What cheap webcam do I want, for recording TV screen for FB Live?

In My Humble Opinion
1

During the quarantine, I’ve had “virtual hangouts” with friends using FB Live and one thing that my friends seem to enjoy is when I play some old video game from the 90s and just point my phone’s camera at the TV, recording the gameplay while I talk about the game and offer some amusing commentary. The thing is, doing this with my phone has some limitations. I need to always prop it up on its side, on top of a bunch of stacked up boxes or books, to get it properly angled at the TV; it falls over easily; the quality of the camera is not great in low light; the stream is interrupted if someone calls or texts my phone.

For this reason, I’d like to upgrade to a cheap webcam that I can hook up to my laptop, and point at the TV, for these gaming streams. (No, I don’t want to go through the hassle of hooking up some kind of direct video capture from the gaming console or TV - it’s easier to just point a camera at the TV, and it has the added bonus of being able to turn the camera around at myself and occasionally talk to people ‘face to face.’)

I really don’t want to spend more than $100 on this. I’m looking for a webcam that’s plug and play, as simple as possible, and that can be mounted on a small tripod, ideally, for pointing at the TV screen. It also needs to not have the focus and/or exposure go apeshit from whatever is happening on the TV screen that it’s pointed at.

Will the various and sundry $50-or so webcams offered on Amazon be sufficient for this purpose?

2

If your phone has a decent camera, why not just get something like this? Or for a just a little bit more, this?

3

I was going to suggest similar devices, but it doesn’t solve the interruption issue.

4

Also I’d like to be able to use my Macbook for this purpose, since having a larger screen to see everyone’s comments would be better than straining to do the same on a phone perched on a tripod.

5

Logitech and Microsoft have very good webcams that in normal times are available for about fifty bucks but the prices have been inflated by the current crisis. If you can wait a few months, the prices should return to normal.

6

If you use Zoom for your meetings (free for meetings up to 40 minutes) instead of FB, you can simply use the share screen feature. No camera needed.

7

That doesn’t really work well with games being played on a TV.

8

:smack: This is what I get for not reading the OP carefully. Sorry.

9

Any of the Logitech webcams should be fine. Easy to use, plug-and-play. I use a Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 which I guess is pretty old, but it has worked great for all my meetings as far as I know. It does have auto focus but it can be turned off. In fact I think it’s off by default.

There are tons and tons of webcams on eBay. I would look there first, put in a max price and get whatever looks good.

10

Don’t Macbooks have built-in cameras? All the ones on their website look like they do, at any rate.

11

Yes, I don’t think Apple ever made a MacBook without a built in camera. Even the iBooks back in the PPC days had built in cameras.

They aren’t very flexible, though. They work great for video conferencing, but not so great for something like the OP describes.