# Nice Well supported webcams

## pmatos

Hi all,

Can someone give me ideas or list of nice well supported webcams for gentoo linux?

Cheers,

Paulo Matos

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## bcmm

Well, I can warn you about the Logitech Quickcam, which has a driver but which has crappy colour (kind of monochrome tinted red) in Linux but not Windows on my dual boot system.

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## Drunkula

I have an Intel Create & Share USB camera.  BUT I would not recommend it.  It, too, has crappy color and a very noisy picture, in Linux anyhow.  It's been awhile since I tried the drivers (spca50x) for it.  Maybe they have gotten better by now.  If not, oh well!  It is an older camera anyhow.

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## Caffeine

Anybody with a fully working cheap usb web cam?

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## pmatos

 *Caffeine wrote:*   

> Anybody with a fully working cheap usb web cam?

 

Yeah, same question here... seems usb cams don't work well on linux... anyone?

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## mjbjr

I have a Logitech 4000 Pro, that I use with 

emerge usb-pwc-re

modprobe pwc

I had problems getting a pic, even though all seemed to be configured properly,

until I moved the cam's usb connection from a hub (which other items work fine from)

to one of the main usb connections.

and view via:

   camstream - good pic quality, variable pic sizes, video ajustments,

                      special Phillips ajustments (the 4000 is a Phillips),

                      captures single frames and can upload via ftp.

Since camstream seems to work fine, I haven't tried too hard

to figure out the problems I've had with the following:

   xawtv - shows multiples of the same pic 

   gqcam - multiple b&w of the same pic

I'm still trying to figure out howto accomplish streaming, now

that I'm seeing a picture.  (that usb hub thing)

Don't even ask about audio.  I haven't got that far, yet.

The pic quality along with camstream adjustability seems fairly

decent to me, considering the cost of the cam...

though it's the only webcam I've ever had...

so...

YMMV

.

.

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## pmatos

Isn't it strange that a 'so-commonly-used' hardware is not well supported by Linux?

Or is it supported but those with success stories are not here to tell them?

Paulo Matos

 *mjbjr wrote:*   

> I have a Logitech 4000 Pro, that I use with 
> 
> emerge usb-pwc-re
> 
> modprobe pwc
> ...

 

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## dustfinger

I am working on getting my Logitech QuickCam Communicate to work right now.  I have been using xawtv to capture the video.  As long as I am not recording the image looks very nice.  Depending on what recording format I use I get different results - xawtv usually segfaults.  I was able to record using the Microsoft AVI format (Yeesh) , but the image was lousy and all I got for sound was a hissss...  I am going to emerge camstream now and give that a try.  Perhaps my real problem is xawtv?

dustfinger.

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## Rainmaker

 *Drunkula wrote:*   

> I have an Intel Create & Share USB camera.  BUT I would not recommend it.  It, too, has crappy color and a very noisy picture, in Linux anyhow.  It's been awhile since I tried the drivers (spca50x) for it.  Maybe they have gotten better by now.  If not, oh well!  It is an older camera anyhow.

 

emerge spca5xx

the name of the driver changed  :Smile: 

Last release was 5 days ago  :Smile: 

My "Intel Corp. Easy PC Camera" (according to lsusb) works fine with it. Picture quality is crap, but that seems to be a problem with the cam (it's crap in windows too).

See http://mxhaard.free.fr/spca5xx.html for a few newer models, with noted how well they work in linux

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## Drunkula

I'll give it a shot later and post results.  Thanks for the pointer.

EDIT:

Using the latest stable version of spca5xx seems to work better.  The pic using gqcam is not quite up to snuff though.  Sview gives a better picture.

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## mwiertz

yesterday I bought a Labtec Webcam Pro for use with linux...

I read about the excellent linux support for this webcam on diffent places on the internet before and can only admit it works...

it was as easy as configuring video4linux (CONFIG_VIDEO_DEV=y) in the kernel and installing the spca5xx driver (emerge spca5xx, I emerged the latest version, althoug it is masked), after a modprobe spca5xx, it worked, I'm using it with xawtv and gqcam

btw lsusb sees this cam as a logitech device...

I'm very surprised about the picture quality which IMHO is very good for a webcam...

so if you're looking for a cheap, well supported, good quality webcam for linux, go for the labtec webcam pro, it costs about 20 to 25 euros at the moment...

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## Tuxmym

 *mwiertz wrote:*   

> yesterday I bought a Labtec Webcam Pro for use with linux...
> 
> I read about the excellent linux support for this webcam on diffent places on the internet before and can only admit it works...

 

What about audio recording ?

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## mwiertz

I have not been trying audio recording with the labtec webcam... 

I do not need it, although it could be possible I think because dmesg produces this after connecting the webcam:

```
ohci_hcd 0000:00:03.2: wakeup

usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 3

usbaudio: device 3 audiocontrol interface 1 has 1 input and 0 output AudioStreaming interfaces

usbaudio: valid input sample rate 8000

usbaudio: device 3 interface 2 altsetting 1: format 0x00000010 sratelo 8000 sratehi 8000 attributes 0x00

usbaudio: valid input sample rate 16000

usbaudio: device 3 interface 2 altsetting 2: format 0x00000010 sratelo 16000 sratehi 16000 attributes 0x00

usbaudio: registered dsp 14,3

usbaudio: constructing mixer for Terminal 3 type 0x0101

usbaudio: warning: found 1 of 0 logical channels.

usbaudio: assuming the channel found is the master channel (got a Philips camera?). Should be fine.

usbaudio: registered mixer 14,0

usb_audio_parsecontrol: usb_audio_state at d64a3960
```

so if you are able to find the right driver for the usb audio device of the cam, it could probably work

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## Tuxmym

 *mwiertz wrote:*   

> so if you are able to find the right driver for the usb audio device of the cam, it could probably work

 

Thx  :Smile: 

If you test it, please inform me.

What about the brightness of your webcam ? Does it work well in not well lighted rooms ?

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## Stolz

I have a Creative Webcam5 and it works like a charm with the dirver media-video/usb-pwc-re. I can record video without problems and see it fluently. To see a complete list of supported cameras with this driver check the official web page http://www.saillard.org/linux/pwc/

mjbjr, to use xawtv try:

```
# xawtv -remote -n -c /dev/video0 -geometry 320x240-0+0
```

Also, to read a lot of useful info 

```
# modinfo pwc
```

To record at low qlty I use

```
# ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 30 -s 320x240 -an -y -hq video.avi
```

and for hi qlty I use

```
#  ffmpeg -vd /dev/video0 -r 30 -s 320x240 -an -y -hq -sameq video.avi
```

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## mwiertz

 *Tuxmym wrote:*   

>  *mwiertz wrote:*   so if you are able to find the right driver for the usb audio device of the cam, it could probably work 
> 
> Thx 
> 
> If you test it, please inform me.
> ...

 

I knew it would not help you further very much, I just wanted to let you know that it's audio part is recognised by linux... please see it as a kind of goodwill...

brightness is ok, although it is not suitable to be used the dark it delivers a quite good quality it in slighty lighted rooms... more a kind of problem is using this cam outside in the bright sunlight, there's obviously no automatic white balance...

btw it's unlikely that I will be testing the audio capacities of the cam, because it's connected to my server that's located in the ceiling where there no speakers connected to it...   :Sad: 

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## Dlareh

 *mwiertz wrote:*   

>  *Tuxmym wrote:*    *mwiertz wrote:*   so if you are able to find the right driver for the usb audio device of the cam, it could probably work 
> 
> Thx 
> 
> If you test it, please inform me.
> ...

 

You could try using arecord and playing the stream somewhere else

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## phadron

 *mwiertz wrote:*   

> yesterday I bought a Labtec Webcam Pro for use with linux...
> 
> I read about the excellent linux support for this webcam on diffent places on the internet before and can only admit it works...
> 
> it was as easy as configuring video4linux (CONFIG_VIDEO_DEV=y) in the kernel and installing the spca5xx driver (emerge spca5xx, I emerged the latest version, althoug it is masked), after a modprobe spca5xx, it worked, I'm using it with xawtv and gqcam
> ...

 

I've the same webcam..

I've an amd64 and i work in ~amd64

I use fluxbox (in my USE there is "-kde -qt"

I've in the kernel v4l support .

I've emerge spca5xx.

At the boot, spca5xx loads, it's ok

but how can I turn on the webcam ?

the green led in the webcam turns off when xorg loads X

lsmod shows that spca5x is load

xawtv write me that my X server don't have DGA support

I don't have /dev/video0   (I use udev if it could be help you)

I would use webcam to chat with my friends throught msn protocol

what program can I use ? (amsn-cvs ?)

thanx

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## alsuren

if you want to be cheap and nasty and don't mind using bugzilla ebuilds that aren't in portage, my logitech quickcam messenger (usb) works well enough. I think about a year ago, some ISPs were giving them away for free, and you can get them on kelkoo for £10 last time I checked. The colours aren't configurable, but they aren't too bad (given that your lighting isn't too bad)

I followed the instructions in a forum thread to get it working, but they were a bit garbled so I rewrote them. If they work for you, take a look at the bug report and see if you can add a "works for me" along with your configuration info to help the devs

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-139906-postdays-0-postorder-asc-highlight-logitech+messenger+quickcam-start-75.html

Check my post on that thread. If it doesn't work, post errors there so they're all nicely in the same thread. It works with xawtv, and it seems to work nicely with Kopete  in KDE3.5 (from CVS) too, though certain network configurations will screw you (like the connection between me and my girlfriend in uni *cries*) but there's stuff in the KDE bugzilla so it should be sorted for kde3.5's final release if we're lucky. If they do get it working then there won't be any reason for using any of these shoddy MSN-clones anymore (don't be discouraged by the abysmal usability of kopete in KDE3.4, I think they're slowly improving (though message boxes still steal focus which is highly annoying)

Meh

Have fun

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