State of Linux webcam support

[Hans de Goede]

Greg KH wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 28, 2007 at 02:13:37PM +0200, Bertrik Sikken wrote:
>> Many webcam drivers are consequently maintained out of the
>> official kernel and *DO* include decompression and bayer
>> conversion to at least get webcams into a workable state.
>> (Examples, there are many more:
>> * Philips PWC driver: http://www.saillard.org/linux/pwc/
>> * Various other drivers: http://www.linux-projects.org
>> * Spca driver: http://mxhaard.free.fr/spca5xx.html )
>>
>> Some ideas:
>> * create a user-space library for webcams that reads the compressed
>>   data from a v4l(2) device file, decompresses and unbayers it,
>>   then exposes it through a standard API to applications.
>> * as above, instead of library, use gstreamer plug-ins (each compressed
>>   webcam format would have its own plugin, with perhaps a single plugin
>>   for unbayering).
>> * bypass the kernel drivers entirely and use libusb to talk to the
>>   webcams. A problem is that (AFAIK) libusb does not support isochronous
>>   USB transfers and many cameras use this transfer mode.
>>
>> Any thoughts on how to improve Linux webcam support?
> 
> Yes, work with the existing Linux video driver developers.  They need
> all the help they can get.
> 
> More information about them can be found at http://linuxtv.org
> 
> That being said, I have no objection to people helping on this project
> to take some of the current out-of-tree drivers and cleaning them up to
> get them included in the main kernel source tree.  That would be an
> immense help that the people here could provide.
> 
> Does anyone want to pick up one of the above mentioned drivers, or any
> of the other ones floating around on the net, and do this?
> 

Actually I've been toying with the idea to work on the UVC webcam driver to 
make it suitable for upstream / mainstream kernel merging. I haven't contacted 
the UVC developers about this yet, as I've been swamped with other stuff.

But if the linuxdriverproject could help me in someway to do this that would be 
great!

Actually I think that helping existing drivers reach the mainline might be a 
very worthwhile goal to add to the list of goals for this projects in general.

Regards,

Hans