**The ZV-1: A High-Quality Webcam Alternative**

If you're looking to determine a path for yourself, plugging in a USB cable to your ZV-1 is the free way to go. This will get you high-quality webcam results very quickly and beats out any USB webcam available on the market. However, even with this upgrade, the image quality is still soft, especially at 720p. It's not wonderful, and the frame rate can be unstable, depending on which USB port you plug it into.

Despite its limitations, the ZV-1 is still a great option for those looking to improve their webcam quality without breaking the bank. Investing in one of these cheapo USB capture cards, however, may be necessary for more reliable long-term results. These capture cards are not the most reliable pieces of hardware, but they can provide a significant leap in quality compared to the native USB output of the ZV-1.

**Upgrading with Capture Cards**

If you're looking to take your webcam game to the next level, investing in a capture card can be a good idea. These cards can output at higher resolutions, such as 4K, and provide more stable frame rates. However, the difference between this and the USB output of a standard capture card may not be noticeable for non-4K applications, like video conferencing or live streaming.

One popular option is to pair the ZV-1 with one of these cheapo capture cards and then use an HDMI cable to connect it to your computer. This will require juggling a few extra cables, as you'll need to plug in USB for power and HDMI to the capture card. While this may not be ideal for on-the-go setups or laptops, it can be a good option for those with stationary workflows.

**A Word from the Author**

One of my readers has expressed frustration with my decision to space out these episodes weekly. I understand that many of you would like to see them sooner, but I assure you that they are worth the wait. My videos are higher quality than those found on YouTube, and they're ad-free, often extended versions.

If you'd like to see more content from me sooner, I recommend checking out my own video site, Nebula. I've partnered with CuriosityStream to offer exclusive educational content, documentaries, and more. By signing up for their annual plan, you'll get access to Nebula for free, in addition to the thousands of educational titles available on CuriosityStream.

**A Special Offer**

CuriosityStream is currently offering 26% off their annual plan, making it less than $15 per year for both Nebula and CuriosityStream. This is an incredible deal, especially considering the quality of content you'll gain access to. Be sure to check out Viking Women, a documentary series that explores Europe's forgotten Vikings.

**A Final Word**

I'm excited to see Sony releasing higher-quality video modes on their cameras, as they push the industry to prioritize this aspect of camera design. The ZV-1 is still an excellent option for those looking for high-quality webcam alternatives, despite its limitations. With its autofocus system and ability to power over USB, it's a complete package all in one.

The ZV-1 beats out other cameras I've recommended, such as the Sony A5100, A6400, Panasonic G7, and G85, due to its excellent autofocus results and ability to power over USB. While investing in additional glass may be necessary for more advanced workflows, the ZV-1 is a great starting point for those looking to improve their webcam quality without breaking the bank.

If you have any questions or comments about using your ZV-1 as a webcam, I'd love to hear from you. Don't forget to like and subscribe for more tech education and stream guides. Remember, be kind, and rewind!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enback in summer of 2020 i posed this camera right here the sony zv1 as the ultimate webcam alternative and it turns out it just got even better i'm eposvox the stream professor and this is the sony zv1 this is sony's 600 to 800 dollar one inch sensor camera that released last year and promised to deliver usb streaming output to be used as a webcam but as an upgrade compared to how other cameras do if you missed the whole spiel i'll have a playlist linked in the description below pretty much every camera manufacturer released a program last year despite the fact that we've been calling for it for years to allow you to use your mirrorless or dslr camera as a webcam over usb to mostly poor results because all of these were using the tethering preview to take photos with when connected to a laptop for example so it usually runs at 10 24 by 576 30 fps super choppy not great well the sony zv1 was being marketed as a camera that has an upgraded mode for that that actually provides hd video in a pleasing image i was super soaked and reached out to sony to review it last year and they sent me one when the app wasn't available yet so i reviewed it as a camera that you can hook up to a capture card and the like but didn't get to test the software then we tried testing the software over streamer news and it wasn't great they have updated the sony imaging web edge webcam app software and the firmware for the sony's ev1 to provide an upgraded hd output for this camera over usb and that is what i'm using right now i have a sony zv1 in hand we have a sony zv1 mounted above my monitor here and we are using it over usb it outputs 720p so 1280x720 at 30fps you get no 60fps and you don't get any higher than that and it's outputting an m jpeg stream so that is the feed you get here it's still not perfectly fluid but it is significantly upgraded compared to what we saw last year and this is wonderful super shout outs to a viewer by the name of chandler who actually sent out a pair of these sony zv ones for me to test all this software upgrade again because these things are awesome now i'm not going to be too redundant with my full review of the camera if you missed that go check the link in the description below but if you missed it the sony's ev1 is a wonderful camera because it's a small sensor camera it's a point and shoot which you think are dead these days but this one provides high quality 4k video it provides some really cool features such as really fast autofocus if you'd like any product showcase mode where when you hold up a product to the camera it can immediately well not immediately sometimes but you know very quickly show it and then still go back to your face or back where you had the autofocus set to which makes it great for product shots for videos for streaming where you want to show stuff off and you want you know fast snappy responsive autofocus as i say as i mess it up i haven't actually tuned any of the settings here since i am borrowing someone else's camera i wanted to leave most of the settings alone keep in mind but you can tune it quite a bit it does 4k or 1080p internal it can be fully powered over usb so i have all of this connected through one cable for data and video and power which is pretty awesome and of course it has both clean hdmi out and usb video out as we're using now there are still some limitations with this usb webcam mode of course it is great if you just have one of these cameras and you need to use it as a webcam for teaching for video conferencing for streaming if you want for just calling a friend you know you want something like this it's great for that uh and you know it's a free upgrade so no reason not to use it if you have it uh but there are still some limitations in that you can see as i mentioned before the motion can be quite choppy it's not super great you don't have access to all of your menu settings so if you want to set up face registration for the autofocus like i do not have setup right now you can't actually access the menu while you were in this mode you can still change the shutter speed the iso and the aperture but you can't change most of the other settings or it will disconnect it from usb of course you can just set that setting and then reconnect it and reactivate it and that's fine but i also could not get it to work with multiple cameras so i have two of these zv ones here plugging both of them in over usb i'm not given a second device i'm not given another option to connect it in any way it is just the one i don't know if they haven't enabled for multicam at all but i did not see any way to do that which is disappointing because using two of these side by side or one of them overhead for a unboxing kind of camera or for like my pokemon card openings or things like that would be really powerful because this is actually the kind of use case i've been looking into the zv1 for because i have multiple overhead mounted cameras that i have struggled with keeping in focus and this one would not struggle with that focus at all to get your camera updated for either just outputting video over usb in the first place or the updated one head to the link in the description below on sony's website they have a firmware upgrader tool for windows and mac connect your camera to usb run the firmware updater it will restart it and then you need to once it's restarted and the firmware update says everything is done and safe of course you need to actually unplug it because then you need to go to the menu settings firstly go to movie mode of course but then go to the second of the camera settings menus and on the third or fourth page-ish there is a usb streaming option and you'll need to click that which will enable the usb streaming mode and then you can connect your micro usb cable now something i've noticed this time around that i'm not certain is unique to the new firmware or if i was doing it wrong previously but you don't actually add when you're adding either a video capture device to your streaming software such as obs or xsplit or what have you or selecting a device in your video calling app previously i was selecting a sony imaging edge device that it installs and i assumed that it would load up the preview at some point and this is how the canon and the fuji and all of that works with the sony's ev1 with the latest firmware it actually shows up as a device called zv1 so you just add that device instead and you get what we have right here in terms of quality what should you go with should you go with usb mode or should you invest in a capture card the results might surprise you here so you have been looking at for most of this video the camera connected over usb but now we're gonna switch and i'm gonna show you side by side the usb versus a 4k capture card which obviously the 4k capture card taking in 4k video from the zv1 is going to look stellar and going to be significantly nicer looking uh and a little bit more smooth but you may be saying okay so so what well i don't have a fancy 4k capture card well now you're gonna look at it side by side with this right here if i can get it unplugged this is one of those can't links or a six dollar usb capture card it only does 1080p but you can connect the zv1 to it at 4k plugging in hdmi in one end usb type c to type a or two type c on the other end to your computer and you get 1080p video and this is what that looks like compared to the usb and to the 4k now as a final point of comparison let's look at it compared to the what i would consider the best webcam available on the market which is the 200 elgato face cam and you can see what that looks like side by side an advantage you have with the sony's ev1 when streaming over usb compared to other camera as webcam applications is you get to send audio through the microphone and jack over usb as well so this is the deity v-mic d4 duo run into the sony zv run one sent over usb not bad so if you're trying to determine a path for yourself obviously plugging in usb to your zv1 is the free way to go that will get you high quality webcam results very very quickly and beats out any usb webcam available on the market period however it's still soft even at the 720p upgrade it's still soft it's still not wonderful and the frame rate especially depending on which usb port you plug it into even though it only output outputs usb 2.0 the frame rate's still not gonna be super stable so i i would say while that's great to start with i would still recommend investing five to twenty dollars in one of these cheapo usb capture cards because even though they're not gonna be reliable long long-term they're not great pieces of hardware they're just cloned chinese products it's still the highest leap in quality you can get over the native you know usb output of this capture card going from the cheapo capture card to the 4k capture card you can definitely see a difference but if you're just doing video conferencing or live streaming where you're not doing 4k output the difference is not as noticeable compared to the difference between this and the usb output of this so i definitely recommend getting you a cheap capture card to pair with this and then getting a micro hdmi cable to run from your zv1 then you do have to juggle a couple extra cables because you have to plug in usb for power for the zb1 and hdmi to the capture card which then runs in usb to your computer it's a little bit more cabling so maybe if you're on the go or running off a laptop not the best idea but if you're at a static kind of stationary setup for a normal workflow getting one of these cheapo capture cards probably is the way to go some of you have said that you don't like that i'm spacing out these episodes weekly and you want to see them sooner your chance of seeing these videos soonest are on my own video site that i built with my creator friends my videos are higher quality there ad free and often extended from the youtube versions the site is called nebula and we've partnered with curiositystream nebula features youtube's top education creators such as mkbhd thomasfrank and lowspecgamer curiositystream saw what we were doing for educational content and wanted to partner up and form an educational power team we've worked out a deal where if you sign up with the link in the video description you not only get access to curiosity stream in their library of thousands of educational content and documentaries you get access to nebula as well for free for the entire duration of your subscription to curiosity stream which is pretty awesome for a limited time curiosity stream is offering 26 off their annual plan making it less than 15 a year for both curiosity stream and nebula together while you're there check out viking women to learn about europe's forgotten vikings head to curiositystream.com epos for the best deal in streaming and get access to both sites for under 15 per year it's crazy just do it so sony's doing good stuff here trying to release a higher quality video mode and i would really hope that the next generation of cameras from all manufacturers now that they finally see that this should be a priority will build in a higher quality and usb 3.0 or higher optimized version of this instead of just using the photo tethering preview but we'll see i'm super stoked that they were improving it though that they still pushed through and released a higher quality version of this and i still think the zv1 is the best possible webcam alternative that you can buy unfortunately it's still 500 to 800 depending on where you buy it and how much you're willing to pay which is unfortunate because i'm really like i want a few of these for my studio but if you are looking to spend that money in terms of the overall workflow even if the quality is a little less this beats out the a5100s the a6400s in a lot of cases and the panasonic g7 and g85 that i've previously recommended just because of that autofocus system and the ability to power over usb and all of that whereas you have to buy the 500 800 body plus expensive glass and all that in order to get in a dummy battery and all of that to get some of those other cameras running as webcams whereas this is kind of the complete package all in one on top of the fact that the autofocus results especially with the product showcase beats out most of the other cameras i've recommended so far so just wanted to provide an update here and a brief brief tutorial on how to set it up and upgrade it for yourself hope you enjoyed hit the like button if you did subscribe for more tech education and stream guides remember be kind rewindback in summer of 2020 i posed this camera right here the sony zv1 as the ultimate webcam alternative and it turns out it just got even better i'm eposvox the stream professor and this is the sony zv1 this is sony's 600 to 800 dollar one inch sensor camera that released last year and promised to deliver usb streaming output to be used as a webcam but as an upgrade compared to how other cameras do if you missed the whole spiel i'll have a playlist linked in the description below pretty much every camera manufacturer released a program last year despite the fact that we've been calling for it for years to allow you to use your mirrorless or dslr camera as a webcam over usb to mostly poor results because all of these were using the tethering preview to take photos with when connected to a laptop for example so it usually runs at 10 24 by 576 30 fps super choppy not great well the sony zv1 was being marketed as a camera that has an upgraded mode for that that actually provides hd video in a pleasing image i was super soaked and reached out to sony to review it last year and they sent me one when the app wasn't available yet so i reviewed it as a camera that you can hook up to a capture card and the like but didn't get to test the software then we tried testing the software over streamer news and it wasn't great they have updated the sony imaging web edge webcam app software and the firmware for the sony's ev1 to provide an upgraded hd output for this camera over usb and that is what i'm using right now i have a sony zv1 in hand we have a sony zv1 mounted above my monitor here and we are using it over usb it outputs 720p so 1280x720 at 30fps you get no 60fps and you don't get any higher than that and it's outputting an m jpeg stream so that is the feed you get here it's still not perfectly fluid but it is significantly upgraded compared to what we saw last year and this is wonderful super shout outs to a viewer by the name of chandler who actually sent out a pair of these sony zv ones for me to test all this software upgrade again because these things are awesome now i'm not going to be too redundant with my full review of the camera if you missed that go check the link in the description below but if you missed it the sony's ev1 is a wonderful camera because it's a small sensor camera it's a point and shoot which you think are dead these days but this one provides high quality 4k video it provides some really cool features such as really fast autofocus if you'd like any product showcase mode where when you hold up a product to the camera it can immediately well not immediately sometimes but you know very quickly show it and then still go back to your face or back where you had the autofocus set to which makes it great for product shots for videos for streaming where you want to show stuff off and you want you know fast snappy responsive autofocus as i say as i mess it up i haven't actually tuned any of the settings here since i am borrowing someone else's camera i wanted to leave most of the settings alone keep in mind but you can tune it quite a bit it does 4k or 1080p internal it can be fully powered over usb so i have all of this connected through one cable for data and video and power which is pretty awesome and of course it has both clean hdmi out and usb video out as we're using now there are still some limitations with this usb webcam mode of course it is great if you just have one of these cameras and you need to use it as a webcam for teaching for video conferencing for streaming if you want for just calling a friend you know you want something like this it's great for that uh and you know it's a free upgrade so no reason not to use it if you have it uh but there are still some limitations in that you can see as i mentioned before the motion can be quite choppy it's not super great you don't have access to all of your menu settings so if you want to set up face registration for the autofocus like i do not have setup right now you can't actually access the menu while you were in this mode you can still change the shutter speed the iso and the aperture but you can't change most of the other settings or it will disconnect it from usb of course you can just set that setting and then reconnect it and reactivate it and that's fine but i also could not get it to work with multiple cameras so i have two of these zv ones here plugging both of them in over usb i'm not given a second device i'm not given another option to connect it in any way it is just the one i don't know if they haven't enabled for multicam at all but i did not see any way to do that which is disappointing because using two of these side by side or one of them overhead for a unboxing kind of camera or for like my pokemon card openings or things like that would be really powerful because this is actually the kind of use case i've been looking into the zv1 for because i have multiple overhead mounted cameras that i have struggled with keeping in focus and this one would not struggle with that focus at all to get your camera updated for either just outputting video over usb in the first place or the updated one head to the link in the description below on sony's website they have a firmware upgrader tool for windows and mac connect your camera to usb run the firmware updater it will restart it and then you need to once it's restarted and the firmware update says everything is done and safe of course you need to actually unplug it because then you need to go to the menu settings firstly go to movie mode of course but then go to the second of the camera settings menus and on the third or fourth page-ish there is a usb streaming option and you'll need to click that which will enable the usb streaming mode and then you can connect your micro usb cable now something i've noticed this time around that i'm not certain is unique to the new firmware or if i was doing it wrong previously but you don't actually add when you're adding either a video capture device to your streaming software such as obs or xsplit or what have you or selecting a device in your video calling app previously i was selecting a sony imaging edge device that it installs and i assumed that it would load up the preview at some point and this is how the canon and the fuji and all of that works with the sony's ev1 with the latest firmware it actually shows up as a device called zv1 so you just add that device instead and you get what we have right here in terms of quality what should you go with should you go with usb mode or should you invest in a capture card the results might surprise you here so you have been looking at for most of this video the camera connected over usb but now we're gonna switch and i'm gonna show you side by side the usb versus a 4k capture card which obviously the 4k capture card taking in 4k video from the zv1 is going to look stellar and going to be significantly nicer looking uh and a little bit more smooth but you may be saying okay so so what well i don't have a fancy 4k capture card well now you're gonna look at it side by side with this right here if i can get it unplugged this is one of those can't links or a six dollar usb capture card it only does 1080p but you can connect the zv1 to it at 4k plugging in hdmi in one end usb type c to type a or two type c on the other end to your computer and you get 1080p video and this is what that looks like compared to the usb and to the 4k now as a final point of comparison let's look at it compared to the what i would consider the best webcam available on the market which is the 200 elgato face cam and you can see what that looks like side by side an advantage you have with the sony's ev1 when streaming over usb compared to other camera as webcam applications is you get to send audio through the microphone and jack over usb as well so this is the deity v-mic d4 duo run into the sony zv run one sent over usb not bad so if you're trying to determine a path for yourself obviously plugging in usb to your zv1 is the free way to go that will get you high quality webcam results very very quickly and beats out any usb webcam available on the market period however it's still soft even at the 720p upgrade it's still soft it's still not wonderful and the frame rate especially depending on which usb port you plug it into even though it only output outputs usb 2.0 the frame rate's still not gonna be super stable so i i would say while that's great to start with i would still recommend investing five to twenty dollars in one of these cheapo usb capture cards because even though they're not gonna be reliable long long-term they're not great pieces of hardware they're just cloned chinese products it's still the highest leap in quality you can get over the native you know usb output of this capture card going from the cheapo capture card to the 4k capture card you can definitely see a difference but if you're just doing video conferencing or live streaming where you're not doing 4k output the difference is not as noticeable compared to the difference between this and the usb output of this so i definitely recommend getting you a cheap capture card to pair with this and then getting a micro hdmi cable to run from your zv1 then you do have to juggle a couple extra cables because you have to plug in usb for power for the zb1 and hdmi to the capture card which then runs in usb to your computer it's a little bit more cabling so maybe if you're on the go or running off a laptop not the best idea but if you're at a static kind of stationary setup for a normal workflow getting one of these cheapo capture cards probably is the way to go some of you have said that you don't like that i'm spacing out these episodes weekly and you want to see them sooner your chance of seeing these videos soonest are on my own video site that i built with my creator friends my videos are higher quality there ad free and often extended from the youtube versions the site is called nebula and we've partnered with curiositystream nebula features youtube's top education creators such as mkbhd thomasfrank and lowspecgamer curiositystream saw what we were doing for educational content and wanted to partner up and form an educational power team we've worked out a deal where if you sign up with the link in the video description you not only get access to curiosity stream in their library of thousands of educational content and documentaries you get access to nebula as well for free for the entire duration of your subscription to curiosity stream which is pretty awesome for a limited time curiosity stream is offering 26 off their annual plan making it less than 15 a year for both curiosity stream and nebula together while you're there check out viking women to learn about europe's forgotten vikings head to curiositystream.com epos for the best deal in streaming and get access to both sites for under 15 per year it's crazy just do it so sony's doing good stuff here trying to release a higher quality video mode and i would really hope that the next generation of cameras from all manufacturers now that they finally see that this should be a priority will build in a higher quality and usb 3.0 or higher optimized version of this instead of just using the photo tethering preview but we'll see i'm super stoked that they were improving it though that they still pushed through and released a higher quality version of this and i still think the zv1 is the best possible webcam alternative that you can buy unfortunately it's still 500 to 800 depending on where you buy it and how much you're willing to pay which is unfortunate because i'm really like i want a few of these for my studio but if you are looking to spend that money in terms of the overall workflow even if the quality is a little less this beats out the a5100s the a6400s in a lot of cases and the panasonic g7 and g85 that i've previously recommended just because of that autofocus system and the ability to power over usb and all of that whereas you have to buy the 500 800 body plus expensive glass and all that in order to get in a dummy battery and all of that to get some of those other cameras running as webcams whereas this is kind of the complete package all in one on top of the fact that the autofocus results especially with the product showcase beats out most of the other cameras i've recommended so far so just wanted to provide an update here and a brief brief tutorial on how to set it up and upgrade it for yourself hope you enjoyed hit the like button if you did subscribe for more tech education and stream guides remember be kind rewind\n"