A quick visit to Frys Electronics last weekend left me with (yet another) webcam. But not an ordinary webcam: this is an utrla tiny cam, created specifically to mount on laptops! The webcam is a USB 1.1 device, that can do 352×288 at 30fps. It has a small button to take snapshots and the Windows driver also supports the TWAIN interface. It has a 1 meter USB cable, and the “head” of the webcam can rotate around itself (even when mounted). Check some high-res images of the webcam here. Please excuse the dark screenshots on this article, it’s night right now that I grabbed those and light in the room was not very bright.
Of course, the quality is nothing to talk about really. It’s a standard cheap webcam. But it has two features that makes it special:
First, it’s the fact that it is specially made to be able to get mounted on laptop LCDs and by being so small, it makes it extremely convenient when traveling. The camera also comes with a “stand” in the case you want to use it as a standard desktop camera.
Secondly, the price. You just can’t beat that $11 it costs. For its features and looks, it is a no risk purchase.
Now, regarding support, the camera is supported on Win9x and 2k/XP. It is not supported on the Mac, not even via third party projects. Regarding BSD, there is a driver for the previous generation of the chipset for NetBSD/FreeBSD, but not directly for this camera (should be easy to hack on though and add support for it). The Linux situation is a bit complex:
The device is based on the “Micronia/Sonix” chipset (PID 6029) and it has two Linux drivers: the one that comes by default with the Linux 2.6.x kernel, it’s the module named sn9c102. Problem is, this driver only supports v4l2 and also it has a kinda non-standard PIC format (“bayen”). This means that only Gnomemeeting-CVS/pwlib-CVS support it fully (and pwlib needs to be configured with –enable-plugins –enable-v4l2). KdeTV, Zapping and XawTV have support for v4l2, but don’t support the PIC format, so no cake with those yet. Also, none of the controls seem to work yet with Gnomemeeting.
Applications like gqcam, Camorama, Motion, the current stable Gnomemeeting and older KDEtv/xawtv apps don’t support the v4l2 API, and so to use the camera with them, you will need to use another driver: the sonixcam module. You will need to get the version of CVS which has support for this camera, and also have somewhere the full source code of the kernel as the driver uses some private API from the kernel (and you need to edit its .c file to give it the right path to a kernel header file). But it builds without a hassle, and it works with more apps than the v4l2 module (it’s just the Brightness control that doesn’t work right).
So, if you have a laptop, and if you don’t mind messing up with your Linux, this webcam is a great purchase, especially at this price.
The webcam was tested on LinuxCertified’s LC2430 laptop with Arch Linux.
11$ is a great price ! Actually I have an iSight camera for my iBook and it´s really great, it fits on the lid of the laptop and quality is also great (btw. MUCH greater than any DSL line can transmit yet…) and I payed about 160 EUR for it…. not really cheap considering the quality of my videoconferences (because of DSL, not of the camera… bottleneck problem). Miguel
352×288 at 30fps
That seems to be the standard for general webcam nowadays… with 640×320 at 15fps…
Why can’t they be faster? 🙁
They can. But they need a faster/bigger sensor, and they would need USB 2.0 instead of 1.1. And that costs more money, and usually people don’t want to pay a lot for webcams. So, most models on the PC market are in the “cheap” category.
Firewire webcams usually have better quality.
You also have to understand the general nature of webcams is to stream vid. over a personal internet connection and bandwidth is generally limited.
The little $11 webcam would also fit on top of 17″ LCD pretty well.
Someday we can see each other on a full screen mode at a HDTV resolution
Will they be called webcam at that time? nowadays VoIP is quite hot, hopefully in the near future “Video over IP” can be hot as well.
I agree, packet8.net has VoIP based video phones but they cost ~$500. Video over IP will eventually become VoIP’s “killer app”, the cost of vid. based phones will come down, but not before companies like Skype leverage the PC and $11 webcams to their advantage.
If Skype added vid functionality they could sell webcams and headsets from their site as a source of revenue.
VoIP will be the next big growth area.
IM is starting to surpass email as a preferred method of communication and IM/vid./voip tie in well togeather.
It will be interesting to see what some of the upstarts come up with in this area over the next few years.
Bonus points to the company that thinks of adding a built in compression algorithm.
the webcam captures link points to newegg.com
What I’d like to see is a review of all webcams that fully support Linux and *BSD. USB WebCam support on the OpenSource OSes is a nightmare of incomplete drivers and mixed chipsets…
There is no sure way to know if an USB Cam is, or is not, supported. Simply because most manufactures don’t print the chipsets they use on the box… and often a single model can ship with differents chipsets, or combinations of chipsets!!!
Currently at work we’re develloping a medical application, that will take a picture of the patient at the moment he/she arrives at the hospital. If it’s an emergency the picture sometimes is the only identification of this determinated patient… The application itself is Java based, but we want to run it on Linux, so USB WebCam support is crutial because we want to keep the equipament cost low (I’m talking about public healthcare system here).
Looking around the web I found out that most of the 100%-garanteed-to-work cameras are too old, and can’t be found on the market anymore… at least not here at Brazil!
Worst… I can’t even write a recommendation paper, because NONE of them officialy support LINUX.
(Please, sorry my broken english… I’m no native speaker)
Agreed, Victor Hogemann.
Does anyone know of a good webcam that gets supported in Linux. The Logitech ones do, but there are issues with the driver. I would love to get a good quality webcam with native drivers. Not some reverse engineered hacked together drivers by a third party.
Are there any good webcams out there that can do USB 2.0? How much would they cost? How much is considered to be expensive?
I have a kensington webcam that works perfectly in linux. Interestingly it does *not* work in windows 2000 or XP. It was made for 98/95 i think.
However, I don’t think they sell them anymore. Too bad. Sturdy little thing and only 20USD.
I’m pretty sure the Fire-i camera comes with linux drivers. Good quality for what you pay (there’s even a board version for industrial apps), but not great.
The sonix web site ( http://www.sonix.com.tw ) has drivers for most of their camera chipsets for classic and OS X. Last time I looked they hadnt updated for Panther, and the Jaguar drivers dont play nicely in Panther. I got my camera from Comp USA for $20.
I have a Logitech Orbit, it’s USB highspeed iirc, but because of all the bells and whistles it has (motorized and all) it’s not cheap: over $100 when I bought it back in either February or March, I forget which. It also has limited support in Linux. However, due to that really stupid coding argument over the hooks to the binary drivers, it’s close to useless now in Linux. The only people that lost in that one were the people that own it…
Creative Labs makes some of the best webcams, mostly because they operate so well in low light. Not all of them are created equal, of course. The Creative Labs Webcam NX Pro is an excellent USB 2.0 camera. Great low-light, good color.
the word missing is LINUX, question was: Does anyone know of a good webcam that gets supported in LINUX
we all know good camera…but how many are working with native driver in linux????
“we all know good camera…but how many are working with native driver in linux????”
The same could be said for sound cards
I have a [dying] Philips PCVC690K which I doubt you could buy anymore. It works great with the PCWX module, which is in the 2.4 kernel on my RedHat9 box.
Of course it was removed from the 2.6 kernel, but a fork of the project can be found at http://www.saillard.org/pwc/ (which I would test, but FC3 doesn’t seem to like my IWill KK266-R’s USB!)
It does a nice 352×288 @ ~20fps
If you want a really nice WebCam (with MJPEG, XGA etc.), don’t forget the Axis network cams:
http://www.axis.com/products/video/camera/productguide.htm
Take a look here – http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/configuration101.html . Scroll down to the webcam section. Maybe it’ll help you.
I followed the brief instructions to mknod the device nodes required for ieee-1394 video, plugged my iSight into my Fedora Core 3 box, ran coriander, and there was the picture.
You can re-export the ieee-1394 stream as a video4linux stream but that requires a bit of messing around with the vloopback driver etc. Still, it was pleasantly surprising that the camera was as functional as any other ieee-1394 camera under linux despite Apple’s reputation for proprietariness.
The Sony eyeToy also has a Linux driver available now, and my next little job is getting a Sony eyeToy running on a Debian-running XBox. Sure, I have too mush time on my hands, but whatever.
Another approach is to get a cheap-ass BT-848/878 card, and connect any old VHS video camera, or one of those miniature security cameras to it. This works well with every piece of video4linux software i’ve ever tried.
I have a webcam collection too. The ADS Turbo USB 2.0 Webcam gave me better-than-expected performance . . . but seems to be in limbo as a product.
According to this chart USB 2.0 is still “Windows only” wrt drivers:
http://www.usb.org/app/search/products/by_category
The one main positive I’m aware of is the newer CMOS sensors have really come way up in quality . . . and $11 is a great price.
Personally, I know the brand (PC Chips) only from PC motherboards (aka. Amptron, and maybe other no-name), and have bad experience with this make. Lowest-cost, often mediocre quality products, accompanied by bottom-of-the-line support.
So if this cam works out of the box, good for you. But if it doesn’t, you can count on finding bad drivers, little info on manufacturer’s site, and long wait or no answer if you decide to try e-mail for support. Your review confirms this. You got it to work, but how: getting libs from CVS and compile with specific options, means: if you run a Linux distro that’s NOT the very latest or auto-updated, big chance it won’t work. Effectively: webcam unsupported for Linux.
$11 cheap? That depends on how much you value your time. If you run into problems, and the above makes you waste a lot of time on getting things to work, then $11 doesn’t sound so cheap anymore. Sounds like a good cam if you just want to toy with it a bit, or want to use it for something where there’s a good chance of damaging it. DIY project, modding, that sort of thing. For any serious use, I’d go for something more expensive, but better supported.
The best webcam I have seen for Linu is the Creative WebCam Pro. It works automatically with all distros and it supports all controls on gnomemeeting et all. Quality is also better than the sonix one, check my shot here:
http://www.osnews.com/img/5280/gm3.jpg
I usually use that camera on my Windows box now because it has lots of extra software for XP, and I have 3 more for my Linux boxes (two SCPACX ones, and the Sonix one), while I have an iSight too. Too bad my family in Greece are not on broadband though.
What I meant to say is that all 1-2 year old cameras that use the ov511 chipset, will work great on Linux.
If you’re looking for a driver webcam which is support on linux, take a look at: http://mxhaard.free.fr/download.html
The driver (spca5xx) support a lot of cams (around 80) very well! I’d recommend the labtec pro. (The driver is unsupported by the vendors)
As I said above, the best cameras for Linux are the ov511 ones, NOT the SPCA5xx ones. As I also said above, I have TWO of the SPCA ones, and they are nothing but TROUBLE, because the user has to compile their driver manually each time (the ov511 is shipping wiht the kernel instead by default), and also, I had to change the RGB conversion in the source code (the author told me what to change in an email exchange I had with him) otherwise Gnomemeeting would show funny colors, depending on the camera.
And each time your distro upgrades its kernel, you have to redo all that. Bottom of the line: stay with the ov511-based ones if you don’t want troble.
Don’t forget you can use Linux supported capture cards to do similar things. BTTV or Connextant capture cards are reasonably cheap and give you composite/svideo/tv tuner input to your Linux 2.4/2.6 desktop. If you have a handycam of some variety you can use that as a camera input – or buy a colour CCD cam with composite cables from Tandy/D-Smith/Radioshack whatever and plug that in. The bonus here is great flexibility with resolutions/frame rates and quality camera with auto iris etc etc (handycam that is). You can also watch/capture TV and convert VCR to VCD/SVCD etc etc etc….
I agree with what you’re saying, except this kind of started out also talking about webcams for laptops.
So . . . getting a capture card in a laptop becomes the issue.
BTW, IMO its too bad more laptops don’t ship with an RCA (composite) “video in” jack. I’ve noticed many of the new digital cameras and video cameras do still support this (its that yellow colored plug) and Linux (or BeOS) usually have no driver problems with this type of connection.
I’ve tried getting around this by adding tiny specialized internal cards and also with external box devices (such as Hollywood Bridge coming into 1394 port). Even when it works these workarounds are nothing I can recommend because either they cost too much or are too clumsy.
Ah yes good point. Capture card on the laptop is tricky so my comment is specifically targeted to something with a PCI slot for everyone reading. Don’t go buying a capture card for laptops. Although there are some laptops now that have a tuner built in. No idea what type….
I can second the use of the Axis webcams
http://www.axis.com
Their smaller models do have their limitations, but they are
easy to work with and you can e.g. take a snapshot with wget.
The interface is also really easy (HTTP) and similar methods
are used by some other cameras/products. (e.g. I-Solutions
http://www.i-solutions.se
iRecord machines even if this is not
mentioned on their (somewhat outdated) web pages).
Other options might include using the Video4Linux interface
and using a TV capture card with a conventional camera.
for writing very useful article.