I don't understand why anyone needs a software to achieve this in the first place? I've hooked the camera's HDMI out to some cheap random USB-C HDMI capture card, and use OBS to record the stream. Easy, uncompressed, no restrictions to whichever settings their software lets you access.
- You're kinda explaining Canon's logic here though - they want you to pay for "convenience".
- So the $5 is the idiot tax then - for people that can't figure it out themselves. Scummy as fuck when they could just out a youtube tutorial instead.
- Can you use that in videocalling apps?
  
  I guess it depends on the app, but I just checked and both Skype and Teams show me the capture card as input source, and the preview picture looks fine. So I'm pretty sure it works in an actual call, though I haven't tried it yet.
  Both apps heavily compress the video signal though, even if you set the quality to 1080p, so I doubt it makes a huge difference compared to a regular webcam.
  
  There is a vitrual cam for OBS that spoofs the OBS output to a webcam you can use in zoom/teams/etc
  I used a lot during covid.
  https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/obs-virtualcam.949/
- a software
  That word doesn't work like that.
- It's essentially the same thing, but instead of paying for software, you're using more complicated free software, and paying for the hardware.
  
  The hardware cost me less than 5 bucks.
Copying my comment from another thread on the topic
Probably because the software team is under a different cost center than the hardware/camera team, and they weren't generating revenue. So the idiot assholes at the top of the SW side said "we can monetize our webcam software" and a bunch of people agreed so they could look relevant and keep their jobs. Capitalism!
- This could be shortened to “Because it costs money to develop the software”
  
  But that's not the point. Of course it costs money, but they're not content providing it for free. A lot of hardware companies provide additional apps and functionality for free to enhance the hardware and make it better, but Canon chose to monetize it
You can apply the following answer to 95,99% of questions why a company is asking x price for y service/product:
Because enough people are paying it (because reason z)
Ideally there should be a requirement for camera manufacturers to interoperate, so they couldn't limit who builds third party software or lenses etc. Proper cameras are probably too niche nowadays for that to happen though
Canon is especially bad about these things though, buy Sony instead
And what was Canon's response?
It isn't.

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