I run a few c920s connected to Vmix, but my use case is slightly different to your intention.

I use mine connected to a remote PC, running Vmix.
I mostly cover conferences and presentations so if someone has a demo table set up, I place the webcams around the table and switch shots using the remote web app for that Vmix session on a tablet PC. The remote switched feed is then sent back to my main production area and integrated into another switcher. And that works fine for me as I'm using a closed in shot, but for your intent..

I think the thing that webcams suffers most is framing a shot, webcams have a fixed lens, you can only place the shot by moving the webcam and if your trying to do head shots that could be an issue with trying to frame 3 headshots to look "equal". Think of all the differing shots you see when running Skype in conference mode, or Google hangouts etc.

Look at this link, paying attention of the framing of people in the lower right of image.

https://www.google.co.uk...&iact=mrc&uact=8

The one good thing is all 3 presenters here will be seated. There's always something wrong when people try to frame an on stage shot of a presenter etc with a webcamera or mobile phone camera, the presenter is almost lost in the wide shot. So concentrate on the framing, get that right and you should be OK.

Also the webcam lens is mostly wide angle, not as bad as a go-pro but usual 100° or about, so again it might impact on the framing.

You may also need to stick with a 720 workflow, you might be a little limited with usb bandwidth if trying to get 3 or so 1080 feeds into that one PC, but YMMV?

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( edited to correct 'auto correct' spelling errors )

A "torso" shot should be fine, just remember the wide angle of the webcam, and place the cam at a reasonable height. no low, up the nose shots 😁


re, usb pcie cards...

It depends on the card and how it processes the usb connections.

Each 1080P video source is almost 3gb wide, USB3 b/width is 5gb wide 3sources x 3gb = more than 5gb. 720P signals are 1.5gb wide 3x 720P = 4.5gb

There are cards that have individual chips on each port, so they dont share the 5gb amongst the connected sources, but give the full 5gb on each port. StarTech's PEXUSB3S44V PCIe 4-Port USB3.0 card is an example. So if you install something like that you should be able to grab all 3 cams at 1080 video with reasonable frame rates.

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These look interesting, although there is a current thread running on them.

http://www.forums.vmix.c....aspx?g=posts&t=6127

And yes in total agreement, don't run with the mics from these or any webcam.
Always use separate mics. In this scenario i'd suggest lapel mics on each of the three presenters.

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Edit.

Desmar, if you use these cameras, how are they controlled via the PC? ( I'm guessing via a web app) maybe via a mobile app? not sure if vmix controls ptz functions on these natively, as with Panasonic, Sony and ptz optics cameras, noticed they only zoom as a digital zoom, no optical zoom which is a shame. But at the price, we can't have it all.

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I've used multiple Logitech webcams many times before. If you set them for MJPEG encoding you will save a lot of fussing about USB bus management. I'd avoid H264 mode simply because it adds a lot of latency to the video stream.

The primary difference between the C920 and C930e is the field of view. That is, if you skip using the Logitech driver for the C920, which is key to using more than one on a host computer.

You might consider the BCC950 Conference Cam. It's audio is largely pointless, but a real PTZ can be useful to better frame up the shot. The PTZ Pro Camera is even better, but dramatically more $.

Thank you all for your replys! I wont be using any of the cam's audio... Since i have a recording studio and lot of quality dynamic microphones... Yeah, i wouldn't like to sacrifice frame rate for resolution either...

I'd imagine i want to use cameras connected to either my pc or a capture card, i dont want the hassle of configuring anything to work via network or something like that... Specially cause i have a really good pc... I see good quad-bus (4 x 5 gbps) 4-port usb 3.0 pci-e interfaces for 80 dollars...

So my only thing is getting 3 cams (maybe adding one more for a general shot of the room and all the people sitting there) that work well with this idea... im ok with spending more than 100 dollars per camera, if there's something significantly better, and a couple hundred in a capture card or usb card if its worth it...

As for PTZ and all that, none of the shots will move or pan or anything, i want fixed cameras that have a nice shot at the people talking, no camera movement whatsoever... Would the BCC950 still be worth it with that in mind?

Ohh, i get it, so is de bcc950 superior even if im not panning anything? i mean spec wise...

Im starting to think 720p is pretty acceptable for a talkshow podcast, specially since i rather not sacrifice framerate por the extra resolution, plus i know no one watches a podcast fullscreen...