I have a webcam which I never thought was bad but whenever I video-chat with anyone they always say it’s grainy and the picture is not very good.  So, I was planning on getting a new one and was wondering what to look for.  Is expensive always better?

Great questions!  There are two major concerns with a webcam (other than price) – Frames and Resolution.  However, before you think about buying something new, consider the following options.

Connection Speed and other animals

Although I’d love to tell you that getting a new webcam would do the trick, there are other issues that you should understand.  I found a great resource here with some very technical details.  However, before you dive into that, I would suggest trying the following:

1. Make sure your camera plugs into your computer directly (and not through a hub).  You don’t want any other devices to share your potential speed.
2. Remember that Skype video quality will be better after a few minutes of a call, so don’t expect the best quality when you first connect.
3. Do a speed test of your connection at Speed.io.  A slow connection will make all of your webcam purchasing totally pointless…

If all that turned out fine, then on to the techie gooey details…

Frames

I guess it’s not much of a secret.  The more frames you have, the more times you get to see the image, therefore the smoother the result.  The human eye does not process images like a video camera, so we don’t have a “frame rate” for our eyes.  However, just to give you a point of reference, at the movies, we enjoy 25 frames per second (fps), while on TV it is more often around 30 fps.

In the interest of completeness, I should add that the human eye makes all of this a bit complicated by adding a twist: a blurred image at a slower frame rate can look the same as a sharp image at a higher frame rate.  This isn’t terribly important, unless you are planning to webcast from a moving car, but it’s worth knowing that the subject isn’t quite as simple as it sounds.

My theory, when it comes to webcams, is that you want to stream video, so you’re looking for 30fps.  The good news?  Nearly all camera’s these days, over 10 dollars, have an acceptable frame rate.  All you have to do is know that frame rate exists and watch out for frame rates (if listed) under 30fps.

Resolution

Resolution is the number of pixels per inch.  What is a pixel?

A decent zoom	A crazy zoom

Do you see the little tiny red dot in my crazy zoom?  That is a pixel.  In a way, it’s just a piece of color information.  Make it red (like in my example) and it causes a tiny defect in the image.  The more pixels you have per inch of space, the more information is there for a computer to display.

72 pixels per inch	5 pixels per inch

So what kind of resolution should you buy?

Here are the options (as of the date of this post) on CNET.com.  352×288 stinks.  1280×960 rocks.

The thing to remember is that the resolution is simply how good the image taken could be.  Therefore a really, really cheap webcam that can pump out 1280×960 may not be the best choice.

Also, watch out for “effective resolution”.  Sometimes a low resolution camera will tout itself as a better product by saying that with software, which they include, you can increase the resolution from the standard provided by the lens.  My personal advice would be – try to find a decently priced camera, with good resolution out of the box.

Most internet connections cannot support the highest resolutions of today’s webcams.  However, getting a better top end may improve performance around 800×600 (where most people end up streaming).

Conclusion

I hope this helps.  To summarize, you need to look for a frame rate near 30fps, although you might only stream at 800×600 – consider a higher resolution and finally, remember to check your connection speed.  If you follow those basic guidelines, you’ll be fine with a mid-range webcam (at this moment between 30 and 60 USD).

Good luck!

~ab