zc3xx webcam (041e:4034 Creative Webcam Instant) stopped working some time ago (since gspca kernel integration?)

Hello,

I recently tried using my webcam, the Creative Webcam Instant (usb ID 041e:4034) again, but I can't get it to work any more.

When I started using this webcam, i could get it to work with the spca5xx driver, which I usually compiled per hand and inserted into the kernel. Then came gspcav1, which worked, too. But with the gspca, that is integrated in the kernel now (I'm using 2.6.27.9 retrieved from kernel.org) the webcam won't work.

The first symptom is, that spcaview won't start any more and camstream spits out these lines while showing a black window at the size i requested:

W: run(): VIDIOCSYNC(1) failed (Invalid argument)
W: VDLinux::run() VIDIOCMCAPTURE failed (Invalid argument)

similarly, spcaview tells me:

cvsync err
: Invalid argument
cmcapture: Invalid argument

cvsync err
: Invalid argument

and then segfaults.

More interestingly, spcaview now complains, that my camera is "Not an Spca5xx Camera !!".

Any help on how to get the camera working again would be very appreciated :)

Thanks for all the hard and good work,

- Timo

--
video4linux-list mailing list
Unsubscribe mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/video4linux-list

I'm not a developer, so can't explain what the change is, but there is a significant change to where the webcam data gets processed which was introduced with the move of the gspca drivers into the kernel.

Basically, you now need a user space driver library - libv4l - to do the work. You can get the library from here:

http://people.atrpms.net/~hdegoede/libv4l-0.5.7.tar.gz

After making it, you preload it when running spcaview like this:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so spcaview -d /dev/video_webcam

as an example.

Regards
Ian

--
video4linux-list mailing list
Unsubscribe mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/video4linux-list

Thank you very much! This made it work. I wonder why this information isn't made prominent somewhere on some v4l information place (linuxtv wiki?). Is it because the driver's not yet stable?

Kind regards
- Timo

--
video4linux-list mailing list
Unsubscribe mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/video4linux-list

I forgot another thing - after the driver change I found that the exposure was all wrong. The answer for that is another user space program - v4l2ucp - which adjusts the exposure rate, white balance etc.

Its project page is here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/v4l2ucp/

Don't know about the documentation. I think v4l is a tricky area to document, it keeps changing.

Regards
Ian

--
video4linux-list mailing list
Unsubscribe mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/video4linux-list