Got a webcam working but it won't work in Skype

[keithj]

Hello Everyone,

I am trying to get a webcam to work with Skype on puppy 3. I am almost there thanks to the various posts on this site. I have searched this site and the web in general but am still stuck.

I have an old laptop running puppy (works great), it had been using skype 1.4 with no problems, but I want to have video, so I upgraded to Skype 2 via a .pet I found on this forum. No problems installing it, I then made a call from another computer using a webcam, and got a picture through. Looking good so far.

I then went and bought a logitech webcam based on various posts that seemed to have success with logitech.

Plugged it in, and checked under usbview that it had been picked up, and confirmed no driver was currently loaded for it.

I found a logitech driver on this site, downloaded it, tried it, didn't work. Then found Muppywebcam, down loaded that, tried it, didn't seem to do anything, but about 40 or 50 seconds after starting it I got a xawtv window popup and a perfect picture....yeehah.

Looked into skype setting, and it showed the webcam as an available video device. So I shut down xawtv and tried the "test" in skype, but all I get is a black screen.

I then decided to look into why muppywebcam takes so long to load (it takes 30 sec minmum everytime) to I started it from the command line and got

Code: Select all

ERROR: Module gspca does not exist in /proc/modules
ERROR: Module pwc does not exist in /proc/modules
ERROR: Module sn9c102 does not exist in /proc/modules
ERROR: Module videodev does not exist in /proc/modules
ERROR: Module v4l2_common does not exist in /proc/modules

ERROR: Module v4l2_common is in use by videodev
ERROR: Module sn9c102 does not exist in /proc/modules


# This is xawtv-3.95, running on Linux/i686 (2.6.21.7)
xinerama 0: 800x600+0+0
WARNING: Your X-Server has no DGA support.
/dev/video0 [v4l]: no overlay support
v4l-conf had some trouble, trying to continue anyway

There are a few messages after this, but after the last line the xawtv eventually open and a good picture is seen.

ok, details from USBview

gspca driver
vendor ID 46d
Product ID 8dd

in dmesg is the following, which looks ok to me

Code: Select all

Linux video capture interface: v2.00
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: USB GSPCA camera found.(ZC3XX) 
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [spca5xx_probe:4275] Camera type JPEG 
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/Vimicro/zc3xx.h: [zc3xx_config:588]  Sensor MC501CB
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [spca5xx_getcapability:1249] maxw 640 maxh 480 minw 160 minh 120
usbcore: registered new interface driver gspca
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: gspca driver 01.00.20 registered
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [gspca_set_isoc_ep:945] ISO EndPoint found 0x81 AlternateSet 7
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [gspca_set_isoc_ep:945] ISO EndPoint found 0x81 AlternateSet 7
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [gspca_set_isoc_ep:945] ISO EndPoint found 0x81 AlternateSet 7
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [gspca_set_isoc_ep:945] ISO EndPoint found 0x81 AlternateSet 7
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [spca5xx_do_ioctl:2124] Bridge ZC301-2 
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [spca5xx_do_ioctl:2124] Bridge ZC301-2 
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: VIDIOCMCAPTURE: invalid format (7)
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [gspca_set_isoc_ep:945] ISO EndPoint found 0x81 AlternateSet 7
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [gspca_set_isoc_ep:945] ISO EndPoint found 0x81 AlternateSet 7
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [spca5xx_do_ioctl:2124] Bridge ZC301-2 
/root/tests/gspca/gspcav1-20071224/gspca_core.c: [gspca_set_isoc_ep:945] ISO EndPoint found 0x81 AlternateSet 7

In skype, the camera shows itself as logitech Quickcam for notebooks (/dev/video0) which matches what it was called on the packaging.

Since XAWTV takes so long to start, I left the skype in test mode for about a minute but stil no picture.

So hopefully you can see I'm very close to having this working, I'm also under time pressure to get it going, as I'm going away in just over 10 days for a month, and want this to keep in touch with my family.

Generally only can check in evening for replies, and I promise to post an solution to this forum for others to benifit from, I'm also going to keep searching the web in general, and again if I find anything I'll post it here.

Thanks


Keith

[MU]

Muppywebcam has a script, that you can run while Puppy starts.

You could add this line to /root/.xinitrc

Code: Select all

"/usr/local/Muppywebcam-Puppy301/Muppywebcam-nogui" &

It does the same as Muppywebcam, but does not load a player like mplayer or xawtv.
It just loads the Kernelmodules.

I just tested in, the script was executed when I started.
Created a new account (had forgotten my old one), started skype, plugged in the camera, and tested: it is available in the skype-settings, and shows a picture.

I use skype 2.0.0.63.
Mark

[keithj]

Hi,

I have used the muppywebcam-nogui, but loaded in manually rather than in the startup scripts, and still no joy.

I've found that I only need to type "modprobe gscpa" and then xawtv will start, although it still has the same errors/warning as in my previous post.

Also by doing "modprobe gspca", the camera is shown in skype, but I still get just a black screen.

regards

keith

[keithj]

I found some info on skypes forums about skype for linux only being able to accept a YUV signal and not a RGB signal. Anybody able to comment on this ?

They then go on to talk about using a video hijacker to capture and convert the signal and present it to skype, this is a bit beyond me, can anybody help with this approach ?


Thanks

[keithj]

Has anybody tried using skype for windows in wine ?

Might give it a go, not sure how wine supports networking or usb

[keithj]

Unfortunately nobody has been able to offer any help, and I'm fast running out of time, so I've shifted to my Ubuntu box. Puppy goes into the cupboard for the moment.

So for now I've given up.

[Jesse]

Unfortunately nobody has been able to offer any help, and I'm fast running out of time, so I've shifted to my Ubuntu box. Puppy goes into the cupboard for the moment.

So for now I've given up.

Hello,

I just compiled gspca for Puppy4-2.6.25.4 (the experimental version).
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 980#201980
And I had the same problem that you had, but I fixed it.

Black screen - The default capture settings remove all color from the camera!!!! doh!

I installed gyachi - a yahoo messenger clone, but the cool thing about it is that it lets you set the camera properties color, brightness, saturation, and then hey-presto the camera is now working, (it was before too, but just dimly).

There are a few dependancies that you'll need:
gspca
gyachi105
libgtkhtml
libgailutil
a yahoo login, must login before cam can be launched(?).

With the above I got it running in Puppy4-2.6.25.4

Once the cam is launched you can then edit the camera properties.
When it is first opened it looked like it got one image frame from the cam and then went all black - quite disconcerting - thats just when it applied the 'default settings'.

I think perhaps there is some bug in gspca as the control sliders do not quite seem to be fully linear to me.
i.e. brightness 126 is very bright, 130 is very dim, in a 0-255 scale!!
If default is halfway at 128 this may be the black screen!
But contrast, by contrast, seems to be fully linear on its 0-255 scale.

Regards
Jesse

[keithj]

Hello,

I think I achieved almost the same thing but using xawtv, in which I get a perfect picture. But if I close xawtv down and then start skype I get just the black screen

It took a while, but I've got the camera working in ubuntu on skype, and thats using the gspca driver, with the autoexpo option set to off. When I start the test in skpe, it takes about 10 seconds for a picture to appear, and there is a bit of flicker on the last couple of lines but it works.

This is being setup for my partnet, who is computer phobic at best, I need a solution that just works, so, in yours, do you have to start your yahoo client in order to get to the camera controls, which then allows it to work in skype ?

Black screen - The default capture settings remove all color from the camera!!!! doh!

What removes all the color settings...skype?, the default driver setup?, can this be changed with options at the time of loading the driver.?

I'm still using puppy 3, but I don't think this is the issue as xawtv wroks great.

Any thoughts ?

Regards

Keith

[Jesse]

This is being setup for my partnet, who is computer phobic at best, I need a solution that just works, so, in yours, do you have to start your yahoo client in order to get to the camera controls, which then allows it to work in skype ?

I think the application restores the previous session control settings when it starts the cam, so just starting it and then quitting it works, but some applications don't set them at all so they are stuck with how it is.
I think xawtv restores previous settings too.

Black screen - The default capture settings remove all color from the camera!!!! doh!

What removes all the color settings...skype?, the default driver setup?, can this be changed with options at the time of loading the driver.?

I think that the blackness comes from a bug in the gspca module, in that its initial default setting, which comes from the driver, is that the brightness setting is exactly on halfway value of 128 (0-255), but that setting 128 is incorrectly translated to a brightness of zero. Brightness is a color multiplier, and zero times anything is still zero, and all-pixels being zero is a black screen.

Setting defaults at module load is news to me, how does that work?
What is this autoexpo setting that you mention?

Regards
Jesse

[keithj]

Hi,

if you do a "modinfo gspca", it will list all the options that can be used when the driver is loaded. To get the camera to work in Ubuntu, I had to load the driver with the option "autoexpo=0", there are about a dozen other parameters. I tried loading the driver with various options last night but it didn't make any difference.

[paulski]

I looked up a few posts for other distros looking for clues.

My cam works fine with xawtv but shows only a few pixels and the rest is almost black in Skype - definately a settings issue with gspca

In pup 4 the gspca settings are found in
/sys/module/gspca/parameters/
with each parameter as an individual file with a number in it.

Then some unbuntu guys have done things like this

echo 270 > /sys/module/gspca/parameters/GRed

Perhaps this could be automated with a script and xdialogs that can run at the same time as Skype and adjust the parameters?
Not sure yet if it can be done on the fly.

Other ideas are to get the settings right somehow on startup

Anyway - a few ideas for the pool on this problem.

[keithj]

I'm still very keen to fix this problem, but am away for another couple of weeks, and so can't pursue this till I get back.

Regards

Keith