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#1 2005-08-17 09:48:20

sven
Member
Registered: 2005-02-01
Posts: 311

webcams and low fps

I am using amsn-cvs and gnomemeeting and would like to set up video streaming.

At first I tried Sitecom Easycam (that used sn9c102 drivers) and that had only 1.6 fps making it unusable. This seemed very weird because the driver is included to the latest kernel. This seemes only to be for taking still images.

Then I got Labtec Webcam and got it working nicely by using spca5xx drivers. But framerate is always quite low. 7-8 fps while the cam should support 30 in 320x288 resolution.

So is it normal that streaming framerates are so low in Linux? Have you got any better rates with some kind of tweaking?

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#2 2005-08-17 13:25:16

Rotonen
Member
From: Espoo, Finland
Registered: 2005-03-08
Posts: 31
Website

Re: webcams and low fps

I'm also getting the same ~1-10 fps (it sometimes randomly bursts into fluid movement) jerkyish movement with my Aiptek Megacam plus (also uses the spca5xx drivers, which was kinda hard to find out since almost every resource suggested that they use the stv680 driver, which is for Aiptek pencams and my cam is sold as "Aiptek mega pencam plus" or something like that).

That aside, my experiences with webcam performance in Linux suggest that Windows somehow unfortunately handles it better. Receiving webcam works like a charm, though. There's still more work for you busy hackers to do.. wink

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#3 2005-08-19 13:50:13

sven
Member
Registered: 2005-02-01
Posts: 311

Re: webcams and low fps

I solved this problem smile I got myself Labtec webcam pro and it works perfecltly with spca5xx. I am getting constantly 25 - 30 fps. It is the one that have got 6 stars. Image quality rules, too!

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#4 2005-08-19 22:26:13

shadowhand
Member
From: MN, USA
Registered: 2004-02-19
Posts: 1,142
Website

Re: webcams and low fps

Just so everyone knows, most webcams have (relatively) low framerates compared to a standard video camera. They are cheap. big_smile *shrug*


·¬»· i am shadowhand, powered by webfaction

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#5 2005-08-20 10:57:15

Michel
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2004-07-31
Posts: 286

Re: webcams and low fps

Heya,

some time ago I had a look at firewire webcams. It seems that there is a standardized interface (think it is called IIDC) for accessing these camera's. Since it they use firewire, they have a dedicated line to the pci-bus(?). This means that there is enough bandwidth to send the video-stream uncompressed and there is more chance for a constant framerate. The bandwidth is maybe not a problem at all with usb2, but with an usb2-bus the available bandwith is shared. Maybe it is not a bad idea to compress the stream, but it needs to be uncompressed to view it, or the stream is read compressed ...

I agree that these camera's can be/are more expensive. I have been looking at the fire-i-webcam which costs about 100 €. I'm interested at this one, because it seems to work well in low-light situations, but there are others (like apples webcam, ...).

Here is a link with more info: http://www.mifasol.org/HomeAutomation/I … 20List.htm

greetings,

Michel

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#6 2005-08-24 01:06:43

elahav
Member
From: Ottawa, ON
Registered: 2005-04-18
Posts: 90

Re: webcams and low fps

sven wrote:

I got myself Labtec webcam pro and it works perfecltly with spca5xx

Can you specify the part number on that webcam? I would like to get one, but webcam manufacturers have this annoying tendency of releasing new models without changing the product name.

Elad

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#7 2005-08-25 08:40:40

sven
Member
Registered: 2005-02-01
Posts: 311

Re: webcams and low fps

P/N is 861162-0000 (it is written on the usb cord of the cam) The Vendor id is 0x046d and  is Product id is 0x08a2 (on usbview), just like on the driver page. BTW even mike works perfectly - you would just need to enable USB sound at alsa config (not at usb config) in kernel conf - the module is snd-usb-audio. The driver's author also has put up some test videos and images so you can find other good spca5xx cams.

The price-value ratio is excellent, because it cost me only 23€ while image quality is better than Logitech CLicksmart 310's which costs 79€ in Germany.

And it works with my old USB 1.1 laptop smile

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#8 2005-08-25 12:54:00

elahav
Member
From: Ottawa, ON
Registered: 2005-04-18
Posts: 90

Re: webcams and low fps

sven wrote:

P/N is 861162-0000

This is odd. I cannot find any such number on the web. The webcam I found on TigerDirect named Labtec Webcam Pro is listed as P/N 961358-0403. I hope it's the same camera.

Thanks anyway.

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