USB webcam weirdness

[Roger Oberholtzer]

On Thu, 2004-12-02 at 02:10, Net Llama! wrote:
> Well it happened again this morning. I'm starting to think that it has 
> something to do with direct sun, as its always happening around sunrise.
> 
> As for what version of v4l, the app doesn't say which version it uses, 
> but i'm assuming its v4l and not v4l2.

OK. Odd that the images would be black. When a CCD is overloaded, it
depends on the electronics what happens. Maybe the webcam turns off the
CCD when there is too much light. That would be unusual. But possible.
Usually the image is simply white. We have this with cameras in our
vehicles. When the sun hits them, they go white. But these are high-end
cameras and may have electronics better able to deal with too much
light.

Does bytesex have newer v4l drivers than in your kernel? I think the
development is only for v4l2. For that reason I would choose a v4l2 app.

But if you suspect the camera...

> 
> On 12/01/2004 12:15 AM, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
> > Are you using v4l or v4l2? How to tell? The app docs. What version of
> > v4l? It is a very 'dynamic' set of code. You could try www.bytesex.org,
> > which is where the drivers originate. It is possible to compile the
> > latest outside the kernel tree and see if they make a difference.
> > 
> > On Tue, 2004-11-30 at 16:25 -0800, Net Llama! wrote:
> > 
> >>On 11/30/2004 10:46 AM, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
> >>
> >>>I would be surprised if disconnecting and reconnecting the camera did
> >>>not interfere with a program reading images. One must open the camera
> >>>pretty much like a file. It is a state connection. Things like image
> >>>size and format would not survive across module unloading. Which
> >>>application are you using?
> >>
> >>In the cronjob that takes the shots, i'm using vgrabbj with stamp:
> >>http://vgrabbj.gecius.de/
> >>
> >>However, i was seeing the same results yesterday using camstream (a Qt 
> >>based app).
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