Greetings,

My Logitech QuickCam is now working under both 64 Studio and JAD, but it
was not an especially pleasant experience to get it going. Since both
distros had exactly the same issues I thought I'd ask what problems the
maintainers face when considering support for these cameras.

The first and biggest problem is that there's no /dev/video nodes and
they were not automatically created by udev or anything else. I was a
bit surprised at how much digging I did before I realized that I simply
had to create that node. Once that was done (with mknod) then I could
try my camera with the videodev and uvcvideo drivers. At that point I
could plug in the camera (it's a USB device) and get some results.

It works, but not with everything. Xawtv4 and luvcview both work (with
YUV format, but not MJPG), xawtv does not, nor did any other grabber I
tried. Either the camera never initializes or I just get a blank display
window. I'm still working on why that happens. I'm also confused about
how to improve the frame-rate. Apparently the grabber software ignores
my indication for a faster rate, even though the camera explicitly
supports up to 30 fps. Alas, I don't know if that's an input or output rate.

I also tried some apps that utilized the gspca driver, which is also
supposed to work with my camera, but I got no joy from any of them. If
they start they segfault almost immediately, with little or no helpful
report.

I'm still trying to get Veejay, FreeJ, and Gephex to recognize the
camera. FLxER knows it's there but I haven't figured out how to make it
work in the program. I also want to see if I can send a live feed into
Fluxus.

The domain is potentially confusing for novices. V4L, V4L2, and the
apparently overlapping drivers made for a bit of bewilderment on my
part, and I'm still trying to make sense of the situation. I'd love to
hear from anyone else using a webcam with 64 Studio or any other system,
and I'd especially like to know if anyone has got a camera working as an
input device for the programs mentioned above.

Anyway, that's my little report.

Best,

dp


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Hi Dave,

> My Logitech QuickCam is now working under both 64 Studio and JAD, but it
> was not an especially pleasant experience to get it going.

I've also found that webcams are not the easiest peripherals to make
work under GNU/Linux, and I'm not really sure why that should be.

> The first and biggest problem is that there's no /dev/video nodes and
> they were not automatically created by udev or anything else.

I'll open a ticket for that.

> I'm still trying to get Veejay, FreeJ, and Gephex to recognize the
> camera. FLxER knows it's there but I haven't figured out how to make it
> work in the program. I also want to see if I can send a live feed into
> Fluxus.

You might like to get in touch with Peter Geirnaert
<peter.geirnaert@gmail.com> who recently asked on the users list about
using a webcam as a MIDI controller, which sounds interesting...

Cheers!

Daniel


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>> My Logitech QuickCam is now working under both 64 Studio and JAD, but it
>> was not an especially pleasant experience to get it going.
>
> I've also found that webcams are not the easiest peripherals to make
> work under GNU/Linux, and I'm not really sure why that should be.

i have a logitech quickcam STX and it worked out of the box. i did not
have to do anything at all to make it work.

enrike

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Hi Enrike,

> i have a logitech quickcam STX and it worked out of the box. i did not
> have to do anything at all to make it work.

That's one for the supported hardware list then :-)

Which applications do you use it with?

Cheers!

Daniel

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Daniel James(e)k dio:
> Hi Enrike,
>
>> i have a logitech quickcam STX and it worked out of the box. i did not
>> have to do anything at all to make it work.
>
> That's one for the supported hardware list then :-)
>
> Which applications do you use it with?

Pure Data with GEM, and i also used it with skype once, i think it
worked ok.

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Daniel James wrote:
> Hi Dave,
>
>> My Logitech QuickCam is now working under both 64 Studio and JAD, but
>> it was not an especially pleasant experience to get it going.
>
> I've also found that webcams are not the easiest peripherals to make
> work under GNU/Linux, and I'm not really sure why that should be.

Hi Daniel,

Well, according to the research I've done so far, one problem is the
v4l/v4l2 distinction, which seems to have created something of a split
applications base. Another problem is what appears to be a case of
overlapping drivers, at least for my camera.

>
>> The first and biggest problem is that there's no /dev/video nodes and
>> they were not automatically created by udev or anything else.
>
> I'll open a ticket for that.
Thanks, I think it will ease the pain for the next person.

>
>> I'm still trying to get Veejay, FreeJ, and Gephex to recognize the
>> camera. FLxER knows it's there but I haven't figured out how to make
>> it work in the program. I also want to see if I can send a live feed
>> into Fluxus.
>
> You might like to get in touch with Peter Geirnaert
> <peter.geirnaert@gmail.com> who recently asked on the users list about
> using a webcam as a MIDI controller, which sounds interesting...
The programs I mentioned all have very interesting features. They are
not dependent upon webcams, they just list them as supported input
devices. Alas, as I wrote, I'm unable to get them working with the
camera. They seem to work well otherwise.

Oh, and 64 Studio is still the most rock-solid distro around. Thanks
again for such fine work, it is most appreciated.

Best,

dp


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Dave Phillips wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> My Logitech QuickCam is now working under both 64 Studio and JAD, but it
> was not an especially pleasant experience to get it going. Since both
> distros had exactly the same issues I thought I'd ask what problems the
> maintainers face when considering support for these cameras.
>
Storming report Dave. I've got one of these beasties, but had failed to
get it working so far. I shall follow through your notes and see if I
can find any further answers. Thanks for this work!

cheers,

tim


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tim hall wrote:
> Storming report Dave. I've got one of these beasties, but had failed
> to get it working so far. I shall follow through your notes and see if
> I can find any further answers. Thanks for this work!
Thanks, Tim. Let me know if you need any particular
help/advice/commiseration. I'm swamped with writing assignments right
now, but when I'm done with that work I plan to get further into VJ
software, specifically stuff that works (or is supposed to work) with a
webcam. It's all new to me, I've a lot to learn. Again. :-/

Best,

dp




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