Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

QUICK TIP: Even if your laptop has an inbuilt camera, get 
an external HD webcam as it will improve your online study 
experience. 
Tere is a seemingly endless array of webcams available and a sim-
ilarly never-ending supply of blog posts and articles advising you 

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Using video 121 
about the latest “best buys”. However, there are some fundamen-
tals that you can apply to making that purchasing decision. You 
need to consider the factors listed below when buying a webcam. 
resolution 
Te camera’s resolution determines how many pixels (individu-
al components of the image) can be captured by the webcam. It 
might seem logical to go for the highest resolution you can get. 
However, this can cause problems. Te more pixels that are cap-
tured, the more data has to be transmitted across the Internet. 
Tis can slow things down and eat into your bandwidth. As an 
example, look at Figure 6.2. A high-quality HD camera only has 
to transmit around one-quarter of the number of pixels compared 
with the next highest level of image quality. So, an HD camera is 
ideal for online video calls. However, if you are going to record 
material, such as for assessed presentations, then a UHD 4K cam-
era would be better as the image quality is more than double that 
of HD. Rather than getting two cameras, look for webcams that 
can vary the resolution. Some of the leading cameras come with 
software that allows you to adjust the resolution depending upon 
the work you are doing. 
frame rate 
Te camera’s frame rate is a measure of how many still images 
the camera produces per second. Te more still images per sec-
ond, the smoother your video will look. However, rather like 
Camera type 
Resolution 
Total number of pixels 
HD Ready 
1280 x 720 
921,600 
Full HD 
1920 x 1080 
2,073,600 
UHD (4K) 
3840 x 2160 
8,294,400 
Figure 6.2 
Resolutions and numbers of pixels for different webcams 

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