Any recommendations for hardware to support the group rides on a windows PC? No native web cam or microphone.
Depending on where you are, a better question might be, where can you buy a webcam?
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Indeed. My wife’s laptop webcam has been weird so I looked at the local bestbuy and microcenter inventory and all webcams were sold out. Bad time to be looking for one lol
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Do you have an iPhone? It looks like there are some apps that let you use it as a webcam for your laptop. I haven’t looked hard enough to see if they will integrate the video feed with other apps.
I actually tested this today, for this very reason. I tried EpocCam on an iPad transmitting to a Windows machine. It’s functional but a little flakey. I tried DroidCam from my phone (also to a Windows machine) and the UX is worse but it works pretty solidly.
Both things install a driver that makes the network feed from the device appear as if it is from a webcam-type device attached to your computer: so it doesn’t care what app on the desktop is consuming the data. Tested with TR and with a browser-based Zoom/WebEx-like thing (BigBlueButton).
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If you want to over spend and see every drop of sweat
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/streamcam
Otherwise; this is the most bomb proof webcam you can get.
Usually pre-COVID-19 you could get these for $50
If you can find a CAM in the the US right now in stock you’re doing better than most; we had to drive a guy all over the state just to get 9 emergency cameras for customers and that was 10 days ago.
I tried using my android phone as webcam for all the inevitable Zoom meetings these days. I used and app called IPwebcam. It will transmit the camera signal from your phone over wifi to the computer… It works, but in my case it’s really quite laggy. Maybe I’ll try a different app and see if it is better, but yeah… (affordable) webcams are nowhere to be found.
I’ve just finished a video on my YouTube channel on using your phone or tablet as a webcam - and the main reason I did it was because I wanted to try group workouts and my turbo PC has no webcam - and I couldn’t get hold of one!
I’ve found the app pretty reliable - my PC has an Ethernet connection which helps. There are many other options and this one does costs £10 but it’s the easiest and most reliable option I’ve tried so far. And it works with Android and iOS devices. I can have my iPad in my Tacx handlebar mount, with TR running on PC. This gives a decent angle for webcam too.
Interesting, does it allow the iPad to work as a microphone too?
I bought it with their virtual sound card software as described in video for an extra £10 so yes - frustrating they don’t just include that with the app. And you could use the free stereo mix option again discussed. But by default and the best results you’d need to use another input for audio - wired mic (3.5mm or USB), Bluetooth headphones etc. As an aside I use a USB Samson Go Mic for Zoom calls with my iPhone 11 on my work PC.
Sorry, middle of the work day so haven’t had chance to watch the vid. Will try to check it out later.
No probs let me know if you have any questions on it.
can I just put up a picture of @Nate_Pearson instead of me? 
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If you check with them i bet that fee cover the codec license. Software based Audio codecs that do live transmission are licensed/copyrighted and cost money. That’s why they charge you, not everyone needs audio so it’s actually good of them for not extra in the base product. Most people just build it in and have a higher base price.
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