[PLUG] Webcams

[Jeff DeFouw]

On Wed, 9 Aug 2000, Ed Szynaka wrote:

> Anyone know of a decently priced webcam or video/still picture device
> that will work with linux?

If you just want a simple webcam sure.  Few of the "decently priced" ones
are particularly amazing in output.  You can probably buy any one of them
in the range of $10-$100 and get the same type of output.  I just bought a
DSB-C300 by D-Link ($55), supported by the OV511 USB driver in Linux.  
The problems that plague most of the cheap (<~$100) webcams are lack of
color and poor light level adjusting.  Mine has both of those problems
(particularly with low light levels), though I read it can be helped with
some post-processing and driver tuning.  With compression it can do
320x240 at 30fps, and 640x480 at 18fps.  Unfortunately the sensor chip
company hasn't released the compression specs so the driver doesn't
support it.  I haven't set it up to be a webcam yet but I can put up some
images if you want to know the still-image quality.  The better image
quality webcams I saw, Intel PC Camera Pro Pack and Kodak DVC325, have no
Linux support.  The web sites say Intel refuses and Kodak doesn't respond.

I thought about hooking up an NTSC camera to my WinTV capture card but I
couldn't find any good quality low-cost (<=$100) NTSC cameras.  The image
quality from a setup like that is usually pretty good.

--
Jeff DeFouw <defouwj@purdue.edu>