This is the same camera used in other devices, and it seems to perform the same as those devices now. Even without supply chain challenges, it doesn’t seem practical that Apple would engineer a camera module for just this one device.
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Here's What the Studio Display's Webcam Looks Like After 15.5 Beta Firmware Update
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1080p is 2MP, 4k is 8MP
The sensor on the ASD is 8MP, but the crop is 1080p for centerstage.
Terrible choice by Apple. It's a 1920*1080 camera but because of centre stage (and how much moving do they think we do when seated in front of a huge monitor?) they capture a segment of that, make it look pretty with software, blow it up, then expect us not to notice :-/
I second the framing/cropping issue. When using software not supporting center stage, the video is cropped way up and put my head at the bottom of the frame, just as you described. This is a more annoying issue than the image quality issue. I hope the firmware update addresses this. Moving the cropped frame down a bit would help. Even better if there is a setting that allows me to manually choose where to crop, but this does not seems likely to happen any time soon.
Dan do you have a 24-inch iMac lying around for comparison? I feel like they should have just used that camera.
Massive difference in Definition, Noise reduction and Contrast. It looks like the focal point was not quite correct from the start either.
It's a 4k camera (8MP) cropped to +-1080p with centerstage
Just installed the update: The constrast is better, but the noise is still there which makes it look bad. The default crop seems to have changed and my face is now right in the center, showing more of my torso vs before. All this is with center stage turned off.
This is quite disappointing, my Logitech 4K brio looks so much better because of its sharpness and constrast. Apple's color science is somewhat better though. Dan's macrumors video has less noise than what I am seeing in mine (even when my room lit is well lit from one side), I am curious if that's because of youtube's compression smoothing it out or something else.
Apple should not have gone for the ultrawide to facilitate center stage, the crop quality can only be fixed to a certain extend. They should have stuck with a normal wide lens with a larger aperture or even the one from the 24 inch iMac which looks way better to me.
This is quite disappointing, my Logitech 4K brio looks so much better because of its sharpness and constrast. Apple's color science is somewhat better though. Dan's macrumors video has less noise than what I am seeing in mine (even when my room lit is well lit from one side), I am curious if that's because of youtube's compression smoothing it out or something else.
Apple should not have gone for the ultrawide to facilitate center stage, the crop quality can only be fixed to a certain extend. They should have stuck with a normal wide lens with a larger aperture or even the one from the 24 inch iMac which looks way better to me.
Better color temp, face less plasticy, and more detail in his hair. An improvement.
It's a webcam in a display, not a handheld Sony video camera used for making movies.
What's key, and why fussy people who engage in creative endeavors would consider the display, is the 5K resolution and superior color gamut.
People who don't fall into that category should purchase a 4K display and save money. Rather than claiming/whining on and on that 4K resolution with a lesser gamut is "just as good."
It's a webcam in a display, not a handheld Sony video camera used for making movies.
What's key, and why fussy people who engage in creative endeavors would consider the display, is the 5K resolution and superior color gamut.
People who don't fall into that category should purchase a 4K display and save money. Rather than claiming/whining on and on that 4K resolution with a lesser gamut is "just as good."
Personally I'd prefer the monitor without camera or speakers for $400 less.
Makes sense, although the reviews say the speakers are stellar.
It seems like the wrong model of camera was put into the studio display. Why would it take them over a month to fix a minor software glitch. It took a month because they trying their best to fix what wasn't an issue with the test models, which probably had better cameras in them. But Apple doesn't want to have to replace everyones studio display, so this will be yet another class action lawsuit for the class action people to sue over, so they can get millions, and we can all get a $10 check for our troubles of buying one. lol.
No. Yeah, there will be a few breathless people on forums having a good whine. But...life goes on. And the Sun will "rise" again tomorrow morning.
And that is the problem. They should have used the same one they used in the iMac, which obviously doesn’t need to be ultra-wide.
The default framing without center stage is the issue that annoys me most. A few of the video conference software I need to use do not support center stage yet, so fixing the framing issue is a great help to me. The image quality issue that many review of the Studio Display brought up does not actually annoy me, but that's probably because I come from using the webcam on the 2019 and 2016 MacBook Pro. The image quality is not great, but seems to be an improvement from what I used to use.
And this is why I just bought an old LED Cinema Display from a friend. Sexy gorgeous construction and no gimmicks. Back when Apple made proper stuff.
I don’t think 4K webcams are particularly cost-prohibitive (especially at Apple’s scale) — the Logitech Brio I think retails for $200 and is usually on Amazon for like, $150, and obviously that’s the retail price, not cost. So yeah, knowing Apple we’d round that up to $3000 MSRP
For someone planning on buying one of these to attach to their M1 Pro or M1 Max MBP, and they REALLY care about the webcam quality, they might do better to just pick up a 24” iMac. It has a better camera, plus you get a whole computer (in great colors!) with keyboard and mouse for about what you’d spend (assuming 16gb RAM) for the Studio Display plus Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse. Yes, it’s only 4.5K vs 5K. But as I said, if you REALLY care about the built-in webcam……