[Jump to the end to see the easier, cheaper and less likely to damage the device solution!]
So it was the beginning of the lockdown, and having previously said I would never want a webcam attached to my main computer, I suddenly wanted a good webcam: to be able to share my desktop on Zoom and use stupid Snap Camera filters.
But being Lockdown, branded webcams were going for stupid money; used webcams going for double the retail price and no retail stock available. So what about an unbranded Chinese one?! Difficult to do research on something that doesn't have a name, but the following one kept being mentioned as being incredible for the price. It seemed to have been branded as Aniva or Lovebay or no name at all.
It looks like this
Then I watched this video from the 'CrazyWoolTech'
This is a great video and the tests the kid does are just the tests I would do, so cheers for that.
From these tests the above camera came out top for video so I ordered one and was very impressed with its 1080p video at 30 fps. The microphone was terrible!
It is 1080p (there is an old model with 720p - don't get that one, looks
the same), has a fixed focus lens which you can turn to focus. A light
to show its powered and a green light to show its being used. The
'stand' (for want of a better word) is good, decent weight and strength
and has a tripod fixing hole. You could stand it on it's own on the
stand like this. The manual is quite light weight but useful.
The following is how I replaced the microphone capsule for a better one. If you want to do this you do it at your own risk. I am not responsible for any damage you do to your webcam, your computer, your house or possessions, your body or anyone else or their stuff. It's just a guide of what worked for me.
Also you don't need to do this mod. You can just use another microphone, which is probably a better solution, but I fancied having a go.
Its easy to pry off the front of the webcam with a screwdriver.
The microphone is on the pcb and is at the bottom of a plastic tube (which may, in itself, account for why it sounds so bad). But I had already ordered a mic on eBay. I thought that parts used by Apple would probably be pretty good and had found someone selling 2012 Macbook pro mics for about £4.
The mic comes with a screened cable and connector.
I cut off the connector. The black wires are negative and screen so I joined them together. The mic is an electret condenser so the grey wire will carry a few volts. Its important to get the polarity right when connecting to the webcam or you could damage things.
Despite removing the screws I found the pcb did not want to come out without a struggle. So I left it in and removed the microphone capsule by rocking it back and forth until the legs broke.
(Though I did get the board off on another camera - pcb courtesy G. Finzi)
I had decided to have the new mic hovering in the air above the webcam on its cable so drilled a hole in the top and started the delicate process of soldering the microphone connections to the board.
The mic capsule removed showing polarity
Be careful not to short them together - this is quite tricky and not for the unexperienced.
The finished item looked like this:
And the audio was much better if still a little quiet. Had to put it on full volume on Zoom.
Final notes:
I have done a couple of these. Although they have the same PCB only one worked with a MAC properly. For the one that didn't work with a MAC, it was the microphone that didn't work: OSX just couldn't see it. Interestingly the one that didn't work with a Mac worked well with Snap Camera, whereas the one that did work with the Mac was laggy with Snap Camera. Probably a firmware thing but seeing as there is no mention of board or manufacturer anywhere it's unlikely this will ever be resolved.
Finally, make sure you set it to HD on Zoom otherwise you will get laggy video and glitchy microphone. I also found that on OBS studio the camera would be very laggy unless you set it to MJPEG compression. Have fun!
UPDATE!
So how good is the microphone that comes with it you may be asking?
Actually it's pretty good and so I tried and experiment as a I was begining to believe that the culprit was infact the tiny hole and long tube the sound had to go to to reach the microphone.
Out of the box sound.
With faceplate removed
Much better so I drilled a 5mm hole where the little mic hole was
New hole drilled in front plate.
