ELP USB4KCAM01H-SH120 4K HDMI USB Webcam

A special purpose 4k HDMI camera with dual output

This 4k industrious camera is not your typical USB camera used for zoom calls. This high resolution camera is intended to monitor critical components such as insider assembly line machines or circuit board inside manufacturing machines. For business applications, this camera can monitor the server racks or inside commercial building engineer rooms.

Only 1080p on HDMI, Fiddly manual focus

I got the 120-degree lens.

Simultaneous output is nice, super handy.

Focus adjustment is a bit hard to set. The lens fixture wants to move as you tighten the fixing screw so it takes a few tries to get it dialed in.

The 'no distortion' lens produces a pretty good image unless you're shooting within a foot or so. Then the image corners have pretty noticeable curves (see cutting mat photo). You probably shouldn't ever do close-ups like that though. The camera has software zoom control ('digital zoom'), and that will do a decent job with the 4K sensor, or you can just crop it in post.

The device gets a warm in use, about 45C (113F) on the case surface. At 4K30 with MJPEG I saw power draw of 2.83W, and at 4K30 H264 I saw 3.06W. With just HDMI active I saw about 2.74W.

I could not get 4K out of the HDMI output. I was rather confused as the product info only mentions 4K, simultaneous output, and that the HDMI is 1.4 (which is capable of 4K@30). When I open the device I saw that the HDMI chip is Lontium LT8912B, and its datasheet only claims "Up to 60Hz 1080p 8-bit HDMI output", despite being HDMI 1.4 compliant.

I'm built-in H.264 is nice to have since I can capture compressed without running a CPU/GPU encoder.

I pulled the supported USB mode resolutions with v4l2-ctl. They are:

'MJPG' (Motion-JPEG, compressed)

'H264' (H.264, compressed)

'HEVC' (HEVC/H.265, compressed)

640x360, 640x480, 960x540, 1024x576, 1280x720, 1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160

All at 30, 20, or 15 fps

'YUYV' (YUYV 4:2:2, uncompressed)

640x360, 640x480: 30, 20, or 15 fps

960x540, 1024x576: 15, 10, or 5 fps

1280x720: 10, 5, or 2 fps

1920x1080: 5 or 2 fps

The uncompressed modes are kind of useless. The lack of 60fps at 1080p or lower, even on compressed modes, kind of stinks. HDMI capture at least gives you the possibility to get footage at 1920x1080 60 fps.

I could not see a model on the camera sensor, but it looks like other IMX415 chip photos I see on the web. The main processing chip was covered by heatsink that I did not remove, it can remain a mystery.

Good image quality but not astounding; 1080p HDMI output; has focus trouble

The first issue I had with this camera was that out of the box it was out of focus just a bit. This turned out to be a bigger problem than I expected because the screw was cranked down enough that it damaged the threads on the lens assembly. I was able to loosen the screw and turn the lens but it was very difficult to secure it without the screw throwing off the focus again because it wants to sit in the detent it made. A soft tip set screw seems like it would gave been a better choice.

Since I was already playing with the focus anyway I tried it very close up. The dime photo was taken at about 1 cm distance.

The next thing I discovered about the camera is that the HDMI output is actually only 1080p. There's no mention of this in the specs and it was a little disappointing, but not a deal breaker for my purposes.

The image quality is good but not as good as, say, my drone's 4K camera - which is quite a bit smaller and lighter. This unit also runs pretty warm.

I was able to get it working without difficulty on both Windows and Ubuntu and I'll be using it for some computer vision experiments and maybe eventually on a robot.

Fixed Focus 4K USB or HDMI Out Camera, Small, Tripod or Bail Mount

Fixed focus 4K camera with USB power and output or USB power with HDMI output. Smaller size than I expected, less than 2 inches on each side. Metal housing, feels solid. Has a bail mount or can be mounted on a tripod mount (tripod mount is directly on the housing.) Came with camera, instructions, USB A to USB C cable (approx. 4 ft.), HDMI to HDMI flat cable (also approx. 4 ft.), and screws/drywall adapters for mounting. I was able to use it with my Android phone and a camera app and Windows 10 and 11 PCs. Image quality is very good. While the focus is fixed (no optical zoom,) you can adjust the focus by loosening the small Phillips screw near the lens and turning the lens to change, then tightening the screw to set the focus. This camera would be best suited as a permanently installed device feeding either a PC or HDMI recording device. The price and quality seem to be well aligned.