Choosing a Camera

Decide Your Requirements

1. Do you need to be able to run 1080p50/p60 tests for HD or 2160p50/60 for UHD?
2. Do you need to be able to record audio, video and audio?
3. Do you need to test audio / video sync?
4. Do you need to test playback of movie-length content?
5. Do you need to do long duration high frame rate (~120fps) recording or long term use?
6. Do you want automatic control of recording (or is manual control enough)?
7. Do you want to stream to a PC or is recording locally and moving it across good enough?
8. How much can you afford?

Decide what (if anything) meets your requirements

The following table shows how well examples of various recording devices meet these requirements.

Requirement	Average cellphone	High end cellphone	Webcam	Mobile camera	Low-end professional camera
Test 1080p50/60, 2180p50/60	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Record audio, video and audio	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Test audio/video sync	Yes, shall be tested upfront	Yes, shall be tested upfront	No	Yes, shall be tested upfront	Yes, shall be tested upfront
Test playback of movie-length content	Limmited by battery capacity and overheat	Limmited by battery capacity and overheat	Yes	Limmited by battery capacity and overheat	Yes
~120fps recording in long duration and long term use	Not recommended	Not recommended	Yes	Not recommended	Yes
Streaming, local recording or streams can be downloaded to local	Effectively no due to severe limitations	Effectively no due to severe limitations	Yes	Yes-video only	Yes
Example device (1)	Generic cellphone	Samsung S23+	Logitech BRIO 4K Webcam	Go Pro Hero 11	Blackmagic Cinema 6K
Approximate Price	$500	$800-$1000	about $200	about $300	$6000

(1) Example devices are ones used to some extent during the development of the WAVE media test suite for devices. It is expected that other similar products will have similar capabilities.