Re: [SLUG] webcam image control

From: Chuck Hast (wchast@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Dec 17 2009 - 07:46:28 EST


On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 19:56, Eben King <eben01@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 6 Dec 2009, Chuck Hast wrote:
>
>>>> When you plug the cam into the USB (I assume it is USB)
>>>
>>> It is, 17a1:0128 .
>>>
>>>> how does it show up in the /dev? Mine shows up as /dev/video0,
>>>
>>> Mine too.
>
>> Ok, it has found the cam and probably installed the proper drivers for
>> it. Here is the old fall back, which I what I think most all of us use
>> when
>> we are testing analog cams out, do a apt-get on xwtv and fire it up, I
>> just put it on one of my Ubuntu systems to check it out and when I
>> fired it up I  it had already found the camera and was showing me ugly
>> pix of my self...
>> XAWTV is a very basic prog that just handles a video stream and puts
>> it on your screen. Start with it, if you can get that to work then you
>> will
>> be able to work through the rest of it.
>> If it behaves yours like it does on mine when you start it up you will get
>> a video window and a welcome screen. If you want to twiddle the knobs
>> you will need to right click on the video screen, that will bring up your
>> control screen. XAWTV can read video files it can also read and control
>> a TV tuner card, but the best thing is it is very easy to get going with
>> most any analog camera either USB or frame grabber. In your case
>> you are using a USB cam.
>
> xawtv and vlc (both 0.8.6 here and 1.0.2 in the VM) give me a all-black
> window, and ekiga (on the laptop) gives me a window full of light-responsive
> garbage in both v4l and v4l2, but I got luvcview to work.  The interface is
> pretty Spartan though, and it doesn't give me _any_ choice about saved video
> parameters -- when I say so, a 320x240 MJPEG file is saved to ./video.avi .
> $cwd isn't writable?  Errors.  Lots of them.  At least it saves.  Any ideas
> for better-looking replacements that might work?  gspca is version
> gspca-ba8d6bf077aa, released 2009-12-15 noonish, and "uname -r" returns
> 2.6.26.5 (here, self-compiled) / 2.6.31-16-generic (VM) / 2.6.24-26-generic
> (laptop) kernel.
>

Hmm, I have a little old Chinese USB cam, this thing loads the gspca drivers
and comes up in XAWTV, VLC, Lucview and even good old Skype, not sure
what to tell you as the stinking camera "just works" so I have not had to really
dig into it. I do recall some years back when I got the thing it would not work,
I looked at what it was dumping to /var/log/messages and based on that info
I downloaded the gspca stuff, and it worked. But that was way back ages ago
with SuSE, I thnk it was 10.x

I am not sure what else to tell you.

-- 
Chuck Hast  -- KP4DJT --
To paraphrase my flight instructor;
"the only dumb question is the one you DID NOT ask resulting in my going
out and having to identify your bits and pieces in the midst of torn
and twisted metal."

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