Further, the ability to position the camera separately from your computer offers the opportunity to compose a better shot. The camera in your mobile phone is typically much better. Even those from Logitech and the like leave something to be desired. Most webcams, especially those built into laptops, are simply terrible. This ensures no dropped frames or pauses in the video stream.
Recent releases of Android will automatically use the wired connection. I use the USB-C to A adapter that came with my Pixel 4 to connect a USB-Ethernet adapter.
Chasing reliability, I’ve found that it can be very helpful to put my mobile phone on the wired network. Wi-Fi is not always cooperative in this regard. To create the screen shot below I used NDI HX Camera on my Pixel 4, with Webcam Input used to collect the stream for use in Jitsi Meet. The Studio Monitor application, also part of the NDI Tools bundle, is a handy way to be able to see any NDI streams available on your network.
This program, which runs in the background, allows you to discover the NDI streams locally available and select one to be a virtual webcam in any program that uses a traditional UVC compliant webcam.Īs well as selected the NDI source, Webcam Input allows you to set the resolution automatically or explicitly set it to 4K, 1080P or 720P. On the host computer the NDI stream is received using Newtek’s Webcam Input application, which is part of the free NDI Tools bundle. They merely make it possible to use the mobile camera as the video source for your laptop or desktop Zoom client. These mobile camera applications do not work with the Zoom mobile client directly.
Connection notification and tally (on air/preview) displays.HI Bandwidth (up to 4K), medium (up to 1080p) and standard (640×480) modes.This also allows for very high-resolution streams. It supports the more compressed form of NDI, which makes it an easier load for the wireless network. The newer version of their camera app is called NDI HX Camera ( also for iOS) is now offered for $20. It can work very well used when on a robust Wi-Fi network. Full-bandwidth NDI offers the best image quality, and lowest latency, but requires massive bandwidth. The original (no longer offered) which I bought for around $20, leverages full-bandwidth NDI. Newtek has offered two different NDI Camera apps.
“NDI® (Network Device Interface) is a low latency IP video protocol developed especially for professional live video production, and is supported by an extensive list of broadcast systems from many manufacturers.” NDI Camera In particular, I’d like to highlight NDI as a technology that’s very useful in this application. I’d like to add a slightly different take, using a couple of additional apps that have crossed my path. He tried a handful of iOS and Android apps on various handsets. Well worth exploring since common, and especially built-in webcams, are so bad. A couple of weeks back Chris Kranky offered a post where he explored this topic in some detail.