcams. They don't work the same way. The best way to make sure if those connectors can be used would be to use the client-side "Camera.names" array that list recognized webcams. See documentation for details.

    -streaming means automatic conversion on-the-fly in FLV format, which isn't very high quality even at best settings, so the interest of streaming the video from your camera in the first place will be lost anyway.

    Hope this helps. If the graphics card is miraculously recognized by flash as webcam, it'll be easy for you to run tests.
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