Camera

We just started a new run of our free online course Music Moves. Here we have a tradition of recording wrap-up videos every Friday, in which some of the course educators answer questions from the learners. We have recorded these in many different ways, from using high-end cameras and microphones to just using a handheld phone. We have found that using multiple cameras and microphones is too time-consuming, both in setup and editing. Using only a mobile phone is extremely easy to set up, but we have had challenges with the speech’s audibility. Before recording this semester’s wrapup videos, I, therefore, decided to test out some solutions based on the equipment I had lying around: ...

After working happily with FW-products for many years, the recent trend of disappearing FW-ports have made me look for USB-based solutions. For hard drives the switch has been easy, and I also recently got my first USB-based sound card. The hardest part has been to figure out how to handle video cameras. I have been using various Unibrain cameras for years, and have gotten used to the simplicity of being able to hook up multiple cameras to one computer. Last year when I tried hooking up multiple USB-based webcams to a computer (Windows, since they didn’t work on OS X at all), only one could work at a time. I was therefore pleasantly surprised when I found that Logitech’s QuickCam Vision Pro for Mac actually works well on OS X, and you can even have several of them running at the same time (see screenshot)! Now the only problem is the auto-focus and auto-contrast which tend to cause problems in video analysis (particularly when doing background subtraction). ...