Comment by veltas a day ago
And this is probably because Canon corporate won't justify a budget for developing this software unless they expect separate revenue for it, even though it's clearly just value-add to the (already very expensive) hardware.
Are you sure? The article talks about using it as a webcam and none of the Sony gear I've used supports that (A6500, A7 I/RI/II/SII/III/RIII/SIII).
They did make the "Imaging Edge Webcam" program, I think some time during the pandemic, but AFAIK it's just a PTP preview to webcam driver, so the quality is pretty terrible and you can do that with OBS+gphoto2.
A7RV + A6700 here. If you plug in a USB cable, it shows the usual "usb selection screen", but it includes a "USB streaming" option. It works immediately, flawlessly, on windows and macOS. For remote shooting, there's still the "PC remote" option.
My older Sony cameras (A6300 is my newest "old" Sony camera) don't have the feature (unless you use that terrible software you mentioned) Im surprised to read that even the reasonably modern A7SIII doesn't support it. It must be one of the last models without USB streaming support.
Fellow Sony a7iv owner here. I can confirm this works on my camera too.
For older cameras, probably the easiest way to do it (if you don't want to install anything) is to pick up a ~$20 usb HDMI capture card from amazon. Connect the HDMI output on the camera to the capture card. And then set your camera up to output a "clean" video source via the HDMI port.
As I understand it, modern capture cards work without drivers on every OS, just like the modern sony cameras do.
It reminds me a little of the time Apple charged $2 for a WiFi driver update, claiming some accounting rule said they couldn’t distribute it for free.
I guess they figured out a better way to do the accounting, since they never did that particular stunt again.
> For your "streamer" stuff, I'd expect them to use something appropiate to the job
They mostly don't, though. The standard "high-end" streaming setup is whatever second-hand mirrorless camera has a clear HDMI output, and an HDMI capture card.
This is because this behavior is simply not illegal, and companies can get away with it.
Bit of a weird argument considering you can use other brand cameras as webcams without any third party software. At least, all my Sony cameras can just be plugged in using USB and it works immediately. No drivers required.