# What webcam do you use?

## Letharion

I want a webcam. I know recent kernels are supposed to have better support, but I'd rather ask you people what cams you'r using than trying blindly.

I'm willing to spend up to about $50 if I get a decent quality picture from it.

How much "image quality" can I transfer on 100KB up?

[Edit]Replaced high with decent[/edit]Last edited by Letharion on Fri Feb 13, 2009 10:22 am; edited 1 time in total

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## poly_poly-man

webcam != high quality. Look into getting a decent camera, and hooking it up (assuming you really care about quality). Otherwise get anything logitech.

And also - on a 100KB (kilobits or kilobytes?), you can get about 100KB/s... assuming you're only uploading to one host. Take a video and transcode it down to that much and see if you're happy.

If you have 2 hosts you are uploading to, drop that to 50KB/s. 3... etc.

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## Letharion

 *poly_poly-man wrote:*   

> webcam != high quality. Look into getting a decent camera, and hooking it up (assuming you really care about quality). Otherwise get anything logitech.
> 
> And also - on a 100KB (kilobits or kilobytes?), you can get about 100KB/s... assuming you're only uploading to one host. Take a video and transcode it down to that much and see if you're happy.
> 
> If you have 2 hosts you are uploading to, drop that to 50KB/s. 3... etc.

 

Bytes. No, really, I get 100 from 100?  :Razz: 

Transcoding a video was a good idea though  :Smile: 

I could get a "real" camera, cause I've been thinking about that anyway, but I really meant "as decent quality as one gets for $50". You don't get a decent "real" camera for that money  :Smile: 

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## DavePrince

I've got a Logitech QuickCam S7500 just before Christmas (cost ~£40.) I'm using it with skype video phone, using the linux-uvc driver. Also needed usb-audio for the built-in microphone (and then some fiddling with the module loading in order to make sure the camera audio, the sound card and the onboard sound device all got loaded in the same order each boot.)

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## Letharion

 *DavePrince wrote:*   

> I've got a Logitech QuickCam S7500 just before Christmas (cost ~£40.) I'm using it with skype video phone, using the linux-uvc driver. Also needed usb-audio for the built-in microphone (and then some fiddling with the module loading in order to make sure the camera audio, the sound card and the onboard sound device all got loaded in the same order each boot.)

 

Sounds nice  :Smile:  I could also make it simple by sticking with the onboard soundcard I have and use the mic there, I hope.

One question though, how "well" does it stand/sit on your monitor?

It definitely looks like it's meant to stand freely on a flatscreen, but it also looks like it could easily fall. The top of my samsung sort of "leans" backwards a few degrees. Worst case it could be fixed with some tape I suppose.

Oh, and one other thing. I found a youtube video that supposedly recorded with a S7500. Does it handle fast movements "badly"? Cause it looks like it there, but that could be youtube too ofc.

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## d2_racing

Hi, I have a Logitech Quickcam Fusion and this thing is not working at all  :Sad: 

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## Letharion

 *d2_racing wrote:*   

> Hi, I have a Logitech Quickcam Fusion and this thing is not working at all 

 

Less fun, but still good to know. You know why not? What happened to "As of 2.6.27, Linux supports almost every webcam model on the market."?

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## d2_racing

Maybe this one has a weird chipset or something.

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## DavePrince

 *Letharion wrote:*   

> One question though, how "well" does it stand/sit on your monitor?
> 
> It definitely looks like it's meant to stand freely on a flatscreen, but it also looks like it could easily fall. The top of my samsung sort of "leans" backwards a few degrees. Worst case it could be fixed with some tape I suppose.

 The base of the camera is actually made of a stiff, but bendy wire, covered in a high-friction rubber/plastic with small steps at the front and back. I've got a pretty standard flat / thin LCD monitor and have the back of the wire bent right down, but you can easily bend it up/flat to sit on top of a CRT box. I reckon you can bend it to fit most things in between; and if I tip my monitor back ~30-45 degrees it doesn't fall off.

 *Letharion wrote:*   

> Oh, and one other thing. I found a youtube video that supposedly recorded with a S7500. Does it handle fast movements "badly"? Cause it looks like it there, but that could be youtube too ofc.

 I've never actually used it to record anything. So far only ever been used for skype. Skype's inset picture of you when in a video call does show up a rather low frame rate, blurred picture when there's lots of motion, but I've discovered that that's down to skype, not the camera as what you see at the other end is much better than that.

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## rahulthewall

 *d2_racing wrote:*   

> Hi, I have a Logitech Quickcam Fusion and this thing is not working at all 

 

Umm, I have the same web camera. Got it nearly nearly 2.5 years ago, was launched about then if I remember correctly. And it has been working since then on linux (linux-uvc thing) and now it is supported out of the box with the in-tree driver. And the microphone also works with ALSA usb audio thing.

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## d2_racing

Maybe I have a weird release of something.

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## ant0

I have Hercules Dualpix Exchange. Works great, not expensive as well.

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## duckz

I use Logitech messenger, working well with gspca driver.

You can check this site http://mxhaard.free.fr/download.html to find out what kind of web cam it supports.

[/u]

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## rahulthewall

 *d2_racing wrote:*   

> Maybe I have a weird release of something.

 

Umm, could you check with skype - for me it sometimes happens that my web cam only works with skype.

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