Hi,
I will try to answer some of the questions to the best of my ability:
First, as I think I mentioned, responding to your similar query on the
gphoto-users list, there is a division of labor in Linux between still
camera support and support for streaming. The reason for this is that
still camera support can be done 100% in userspace, whereas streaming can
not. So what you will typically find is that if device X is a dual-mode
device which is fully supported, then it will be supported by Gphoto as a
still camera, with accompanying information about that over there, and by
the video4linux project as a streaming device, with any information about
that found over here.
The rest of my response, you will find "in line" below.
On Wed, 29 Apr 2009, Robin van Kleeff wrote:
Hey everybody,
I have been searching for information on using compact photo cameras
as video devices (and also for compatibility with gphoto through the
gphoto websites/mailing list).
I was wondering if any of you knows which cameras (brand, type) I
should focus on?
I can only mention the cameras that I personally have supported. I do not
know very much about any others. The cameras that I have supported usually
run toward being cheap. As to the rest of them, I think that you will find
practically all of the current support for dual-mode cameras to do
streaming is in the gspca project. The most current support of all is, of
course, in the most current code. That code may not be in your current
kernel version, but by intention you ought to be able to download it and
look at it and compile it and install it. What will happen if you do these
steps is, the modules in drivers/media/video will be compiled for the
kernel which is detected on your installation, and the currently existing
modules in drivers/media/video will be overwritten. Within reasonable
limitations, the code is supposed to work with recent kernel releases.
So, my first proposal to you would be to download the most current version
of the code. Since Jean-Francois Moine is the maintainer of the most
current gspca code, which is probably what would interest you, I would
suggest to do
hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/~jfrancois/gspca/
and to take a look at the subdirectory
linux/drivers/media/video/gspca
and/or the directory
linux/Documentation/video4linux/gspca.txt
and see if you find anything there of interest. I think I mentioned
already, in response to your post on the gphoto-users list, that the
cameras supported by the drivers libgphoto2/camlibs/sq905 and
camlibs/digigr8 and some of the cameras supported by camlibs/mars can also
perform now in streaming mode. However, my impression was that you are
looking for a better camera than one of these. I do not blame you for
that; those things are all cheap cameras even though some of them take
fairly decent photos, with resolutions up to 640x480. There may be some
other cameras that you will recognize, though, because gspca does support
lots of cameras. Also do not neglect to look for cameras which are not in
gspca but will also be listed in the source code I suggested to you to
download. Some of the other things supported in linux/drivers/media/video
are cameras, too. And some of those may be still cameras as well as video
cameras. So if you recognize such a thing, then, good.
Also, a remark or two about how to recognize a camera:
There is, of course, the documentation in linux/Documentation/video4linux
which might help. However, that documentation is often sketchy. The
problem is, there are lots of mass-produced chips out there for running
cameras, and there are lots of brand names and "models" where the
mass-produced chip has been slapped into a case and a decal or
paintbrush has been used on the plastic exterior, claiming that this is
model X from manufacturer Y. The same chip might be inside 40 different
so-called models from various manufacturers. Even worse, if the
manufacturer feels like buying some other chips, in job lots, and putting
them into the next batch of the same make and model, then said
manufacturer might just go right ahead and do that. So the only way to
know what is really supposed to be there is to look at the two four-digit
hexadecimal numbers consisting of the vendor number and the product
number. If you want to see some samples of this in action, then go to the
website qbik.ch and browse the lists there. That website, incidentally, is
supposed to give information about various USB hardware and the status of
its Linux support. It is always out of date, of course. One of the reasons
for that is, developers who supported a chip which runs in 40 cameras do
not want to bother to go there and put in an entry for every single one of
them. Another reason is (and I have had that experience several times!)
that I personally have supported some device and know it works, and the
code is out there in some project. But before I got to qbik.ch someone
else has already been there and informed us all that the device does not
work and is unsupported. And then after doing the support myself I can not
change the other guy's entry. If he disappeared, then the entry will never
get changed.
I'm interested in digital compact camera that can be
used to take decent quality pictures, and also function as for
instance a web cam for applications such as Ekiga. I am unable to
find any lists of cameras that are supported.
Sorry, I do not know anything at all about Ekiga.
By the way, I am much more an end-user then a developer, so forgive me
if I ask dumb questions, or if I ask questions that are outside of the
scope of this mailing list.
If there is no other list dealing with this kind of inquiry, then clearly
the questions are not outside of the scope of the mailing list.
Thanks in advance!
Robin
--
Hoping that this helps some, and hoping that some others can fill in
the blanks that I left.
Theodore Kilgore
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