Webcams again

[Keith Powell]

On Thursday 01 February 2007 12:56 pm, Rick Sewill wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-02-01 at 11:06 +0000, Anne Wilson wrote:
> > In the thread "webcam support/hardware compatibility list" Riick
> > Sewell wrote
> >
> > The person at http://mxhaard.free.fr/ was very helpful in getting
> > the webcam to sort of work.  Unfortunately, my knowledge of
> > webcams and color was so limited I could only help him to a
> > point, and he had to wait for more knowledgeable people to get
> > this webcam to get the colors even close to being correct.
> >
> > Rick, can you give us some idea of what you had to do?  It may
> > give us a clue for troubleshooting our own colour problems.
>
> I wish I could give a good answer to this question.
>
> The person at http://mxhaard.free.fr had a way to dump registers,
> from the webcam.  I sent him a message, with these registers.  We
> were lucky when he made a guess the webcam chip set was similar to
> a chip set the driver supported.
>
> He sent me an updated driver, he thought might be able to get an
> image.
>
> I compiled the driver, from him, and ran a tool, he had on his
> website, that showed what was being seen from the webcam.  The tool
> could take a picture.
>
> I would take a picture and send the picture to him.  He would look
> at the picture and tell me what lines to change in the driver.  I
> would change those lines, take another picture, and send him the
> picture.
>
> We would repeat the process as far as we were able.
>
> He was able to get a picture.  The colors in the picture were poor.
>
> What he needed was a person who understood more about cameras and
> lighting and color--all things I did not know.
>
> I was a pair of hands.  I got lost when he tried to explain the
> different color things--YUV, parameters to try for red, green,
> blue, gamma.  I am not a camera buff.  He was very patient with me.

Rick.

Thank you for your reply.

Anne is using the ATrpms version of the driver, whereas I am using the 
MXHaard driver. I tried the ATrpms driver, but found no difference.

I too am getting poor colours and very variable picture definition, 
depending on the program. Like Anne, I find that the video controls 
in the different programs either do not work at all, or make enormous 
changes to the picture as soon as I touch them. So I don't know if it 
is the driver (strange that two different drivers should give similar 
results) or the programs.

I hate to say this but, in XP, my Logitech web cam, using the Logitech 
driver, gives an excellent picture.

Perhaps either a contact with Michael XHaard, or with Logitech is 
called for.

Cheers

Keith