What web cam

[Mike Cohler]

Tom Horsley wrote:

>I'm using a Logitech QuickCam Ultra Vision with the uvcvideo driver
>from http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/, but beware that only v4l2
>(that's video for linux version 2) compliant apps can talk the
>UVC interface, so support seems somewhat spotty (ekiga seems to
>talk to it, but I don't know anyone else to try connecting to,
>so I don't know if it actually works

If Ekiga is working OK then you should be able to register with ekiga
using your own account details. Once that is done then you can check
your audio and video are working across the network by dialing the
echo test by going to sip:500 in the address bar. It should tell you
about the echo test and then you should see both your own local video
and also the echoed video image with a small delay in a separate
subwindow. You should also hear your own voice coming back.

Having said that I had to play with kmix settings to make sure that
the microphone is feeding signals into the system (check input, output
and switches) and also go to the audio settings in the Ekiga tabs and
check all is well there. If you have a headset then you should be able
to select from any of your audio input options, eg from usb camera
microphone, headset microphone or possibly laptop fixed microphone -

if the echo test works then it seems to work with anyone else that you
connect to. Hence you can get set up and tested before trying to
connect.

In my case the camera microphone was not that great and using a
headset as well as a webcam seemed to work best. Also there may be
differences in using a USB headset/mic as opposed to one which plugs
in via the mini jack plugs - I have the latter.

It takes some looking up to find a suitable webcam - I chose the
SPC900NC because it is supported by the pwc module by default without
having to compile drivers. I wonder if anyone else has found a webcam
that works plug n play in F7 using the pwc module?

In addition I did a test last night briefly with VLC (yum install vnc)
and in this you can get it to look at a local video stream from the
webcam - and this seems to work OK including audio from the headset
though there was a problem with feedback from headset to mic - but it
did work. I understand that vlc can then be set up to stream
video/audio output elsewhere but I have not tested/tried that.

There must be other Fedora users who have played with this stuff and
it would be valuable to have other input to the forum on this so we
can all learn how to get the maximum from video and use it for solid
communication.

-- 

mike cohler