webcams and gspca

[Ric Moore]

On Sat, 2007-03-24 at 16:59 +0000, Mark Fraser wrote:
> I have managed to get my webcam - a Logitech model - working using the
> gspca drivers from http://mxhaard.free.fr/ . However, everytime there is a
> new kernel available I have to recompile it. Is it available on a repo like
> Livna have done with the nVidia drivers and kmod-nvidia.

I like leaving it as it is, so I can recompile (which takes less than a
minute) to have it immediately available. 

> Secondly, even though I can view the output of the webcam in the
> configuration window in Kopete, I can't get anyone else to see it and I
> can't view anyone else's that are online.

I finally beat that problem some time ago, but for the life of me, I
cannot remember exactly what I did. Have you tried ekiga yet? 

> I have read that I may need to change some settings in my router for port
> forwarding. Does anyone know if this is true and if so what ports, bearing
> in mind that I use MSN on two different computers.

Ahha! Here's some pointers I found in the way back machine by Paulo
Cavalcanti <promac at gmail.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I do not think there is anything wrong with the driver for 
most cameras. Mine (Creative, ntsc), has pretty acceptable colors.
But there are many issues involved to stream audio and video.

1) Enough bandwidth (minimum 600Kb for download and upload)
2) Firewall rules 
3) NAT forward rules (sometimes, STUN is unavoidable) 
4) A known protocol

I have used my camera with a home solution, called freemeeting,
and I could send and receive audio and video very well. This software
is intended for video-conferences. Either, I had very good results with
motion, 
which can be used to remotely monitor an ambient, and send images via
an http connection.  

Sometime ago, I also tested many soft-phones in linux, 
such as Skype, ekiga, wengophone, ohphone, linphone, X-Lite. 
Some of them can also send video. Mileage varied, depending mostly 
on the available bandwidth (ideal >= 2Mb)

This is how I forwarded ports in my router: 

TCP       6890 - 6900     192.168.254.x   MSN 
UDP       6890 - 6900     192.168.254.x   MSN
UDP       5000 - 5100     192.168.254.x   Ekiga
TCP       30000 - 30010 192.168.254.x   Ekiga
TCP       1720                  192.168.254.x   H323 (Ohphone/AOL)
TCP       5060  - 5061     192.168.254.x    sip
UDP       7070  - 7089     192.168.254.x   siproxd
UDP       10600 - 10601 192.168.254.x   wengophone

As a last remark, the last time I tried skype (maybe a year ago) 
in windows XP, my computer rebooted every time I sent and received video
simultaneously. So, uncle Bill also had his problems...

-- 
Paulo Roma Cavalcanti
LCG - UFRJ
----------------------------------------------------------------------
See if this helps. Ric


-- 
================================================
My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say:
"There are two Great Sins in the world...
..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity.
Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
Linux user# 44256 Sign up at: http://counter.li.org/
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/oar
http://www.wayward4now.net
================================================