How BAD Are CHEAP Webcams, Mics, and Capture Cards.. (vs Elgato and Logitech)

One of the most common questions I get asked on the stream is what is the

cheap

est insert kit here. Uh, I would recommend it and I have my standard answers, but a lot of people are sometimes disappointed because they expect me to give them super ultra

cheap

recommendations. and just sometimes sometimes that's not the best bang for your buck sometimes the reason they're so cheap is because they're really cheap it's so redundant I think that's the definition of redundant but you get what I'm saying a lot of times. The best bang for your buck is not the cheapest, you go a little more expensive and you get five times the device, so today we're going to look at exactly what the difference is between my favorite budget devices and literally the cheapest thing I could buy.

By the way, thank you very much. to today's video sponsor asus and its 20 series graphics

cards

powered by nvidia geforce rtx asus does something really interesting in its manufacturing process known as auto extreme technology, which is the industry's first fully automated production process where most of GPUs are partially made by hand and are 100% automated, meaning no human error, more precision, and the ability to test to tighter tolerances for things like component placement, essentially meaning your PC is more reliable. . Nvidia geforce rtx

cards

work with nvidia. They leverage the world's most advanced GPU architecture to give gamers the greatest gaming experience ever.

Play games like Minecraft RTX like never before with the visual fidelity of real-time ray tracing and the ultimate performance of AI-powered DLSS 2.0. For more information on how to get greater precision and RTX technologies in your next gaming experience, be sure From checking the link in the description below, here on the recommended budget side, let's take these out for the microphone, we have the Elgato Wave 1 USB microphone. There are many good USB microphones today and many of them sound very similar to USB. Microphones generally lack control and that's why this is the only USB microphone I generally recommend because it comes with Wavelink software which is essentially a go xlr built into your USB microphone so you have a lot of control and can control it right from your transmission. from the platform or from your phone's solid microphone, I mean it's 129.

Sam, if I'm wrong, put a different price on the webcam, we'll go with the trusty

logitech

c920, usually 50 when we're not under quarantine and price. The scammers are doing satan's work and scamming them, I wonder if satan is going to flag this video, so I hope that very soon here the price increase will slowly come to an end or maybe everyone will choke on their own saliva or something like that and the c920 will be back to its usual 50 per purchase and if you're in a two pc setup or streaming a console of course we have a

capture

card this is the hd60s a solid usb type c 1080 60

capture

card now on the cheap side oh and uh

elgato

capture card is I mean 179 so for this set of three things I paid 99 in total let's go in the same order let's start with a microphone I haven't opened them yet oh I need to cut these things Up, what? where is my slicer boy?

I lost my box cutter. I don't know what happened to him. I found it. I've been looking for this for days. I need a good like. If I'm going to do unboxings like this, I feel like I need a good knife like one of those cool ones, but I can't justify buying one. Any knifemaker who wants to appear in each of my unboxings, uh, po boxes on my Twitch channel, that's actually fine, starting with the microphone. the packaging actually isn't that bad so far that's the kicker it came with the USB 2.0 hub I didn't even order this this just came with the microphone it's like they expect people who buy this microphone to stream from a laptop ok?

We have our microphone stand, we have our USB cable, it looks like it's micro USB, we have a little tripod if we feel like using it and we don't have a microphone arm and of course, it's comfortable, we have our microphone. this is smaller than I thought it would be. I chose this one specifically because it had a built-in headphone jack. USB microphones that don't have a headphone jack are a big struggle for me. I really like being able to hear the microphone from behind. in my headphones as a musical artist that was vital and I've gotten so used to it that I can't go back I have a volume knob that you just turn and turn it's very light but I mean it has a nice metal mesh here, I mean you'll definitely see a feeling cheap, but your audience won't feel it, your audience will see it and hear it, and I think it looks good, especially if you put some kind of pop filter in front of this.

I don't think it's the worst thing you'll find is a webcam. In general, they were all between 30 and 35 each. By the way, I've been considering because people are having a harder time finding the Logitech C920 and they're asking me which webcam they should buy and I mean. There were 20 of these cheap

webcams

and I don't know which one is good, so I've been considering making a video where I order like 10 of these things, put them all next to each other, and figure out which one is the best 30 webcam. that you should buy, so if you want to see that video, comment below, if enough people want to see it, I'll buy 10 of these and we'll see this is interesting, it's very plastic, it feels like a child's. toy by the way, it doesn't feel like a piece of technology, it has this weird little thing screwed on with some kind of bug arm that screws on, it's flexible, I guess you bend like that and that's how you set it up. on top of your monitor interesting, that's a smart thing, actually, you know, this thing is the stickiest feeling I've ever felt, but if it looks good, that's all that matters.

I don't expect it to look good. That's the biggest disappointment, uh, and lastly, the capture card, this thing has been getting rave reviews on the internet lately. I mean it costs between 25 and 30 dollars. This is a tiny guy. It's so hard to find a cam link nowadays. came out and there is a small USB 2 capture card that only works with 1080 30, however if it's for your camera that's not a big deal, yes 1080 60 is good, but 1080 30 will work fine, it's actually quite well it's in a metal casing and that's all there is to it this is a cool little guy.

I'm excited to try it. I also have one more capture card that also has output and that way again if you're using an xbox or a PC or something like that and you want to. to use the step to output to your monitor uh I think it's the same company that makes one of these, but it has the step so we'll try both let me line them up yeah. If we're going to test this guy let's compare him to a real equivalent let me grab a camera link this makes a little more sense and this guy is 129 I think that's 50 bucks cheaper which brings us to a total .

As for the budget stuff, I recommend going down from 310 to 360. And I'm going to leave these guys like that, okay, let's do the test to test these guys, uh, yeah, welcome back, it's actually been about a week. , a week and a half since I filmed the unboxing and the reason for this is somewhat relevant. The first thing I did was open the microphone and plug it in and I couldn't turn it on, which I think is relevant to this review. I tried each different USB. The port tried with different cables it didn't turn on and now when I ordered a replacement I plugged in the old one and now it works so I don't know if it was user error or if it's just a poor quality microphone, the other microphone I plugged in.

It worked fine, I just couldn't get this one to work at the time, so we'll use the new microphone in case there are any problems with it. I don't know, maybe keep that in mind if you are buying a 30 mic maybe it doesn't turn on some days we have a wave connected that the software picks up. I'm wondering if I can add this other microphone. Oh, both microphones go into the software. Great, uh, first look at both of them. these have very similar functionalities both have headphone jacks both have a single knob on the front which is the headphone volume knob and both have a press to mute function although this one wasn't doing so this one should have a press to mute function mute the functionality uh, but it's not weird, I mean the quality difference between the two is pretty obvious, this is like the lightest, stickiest thing I've ever felt, this is from Elgato, since I'm not crazy about the aesthetics of This thing, the nice thick high quality microphone, let's see how they sound, obviously, that's the most important thing here, okay, so let's do it with them on the desk, since they both come with default desk stands.

I'm going to place them at the same distance. What you're hearing right now is the cheap microphone, uh, at a pretty solid distance, farther away than I would recommend any streamer, just because it's so close to your keyboard and mouse that you know it's going to pick up everything, but this is what that comes in the box so we have the cheap microphone here now we have the

elgato

wave microphone y'all have a wave one. I can't actually hear the difference right now. I'm going to have to go see this and listen to it. a little but this is the elgato wave one back to the cheap microphone I don't remember what it's called it's called professional usb condenser microphone cool professional and the elgato wave microphone foot a foot and a half away from me here it's loud and here it's soft here is the cheap mic right near my mouth there is a big difference in gain just the signal level is much higher.

I'm interested to see what this sounds like and just for the obvious sake of Experiment, it's me clicking on the keyboard with this right in front of my mouth and then with the wave mic it seems like it's picking up a lot more, okay let's listen, here we have the cheapest microphone, eh, a little far from you. You're hearing this right, you're hearing what I'm hearing. I wonder if that's like the recording or if it's the actual microphone. We'll know when we go to the Elgato microphone and here we have the Elgato Wave microphone again. from far away from me let's go back and forth not again the cheap microphone this is what it's about wait I just wanted to make sure the box actually said professional that word doesn't mean anything here it's loud here it's soft oh my god and y'all I have to move my foot about a foot and a half away from me.

Here it is strong and here it is soft. That was, oh my gosh, so when people ask me in chat what a USB microphone is, I recommend less than fifty dollars. I'm going to say none of them. apart from that unpleasant hum, it sounds like the microphone is enclosed in a plastic box and you don't like reaching for the capsule, the capsule is the one that actually picks up the audio waves, it just sounds weak and muffled, it's interesting. I mean, there's absolutely no doubt about it, the Wave microphone sounds much better, but it doesn't isolate the keyboard and fan.

You can hear the PC fan a lot more and I think that's just a byproduct of the existence of the microphone. a higher quality condenser microphone, when you pick up more detail you will get a little more space, so I highly recommend that if you use any condenser microphone you put it as close to your mouth as possible because they are designed to pick up everything, the only The way they'll be isolated from the world around you, like keyboard clicks and fans, is if they're just crappy condenser

mics

like this one. I think that concludes the microphone session, although let's move on to the next thing.

Let's take a look at a capture card, so if we were to take a look at this camera, what you're looking at right now is kind of a standard entry level mirrorless setup for a streamer that wants to upgrade from a webcam. , it's a Sony. a5100 is the cheapest mirrorless crop sensor camera you can find but its good and has the original lens that came with it, no nice aftermarket lenses its just ordering the camera by connecting it via a link camera currently and what I would like to do is compare this with this little hdmi video capture, unnamed and unbranded version.

USB2 is actually one of my biggest concerns so I think this is just uh 1080 30. It's not 1080 60. as you can see by the uh of the camera. link, this is definitely 60 fps, so let's go ahead and swap these. I'm still going to plug this into a USB 3 port just to make sure we're not hindered by the bandwidth of the USB bus just to make sure the only obstacle will be the device itself, that's not bad, geez mine, it's definitely 30 fps, you can notice it very quickly. Sam jumps back and forth or puts them side to side with this hand motion I did with the other one too.

I mean, in terms of immediate quality, we're talking. I think this is like a 25 capture card. Let's go back to the camera, like I want to see if I notice any difference in the color. They are close enough. wherewould need to see them side by side, looks like there could be a little more dynamic presence to this, we're getting a little higher highs, a little lower lows, the others seem maybe a little bit washed out. but I wonder if it was a little biased knowing that I was hooking up a camera link right now that made me think it was um yeah, I'm actually going to go watch the recording right now, okay? so we have the camera link here, it definitely shows up in 1080p.

I didn't have to change the font size at all, however, there's a lot more detail in the colors and like I'm specifically right now, I'm looking at my eyes things look just like a little bit, it almost looks like the lens is a little dirty, going back to the camera, like, just the sharpness of my face in the camera, like, here we go, here we go, the old one or the cheap one, however, there is a noticeable difference. The important thing to note is a direct recording, uh, six thousand kilobits per second on x264 media directly to my desktop.

This is not going to undergo transcoding through Twitch when it comes to streaming, not just going through the entire Twitch process. but usually also your cameras and a much smaller small section. I don't think color and clarity are a deal breaker for me, that wouldn't bother me unless I had a 3000 camera like the one I use, but if you're looking for a good camera and want to save on the capture card. I really would The only thing you're missing here that's noticeable is 60 fps and that's a noticeable difference, but if that doesn't matter to you, I'm talking about us." We're talking, you know, 90 off, that's cool, okay, last one, let's take those

webcams

.

We have both of our webcams set up here, the Logitech C920 which is unfortunately hard to find at a normal price, it used to cost around 50 but now during the pandemic. It's like 150 200 because people are raising prices, but it's important to know that it wasn't originally a 50 webcam. This is a 100 webcam that has been around for so long and has been so mass produced that they can reduce the price to 50 um. so it's more expensive than what we're looking for, it's just old, cheap webcam though, it's 25.99, so hopefully after the price increase is over, when we can get through this pandemic, it will be about half the price, so This is probably the smallest price difference between twenty-six dollars and fifty dollars.

I hope it has the slightest difference, but the camera link so far and the capture card have been the most surprising, so if you look right now, you can see the microphone in the shot, it is what it is, this is the

logitech

c920, no color correction has been added, it's just the webcam with two lights, I have a back light back here. The edge lights me up and then this ring of light right here that's a little bit to the side so we have a little outline. I haven't seen this yet. Let's look at the cheap webcam.

Oh no, oh no, what did it do to my face? Oh my God, what is it like? It's like skipping frames from time to time. We have lights completely out right there. A weird purple hue, let me see just for fun if I can get rid of that crazy purple hue in obs color correction. don't think it's happening, oh man let's go back to the c920, oh that makes this look like a dslr camera, we have zero darkness, probably won't go below 20 black, just look at the difference between the blacks here versus here. I guess it's nice that you get that extra detail, but I mean it's just part of the dynamic range that's very dark back there.

I would have liked to see something in between, although I suppose technically I could just reduce the dark levels in color correction. but yeah you have no dynamic range except you're completely faded here but the faded area doesn't look white it looks yellow oh man okay cool I think that sums it up the microphone and webcam were just Absolutely terrible, I wouldn't recommend anything under my budget, a solution of a c920 and an elgato wave microphone. This is definitely my preferred USB microphone when people ask me, just because of the software that comes with it, you got a complete solution of both in high quality. and control, you didn't get either with a cheap one, um and of course a logitech c920, when you can find one at a normal price, but I was very impressed with the capture card which is probably out of all of these, probably I shouldn't say that.

It's definitely the only thing I would recommend, potentially skimp on it, keep in mind you won't have support with these, if something goes wrong you have to buy a new one, maybe return it to Amazon if you received it, it's within 30 days but I. A lot of people will tell me not to buy a USB stick from China, they will just take all your stuff and you know what could be true, that's the risk you run with a 26 capture card if you have any questions. about anything you think I missed again feel free to jump on my Twitch stream which I stream every Monday, Wednesday, Saturday link in description below or if you want to talk to other people about cheap webcams they got , feel free to jump into the discord.

They have almost 90,000 members on Discord, all streamers are looking to collaborate, get to know each other, share ideas and team experiences, link to that in the description too, and as always, happy streaming.