Good And Cheap Solution For Guitar Videos .... Is It Possible?, for collab and rec videos Options

[SlowFingaX]

I'm so tired for my very bad quality videos with very old VGA webcam (Logitech Quickcam, like eyeball)

Now I'm curious to know about good and cheap possibilities to get much more better quality videos with very low budget.

I record my guitar audio with GT-10 and USB, so it's much more important to get good quality video than audio with camera, of course it's not bad extra if there's also good mic on camera.

What kind of videocameras you have my fellows? Tell about your camera, good and bad things for recording guitar playing.

Of course I can use the Google, but it's much more fun to hear about my fellow GMC'ers opinions about this.

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[Storm Linnebjerg]

I have a Logitech Quickcam 9000. It's old by now, but it does a very good job, I think. If I want to shoot a high quality video though I could use my DSLR camera.

But yeah, I highly recommend the Quickcam 9000. Or used to anyway. I bought it like 6 or 7 years ago. There are probably some better ones out there now

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This post has been edited by Caelumamittendum: Apr 15 2014, 10:38 AM

[SlowFingaX]

I have a Logitech Quickcam 9000. It's old by now, but it does a very good job, I think. If I want to shoot a high quality video though I could use my DSLR camera.

But yeah, I highly recommend the Quickcam 9000. Or used to anyway. I bought it like 6 or 7 years ago. There are probably some better ones out there now

My model is Logitech Quickcam pro 5000.

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[Storm Linnebjerg]

My model is Logitech Quickcam pro 5000.

I see they have a model called C920 that looks good and has gotten good reviews. It shoots in HD at 1080. I'm tempted to making the upgrade once I have a bit of money again.

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[Mertay]

Bought a Logitech C310 not long ago. Very affordable and can record 720p but also lets the rec. quality adjusted, which is cool so you don't have to shrink the file to upload on youtube...

Bad things are the auto color/light correction affects frame rate so its not dependable (though 1-2 simple light sources do the trick), I didn't check but the framerate no matter what quality selected is limited (not sure if this applies to all webcams, I guess this is the main advantage of having a camera instead of webcam).

My personal limitation is I use plug-ins and this creates slight glitches if webcam is recording the highest quality. Shouldn't be a problem for you though as you use a processor.

There are youtube video examples for this webcam and it gives a good idea, if interested go with the C270 model which is slightly cheaper as I don't use any of the extras on the C310.

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[Bogdan Radovic]

Very good question!

I think the suggestions about the Logitech webcam as very good.

I'd also like to add some tips/ideas for smoothest possible recording of good quality [guitar] videos:

- Lights : this is essential to getting good video quality from any camera and especially true when using small webcams. What you can do is get a pair of cheap work (sometimes called flood) lights and point them towards the room ceiling so that light defuses (or add some light diffusers in front of them simulating "light boxes" - be careful with the 2nd option as these lights are not meant for video recording and get very hot). The difference in video quality you'll get will be huge.

- Webcams : most computers now come in with a nice webcam built in. The usual problems with webcams is that in order to get a good frame rate (so that picture doesn't look choppy), you need a powerful computer. This especially comes into place when recording HD video too. Another trick which is overlooked is that you do need to go into webcam software and setup all the settings on manual. When its on automatic, the results are often not good enough + automatic mode drains CPU power and computer resources. Try switching to manual settings (exposure, white balance, color correction) and work your way through the settings.

- Cell phones : modern smart phones can actually record amazing HD videos. Depending how old the phone is, I think relatively newer ones (2 years or so back) would get you possibly better video quality results in relation to using the webcam. Get a stand on which you can put the phone on and adjust the settings and shoot the video while recording audio on your computer. Then you need to sync two files in the video editing software.

The advantage with recording video with a cell phone is that it is usually just a matter of pushing 2 buttons to start the recording and your PC is free to fully deal with the audio portion of recording. Also, it is quite easy to get the video out of the phone (upload to dropbox for example).

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[Darius Wave]

No matter how good Your camera is...the most important for making videos either the photos is....the light. Daylight or good set of lights makes possible to get pretty descent look with cheap gear. You can consider some very cheap compact camera - they had improved video recording quality a lot through last few years. Even with iPhone or smartphone You can get mp4file in at leas HD quality. But without a good light it's always a problem. DSLR would be perfect but sometimes might be a bit too expensive for hobby usage.

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[Sensible Jones]

Bought a Logitech C310 not long ago. Very affordable and can record 720p but also lets the rec. quality adjusted, which is cool so you don't have to shrink the file to upload on youtube...

+1

I also have a C310 and am quite happy with the results I get from it.
As Mertay says it's worth getting a small lamp or something to brighten things up. I just use a Halogen Desk Lamp, works fine!!

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[Todd Simpson]

OK. Here's the hard truth. If you want quality vids you have to get far aware from Web Cams/Cell Phones/etc.

Sure, you can get "decent' quality with these devices but none of them are really meant to take great images. They are meant to be handy which they are. The best web cam footage I've seen still looks like web cam footage. Web cams use cheap optics, even the "nice" once and have very little lattitude "the range between lightest and darkest pixels". Etc.

So, if you are looking to go beyond web cam footage, what you are looking for then is something with decent glass (lense) and decent sensor to provide HD video. You can always "Down Res" your video and keep most of the quality. But "upressing" usually makes it look like crap. So what to do?


1.) Fine a used HDV handycam on ebay. One that shoots full HD 1920x1080. I got one on ebay for $35 U.S. You may have to go a bit higher, maybe $100 or so.

2.)MAKE SURE it has "Firewire" on it. That's how you'll connect it.
3.)Get a firewire card for your computer, they are cheap.
4.)Get some decent lights. You can get a couple of decent lights for about $70 US on amazon.com



So bottom line there it is. Full HD video with a "real" camera. Most web cams are fine for what they do but they are more honestly seen as plastic toys rather than actual cameras. Even the web cams that do "HD"? suffer from the cheap optics and sensor ruin the picture quality imho. Most of the web cams, all look like web cams IMHO, so I'd say if possible try to take the next step and get a real camera. Your vids will thank you!

Here's an example. I shot this on full hd and down coverted it to 720p just to get quicker upload to youtube. Select 720p when you watch it as they always default to the CRAP setting no matter what . A good camera will deal pretty well with shooting in low light and this is a decent example of that

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This post has been edited by Todd Simpson: Apr 16 2014, 05:54 AM