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Best webcam settings

Does your video on your webcam look grained and too loud? Are you struggling to make your video look smoother and more professional? Are you in search of the Best webcam settings that can improve the quality of your video? Having a webcam with the perfect camera and video settings is a rare piece of luck. No matter how expensive your PC or laptop is, the quality of the webcams installed in them will always make you doubt your choice. You can never have a webcam that suits your likes and preferences of video settings.

With the advent of the pandemic, the entire world has shifted to online mode. Online events and meetings have become part and parcel of everyone’s lives. And if you are from an IT background, you will realize the pain of not having a webcam that suits you and makes your video look more professional. This makes it extremely necessary to customize your webcam settings to look good in your meetings and deliver your work to your maximum potential. 

Let’s move on to find out about the Best webcam settings that can make your life easier. Why do we need the Best webcam settings?

Best webcam settings

Your webcam has some pre-defined settings that are made on the part of the IT Team of the company. These settings, however, may not suit you and your needs. Usually, these settings are made of a very poor quality that can degrade the picture quality to a great extent. You need to adjust your webcam’s settings so that you get a better quality and more professional video.

Tip 1- Change the settings of your webcam

Changing your webcam settings is the easiest method to make your video look better. Windows and Mac systems have certain pre-defined settings that you can always change to make your video look good. Set the image resolution to 720p or 1080p and the frame rate to the maximum option available to make your video smoother and prevent it from stuttering. Generally, after the resolution of 720p, FPS plays a more important role in giving your video a professional and smooth appearance. You would not like to watch an HD video if it keeps stuttering. 

It may be heartbreaking to know that you cannot change your webcam’s settings on a macOS. But don’t despair. You can also download some apps that will improve the default footage of your camera. These apps will increase your webcam’s performance and give you multiple effects that you can use to make your video better and smoother. While some of these apps are free, some come with a one-time fee or a monthly subscription. 

Tip 2- Set the Auto Exposure Settings 

Webcams allow light in them through their lens before clicking your pictures or making videos. The higher the duration the light enters, the brighter the picture will be. Modern DSLRs have a shutter in front of the aperture, which allows the light to enter while clicking images. Technically, this duration is called the shutter speed. If the shutter speed is higher (less exposure), less light will be able to enter, and your video will become dull. However, if too much light is entering the lens, this will lead to motion blur, which will give your video a kind of ghosting effect. Too much exposure can also lead to a drop in the frame rate of the video, which will cause a time lag between the actions you perform in reality and when they appear on the screen. Besides this, too much exposure can also make the colors of your video too bright and decrease the visibility of other elements. Therefore, it is crucial to adjust your video exposure by turning off the auto exposure settings in your webcam.

Tip 3- Check for the White Balance Settings

The White Balance of your webcam settings decides how the white and other elements of the background will appear in your image. This implies that either these will appear bluer or they will appear redder. This property is measured on the Kelvin scale. Setting this to a higher value will make your video look ‘warmer,’ A lower value will make it ‘cooler.’ It is necessary to set the White Balance for your video as it makes your video look more natural and smoother. This can be done by switching off the auto-balance settings in your webcam. Try to keep your skin tone in real life so that the video looks more natural and authentic.

Tip 4- Set the Gain Settings

Yet another webcam setting allows you to make your image brighter by setting a higher value of gain. This is an alternative to making your image brighter by increasing the brightness value. But the negative side of this setting is that it makes your video look grainier and gives it a distorted appearance. This is an artificial way of brightening up your video, which proves to be futile. Keep the value of gain as low as possible so that you can get rid of the grainer effect that it gives to your videos. To do this, switch off the auto gain setting in your webcam.

Tip 5- Set the Resolution Settings

The default settings of the webcam are set to the lowest quality of images and the lowest number of frame rates. This makes your video uneven and dull. You need to change these settings to the highest quality image formats. To make these settings:

  1. Check Custom Resolution on your webcam.
  2. Go to ‘ Use Preferred Output Type’, select the MJPG option, and select your preferred resolution.
  3. Ensure that the frame rate is set to 30 FPS for a high-quality video.

After adjusting these settings for your webcam, let’s dive into more hacks that can make your webcam perfect for you.

Lighting Effect

This is a crucial element that can make your video clearer and more professional. You may have noticed several cheap webcams having 1080p resolution and a frame rate of 30 FPS available on many e-commerce websites. And it is not hard to believe that people get lured into buying such webcams only because they are cheap. However, an essential element that makes a webcam better than others is the quality of sensors installed in it.

You may have noticed your video becoming dull or grainy while in meetings or on video calls. The culprit is the sensor of your camera. It cannot recognize the element to set its focus on it, so your video has that irritating grainy effect. To solve this problem, make sure that you are sitting in a proper environment with sufficient light so that your camera sensor can recognize the elements to focus on. Do not put direct light on your face, as this will not make any significant difference. Try illuminating your face from both sides to make your video look better.

Customizing your background

Customizing your background will improve the quality of your video drastically. During online meetings or conferences, the audience will also get distracted by any disturbances in your background. This will also make your video more grainy as the sensor will start focusing on other elements around you. Also, make sure to keep away any source of light present at the back of your table as this will cause unnecessary illumination. Keep your background as professional as possible so that the sensors are not distracted, and your video remains static.

Improving the audio quality

This is another hack that will engage your audience and make your video more captivating. Having poor-quality audio will make a bad impression on your audience no matter how good your video quality is. Most of the webcams have poor quality inbuilt microphones, which make your voice unclear. Also, playing your audio on a speaker will make your sound play in loops, and it becomes too unpleasant to listen to. Try using a headset device with a built-in microphone that will make your audio clear and better. You can also use wireless earbuds if you want a highly professional video.

Having a good webcam is never enough if you don’t have webcam software that goes along perfectly with it. It will allow you to record videos and live stream without any trouble. Let’s look at some of the amazing webcam software that will help you tremendously.

Restream Studio

Restream Studio is a platform that allows you to stream your video seamlessly and comes with several amazing features. You can record your video and stream it live on multiple platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc., at the same time. It also allows you to add animations and various backgrounds. Apart from these perks, it also comes with a user-friendly interface that a beginner and an experienced person can use simultaneously, and you only need your laptop, a microphone, and a Restream account to start using this software.

1. ManyCam

The software is known for making better quality videos. It allows you to manage videos for your presentations, meetings, and conferences simultaneously. You can switch to multiple video sources during your presentations. It also comes with a user-friendly UI design and gives a high-quality resolution to your video. It also adds overlays and graphics to make your video look more professional. The only drawback of the software is that it has no lighting effect, and you can not expect to increase the lighting of your video.

2. SplitCam

This is another well-known software that allows you to use your webcam for multiple applications simultaneously. It gets its name from the unique feature it comes with. It allows you to “split” your videos allowing you to do multi-tasking and increase your efficiency. You can choose multiple options to stream your video and share your presentation or desktop screen. It makes your task easier by allowing you to stream your video on multiple platforms like Facebook and Twitter simultaneously.

3. YouCam9

Yet another webcam software comes packed with multiple features. It allows you to make your video look better by providing several video effects and the option of AR makeup and pictures smoothing. You can easily integrate the software with YouTube Live and FacebookLive and stream your video without extra effort. It also gives you multiple filters and emojis to add to your feed. You can use the Face Recognition option to prevent your webcam from being hacked.

4. Debut Video Capture

Unlike other webcam software, this software comes with a wide range of features without paying for any monthly or annual subscription after a certain period. This software gives no watermark and imposes no special filters and effects restrictions. You can set time to make pre-recorded content go live. It also offers plenty of export options and supports multiple video formats.

5. Windows Camera

This is the default webcam software that comes with Windows 10. Although it provides basic features, you can still use it to enhance the quality of your video. The advantage of this software is that it is free and also you do not have to install it on your computer or laptop. The software has a user-friendly interface and is among the easy-to-use webcam software in the market. You can also click pictures apart from recording a live video. 

The webcam mentioned above settings will make your video more smooth and professional. You can either change your webcam’s settings or download these softwares that are free and come with amazing features. These webcam settings will make your webcam worth the money you have invested in buying them. Try out these hacks, and you will find a difference in your webcam’s video and picture quality.  

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