Digital compact cameras that can be used as video devices?

Digital compact cameras that can be used as video devices?

[Robin van Kleeff]

Hey everybody,

I have been searching for information on using compact photo cameras
as video devices (and also for compatibility with gphoto through the
gphoto websites/mailing list).

I was wondering if any of you knows which cameras (brand, type) I
should focus on?  I'm interested in digital compact camera that can be
used to take decent quality pictures, and also function as for
instance a web cam for applications such as Ekiga.  I am unable to
find any lists of cameras that are supported.

By the way, I am much more an end-user then a developer, so forgive me
if I ask dumb questions, or if I ask questions that are outside of the
scope of this mailing list.

Thanks in advance!

Robin

Re: Digital compact cameras that can be used as video devices?

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 3:22 PM, Robin van Kleeff
<robinvankleeff@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey everybody,
>
> I have been searching for information on using compact photo cameras
> as video devices (and also for compatibility with gphoto through the
> gphoto websites/mailing list).
>
> I was wondering if any of you knows which cameras (brand, type) I
> should focus on?  I'm interested in digital compact camera that can be
> used to take decent quality pictures, and also function as for
> instance a web cam for applications such as Ekiga.  I am unable to
> find any lists of cameras that are supported.
>
> By the way, I am much more an end-user then a developer, so forgive me
> if I ask dumb questions, or if I ask questions that are outside of the
> scope of this mailing list.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Robin

Hello Robin,

Do you know of any such devices that claim to work like that even
under Windows?  Generally, all the digital cameras I see that can
capture video can't do it while the device is plugged in to the PC.
If you can provide some specific examples of models that do this under
Windows, we can possibly look at what would be required to make them
work under Linux.

Cheers,

Devin

-- 
Devin J. Heitmueller
http://www.devinheitmueller.com
AIM: devinheitmueller

Re: Digital compact cameras that can be used as video devices?

[hermann pitton]

Hi,

Am Mittwoch, den 29.04.2009, 15:31 -0400 schrieb Devin Heitmueller:
> On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 3:22 PM, Robin van Kleeff
> <robinvankleeff@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hey everybody,
> >
> > I have been searching for information on using compact photo cameras
> > as video devices (and also for compatibility with gphoto through the
> > gphoto websites/mailing list).
> >
> > I was wondering if any of you knows which cameras (brand, type) I
> > should focus on?  I'm interested in digital compact camera that can be
> > used to take decent quality pictures, and also function as for
> > instance a web cam for applications such as Ekiga.  I am unable to
> > find any lists of cameras that are supported.
> >
> > By the way, I am much more an end-user then a developer, so forgive me
> > if I ask dumb questions, or if I ask questions that are outside of the
> > scope of this mailing list.
> >
> > Thanks in advance!
> >
> > Robin
> 
> Hello Robin,
> 
> Do you know of any such devices that claim to work like that even
> under Windows?  Generally, all the digital cameras I see that can
> capture video can't do it while the device is plugged in to the PC.
> If you can provide some specific examples of models that do this under
> Windows, we can possibly look at what would be required to make them
> work under Linux.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Devin
> 

never cared much about it, but I was the opposite opinion.

If it has Composite or S-Video and audio out it should simply work I
thought when plugged into the inputs of any capture card, also when
switched into video mode.

I tested it once on a cheapo Jenoptik 6.0z3 MPEG4 and don't remember any
problems using an saa7131e Asus P7131 Dual with tvtime on Composite.

In that case it is not registered as storage device at all.

Cheers,
Hermann

Re: Digital compact cameras that can be used as video devices?

[Theodore Kilgore]

On Wed, 29 Apr 2009, hermann pitton wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Am Mittwoch, den 29.04.2009, 15:31 -0400 schrieb Devin Heitmueller:
>> On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 3:22 PM, Robin van Kleeff
>> <robinvankleeff@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hey everybody,
>>>
>>> I have been searching for information on using compact photo cameras
>>> as video devices (and also for compatibility with gphoto through the
>>> gphoto websites/mailing list).
>>>
>>> I was wondering if any of you knows which cameras (brand, type) I
>>> should focus on?  I'm interested in digital compact camera that can be
>>> used to take decent quality pictures, and also function as for
>>> instance a web cam for applications such as Ekiga.  I am unable to
>>> find any lists of cameras that are supported.
>>>
>>> By the way, I am much more an end-user then a developer, so forgive me
>>> if I ask dumb questions, or if I ask questions that are outside of the
>>> scope of this mailing list.
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance!
>>>
>>> Robin
>>
>> Hello Robin,
>>
>> Do you know of any such devices that claim to work like that even
>> under Windows?  Generally, all the digital cameras I see that can
>> capture video can't do it while the device is plugged in to the PC.
>> If you can provide some specific examples of models that do this under
>> Windows, we can possibly look at what would be required to make them
>> work under Linux.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Devin
>>
>
> never cared much about it, but I was the opposite opinion.
>
> If it has Composite or S-Video and audio out it should simply work I
> thought when plugged into the inputs of any capture card, also when
> switched into video mode.
>
> I tested it once on a cheapo Jenoptik 6.0z3 MPEG4 and don't remember any
> problems using an saa7131e Asus P7131 Dual with tvtime on Composite.
>
> In that case it is not registered as storage device at all.
>
> Cheers,
> Hermann

Ah. I was a little bit slow. Now I see what was behind the statement that

"Generally, all the digital cameras I see that can capture video can't do 
it while the device is plugged in to the PC."

So, for the original poster, here is (sort of) what is behind these 
comments:

1. Lots of still cameras, especially some of the really fancy ones are 
Mass Storage devices. To use a still camera which is a Mass Storage 
device, one merely mounts it just like any external hard drive, or flash 
drive. If a camera is a Mass Storage device, it can not be addressed in 
any other mode. In particular, it can not stream. It is acting then like a 
hard drive, and hard drives do not stream. Hard drives are for copying 
files onto and off of, that kind of thing.

2. There do exist cameras which can be addressed in more than one mode. It 
is not unusual to have a camera which can be addressed as a Mass Storage 
device and also in PTP mode. Sorry, about PTP mode I only know that it 
exists, is supported in Linux under libgphoto2, and some others are doing 
that.

3. If a camera will do more than one mode (Mass Storage or PTP, Mass 
Storage or streaming, PTP or streaming, or all three, in case such a thing 
exists) then its mode would have to be set before one plugs it into the 
computer, using some kind of control menu on the camera. Then, when the 
camera is plugged to the computer it will either come up with a different 
USB Product number (see my previous post) or will come up in some kind of 
different mode which is made explicit to the computer.

Incidentally, the way that a USB device tells the computer about such 
things is to answer a standard query as soon as it is hooked up. That 
standard query has certain fields for its response. The things which must 
be answered are such things as what the Vendor and Product numbers are, a 
revision number, whether or not the device supports any of the standard 
modes. For these, there are three-byte codes (for example, Class Mass 
Storage, Subclass Transparent SCSI, Protocol Bulk Transport is 0x08 0x06 
0x50), and the catchall classification is is 0xff 0xff 0xff meaning Class 
Proprietary, Subclass Proprietary, Protocol Proprietary. As I said, every 
USB device must provide this information in a standard way, and every 
operating system needs to have said information in order to know what to 
do in order to support the hardware which has just been plugged in. The 
way that you can see all of this information in human-readable form in 
Linux is to run the command lsusb, or to look at the file 
/proc/bus/usb/devices (not present on all distros). There is also some 
further explanation about such things in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/usb.

Sorry if the above is a digression, but it should explain to you what is 
going on, and in particular why a camera can not be simultaneously a 
streaming device and a mass storage device. Any given camera could in 
principle do both of these, but not at the same time. And it would be 
needed to set the camera up beforehand using the control features present 
on the camera itself, while it is not hooked to the computer, to run in 
one of those modes and not in the other when it is next hooked up.

Of course, a device which is Proprietary, Proprietary, Proprietary can 
jolly well do whatever it wants. The computer has been warned. The 
operating system either has the required support for the given device 
installed, or it does not. There are lots of proprietary dual-mode 
cameras. Some of them are supported and work very well in Linux. Some are 
not well supported or do not work at all. The reason for that is, of 
course, we get usually no cooperation at all from the hardware vendors.

For the reasons I described above, I suggested already that you should 
download the video4linux mcode, and probably also the libgphoto2 code. 
That way, you can search through the two source trees and look for matches 
and possibly come up with something which pleases you. Do understand that 
if you do this, though, you will be confined to cameras which are either 
PTP cameras or fully proprietary cameras. If a camera will act both as a 
Mass Storage camera and as a streaming device, then you will probably not 
catch it this way. Perhaps you can think of other ways to trap that 
information. So, sticking to just libgphoto2 and the kernel source, here 
is what I would try if I were you:

1. look at the list of cameras supported by the Gphoto project, at the 
project website, or run the gphoto2 --list-cameras command. See if you 
recognize any camera which looks interesting.

2. search the directory libgphoto2/camlibs for that camera, by name. For 
example, if you search for "Logitech Clicksmart 310" you will come up with 
a line, in libgphoto2/camlibs/clicksmart310/library.c which says

  {"Logitech Clicksmart 310", GP_DRIVER_STATUS_TESTING, 0x46d, 0x0900},

which tells you that the USB Vendor number is 0x46d and the Product number 
is 0x0900. Perhaps the vendor number should have been listed as 0x046d 
(oops!). So if you search somewhere else for 0x46d and what is written is 
0x046d instead you will come up with thin air. Be careful with things like 
that, also that you might need to search for 46D, as well.

Thus, if you search linux/drivers/media/video/gspca using (for example)

grep 0900 *

you will come up with

spca500.c:      {USB_DEVICE(0x046d, 0x0900), .driver_info = 
LogitechClickSmart310},

which informs you that the camera is supported both in libgphoto2 as a 
still camera and in the spca500 kernel driver for use in streaming mode.

I do use this camera only by way of example. Its max resolution is 
352x288, and probably you want a better camera. But you get the idea.

As another example, if you have a "Pixie Princess Jelly-Soft" camera, you 
can search on the Gphoto website, or run the command

gphoto2 --list-cameras and search the output for it, and find it. You will 
find a line which says

         {"Pixie Princess Jelly-Soft",    GP_DRIVER_STATUS_EXPERIMENTAL,
                                                         0x2770, 0x905c},

And then if you search for the Vendor number you will find in the gspca 
code

kilgota@khayyam:~/linux/gspca/gspca-repo/linux/drivers/media/video/gspca$ 
grep 2770 *
sq905.c:        {USB_DEVICE(0x2770, 0x9120)},
sq905c.c: * The 0x2770:0x9050 cameras have max resolution of 320x240.
sq905c.c:       {USB_DEVICE(0x2770, 0x905c)},
sq905c.c:       {USB_DEVICE(0x2770, 0x9050)},
sq905c.c:       {USB_DEVICE(0x2770, 0x913d)},
kilgota@khayyam:~/linux/gspca/gspca-repo/linux/drivers/media/video/gspca$

so you have one match in the file sq905c.c for the product number, too. 
The camera is not otherwise listed by name in the kernel source (because 
the driver for it supports at least sixteen other known cameras), but in 
spite of its funny name and appearance and squishy, pink "jelly-soft" 
exterior it is a quite standard SQ905C camera and works in streaming mode, 
too.

I hope this helps you find what you are looking for.

Theodore Kilgore

Re: Digital compact cameras that can be used as video devices?

[hermann pitton]

Am Mittwoch, den 29.04.2009, 18:33 -0500 schrieb Theodore Kilgore:
> 
> On Wed, 29 Apr 2009, hermann pitton wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> >
> > Am Mittwoch, den 29.04.2009, 15:31 -0400 schrieb Devin Heitmueller:
> >> On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 3:22 PM, Robin van Kleeff
> >> <robinvankleeff@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> Hey everybody,
> >>>
> >>> I have been searching for information on using compact photo cameras
> >>> as video devices (and also for compatibility with gphoto through the
> >>> gphoto websites/mailing list).
> >>>
> >>> I was wondering if any of you knows which cameras (brand, type) I
> >>> should focus on?  I'm interested in digital compact camera that can be
> >>> used to take decent quality pictures, and also function as for
> >>> instance a web cam for applications such as Ekiga.  I am unable to
> >>> find any lists of cameras that are supported.
> >>>
> >>> By the way, I am much more an end-user then a developer, so forgive me
> >>> if I ask dumb questions, or if I ask questions that are outside of the
> >>> scope of this mailing list.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks in advance!
> >>>
> >>> Robin
> >>
> >> Hello Robin,
> >>
> >> Do you know of any such devices that claim to work like that even
> >> under Windows?  Generally, all the digital cameras I see that can
> >> capture video can't do it while the device is plugged in to the PC.
> >> If you can provide some specific examples of models that do this under
> >> Windows, we can possibly look at what would be required to make them
> >> work under Linux.
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >>
> >> Devin
> >>
> >
> > never cared much about it, but I was the opposite opinion.
> >
> > If it has Composite or S-Video and audio out it should simply work I
> > thought when plugged into the inputs of any capture card, also when
> > switched into video mode.
> >
> > I tested it once on a cheapo Jenoptik 6.0z3 MPEG4 and don't remember any
> > problems using an saa7131e Asus P7131 Dual with tvtime on Composite.
> >
> > In that case it is not registered as storage device at all.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Hermann
> 
> Ah. I was a little bit slow. Now I see what was behind the statement that
> 
> "Generally, all the digital cameras I see that can capture video can't do 
> it while the device is plugged in to the PC."
> 
> So, for the original poster, here is (sort of) what is behind these 
> comments:
> 
> 1. Lots of still cameras, especially some of the really fancy ones are 
> Mass Storage devices. To use a still camera which is a Mass Storage 
> device, one merely mounts it just like any external hard drive, or flash 
> drive. If a camera is a Mass Storage device, it can not be addressed in 
> any other mode. In particular, it can not stream. It is acting then like a 
> hard drive, and hard drives do not stream. Hard drives are for copying 
> files onto and off of, that kind of thing.
> 
> 2. There do exist cameras which can be addressed in more than one mode. It 
> is not unusual to have a camera which can be addressed as a Mass Storage 
> device and also in PTP mode. Sorry, about PTP mode I only know that it 
> exists, is supported in Linux under libgphoto2, and some others are doing 
> that.
> 
> 3. If a camera will do more than one mode (Mass Storage or PTP, Mass 
> Storage or streaming, PTP or streaming, or all three, in case such a thing 
> exists) then its mode would have to be set before one plugs it into the 
> computer, using some kind of control menu on the camera. Then, when the 
> camera is plugged to the computer it will either come up with a different 
> USB Product number (see my previous post) or will come up in some kind of 
> different mode which is made explicit to the computer.
> 
> Incidentally, the way that a USB device tells the computer about such 
> things is to answer a standard query as soon as it is hooked up. That 
> standard query has certain fields for its response. The things which must 
> be answered are such things as what the Vendor and Product numbers are, a 
> revision number, whether or not the device supports any of the standard 
> modes. For these, there are three-byte codes (for example, Class Mass 
> Storage, Subclass Transparent SCSI, Protocol Bulk Transport is 0x08 0x06 
> 0x50), and the catchall classification is is 0xff 0xff 0xff meaning Class 
> Proprietary, Subclass Proprietary, Protocol Proprietary. As I said, every 
> USB device must provide this information in a standard way, and every 
> operating system needs to have said information in order to know what to 
> do in order to support the hardware which has just been plugged in. The 
> way that you can see all of this information in human-readable form in 
> Linux is to run the command lsusb, or to look at the file 
> /proc/bus/usb/devices (not present on all distros). There is also some 
> further explanation about such things in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/usb.
> 
> Sorry if the above is a digression, but it should explain to you what is 
> going on, and in particular why a camera can not be simultaneously a 
> streaming device and a mass storage device. Any given camera could in 
> principle do both of these, but not at the same time. And it would be 
> needed to set the camera up beforehand using the control features present 
> on the camera itself, while it is not hooked to the computer, to run in 
> one of those modes and not in the other when it is next hooked up.
> 
> Of course, a device which is Proprietary, Proprietary, Proprietary can 
> jolly well do whatever it wants. The computer has been warned. The 
> operating system either has the required support for the given device 
> installed, or it does not. There are lots of proprietary dual-mode 
> cameras. Some of them are supported and work very well in Linux. Some are 
> not well supported or do not work at all. The reason for that is, of 
> course, we get usually no cooperation at all from the hardware vendors.
> 
> For the reasons I described above, I suggested already that you should 
> download the video4linux mcode, and probably also the libgphoto2 code. 
> That way, you can search through the two source trees and look for matches 
> and possibly come up with something which pleases you. Do understand that 
> if you do this, though, you will be confined to cameras which are either 
> PTP cameras or fully proprietary cameras. If a camera will act both as a 
> Mass Storage camera and as a streaming device, then you will probably not 
> catch it this way. Perhaps you can think of other ways to trap that 
> information. So, sticking to just libgphoto2 and the kernel source, here 
> is what I would try if I were you:
> 
> 1. look at the list of cameras supported by the Gphoto project, at the 
> project website, or run the gphoto2 --list-cameras command. See if you 
> recognize any camera which looks interesting.
> 
> 2. search the directory libgphoto2/camlibs for that camera, by name. For 
> example, if you search for "Logitech Clicksmart 310" you will come up with 
> a line, in libgphoto2/camlibs/clicksmart310/library.c which says
> 
>   {"Logitech Clicksmart 310", GP_DRIVER_STATUS_TESTING, 0x46d, 0x0900},
> 
> which tells you that the USB Vendor number is 0x46d and the Product number 
> is 0x0900. Perhaps the vendor number should have been listed as 0x046d 
> (oops!). So if you search somewhere else for 0x46d and what is written is 
> 0x046d instead you will come up with thin air. Be careful with things like 
> that, also that you might need to search for 46D, as well.
> 
> Thus, if you search linux/drivers/media/video/gspca using (for example)
> 
> grep 0900 *
> 
> you will come up with
> 
> spca500.c:      {USB_DEVICE(0x046d, 0x0900), .driver_info = 
> LogitechClickSmart310},
> 
> which informs you that the camera is supported both in libgphoto2 as a 
> still camera and in the spca500 kernel driver for use in streaming mode.
> 
> I do use this camera only by way of example. Its max resolution is 
> 352x288, and probably you want a better camera. But you get the idea.
> 
> As another example, if you have a "Pixie Princess Jelly-Soft" camera, you 
> can search on the Gphoto website, or run the command
> 
> gphoto2 --list-cameras and search the output for it, and find it. You will 
> find a line which says
> 
>          {"Pixie Princess Jelly-Soft",    GP_DRIVER_STATUS_EXPERIMENTAL,
>                                                          0x2770, 0x905c},
> 
> And then if you search for the Vendor number you will find in the gspca 
> code
> 
> kilgota@khayyam:~/linux/gspca/gspca-repo/linux/drivers/media/video/gspca$ 
> grep 2770 *
> sq905.c:        {USB_DEVICE(0x2770, 0x9120)},
> sq905c.c: * The 0x2770:0x9050 cameras have max resolution of 320x240.
> sq905c.c:       {USB_DEVICE(0x2770, 0x905c)},
> sq905c.c:       {USB_DEVICE(0x2770, 0x9050)},
> sq905c.c:       {USB_DEVICE(0x2770, 0x913d)},
> kilgota@khayyam:~/linux/gspca/gspca-repo/linux/drivers/media/video/gspca$
> 
> so you have one match in the file sq905c.c for the product number, too. 
> The camera is not otherwise listed by name in the kernel source (because 
> the driver for it supports at least sixteen other known cameras), but in 
> spite of its funny name and appearance and squishy, pink "jelly-soft" 
> exterior it is a quite standard SQ905C camera and works in streaming mode, 
> too.
> 
> I hope this helps you find what you are looking for.
> 
> Theodore Kilgore

Sorry,

I have half a bottle of a fine Rioja Rosado this time.

If you plug it into a supported capture card, and it has Composite
and/or S-Video and audio out, all the above does not matter at all.

Cheers,
Hermann

Re: Digital compact cameras that can be used as video devices?

[Robin van Kleeff]

Thanks for your advice, I learned a lot.  I will look into all the
options to the extent time (and my knowledge) allows for, and
hopefully come up with something good.

Thanks!
Robin

Re: Digital compact cameras that can be used as video devices?

[hermann pitton]

Hi,

Am Donnerstag, den 30.04.2009, 21:15 +0200 schrieb Robin van Kleeff:
> Thanks for your advice, I learned a lot.  I will look into all the
> options to the extent time (and my knowledge) allows for, and
> hopefully come up with something good.
> 
> Thanks!
> Robin

Theodore obviously has very good insight here, but Devin seemed to be a
bit too pessimistic.

At least something to look further into.

A immediate problem I can imagine is, if you use some such over a
capture card, that you don't get the microphone switched on and must
have something else connected to the sound card for it.

Playback of recorded videos with sound should work from such a device
over the capture card, like connected to any recent TV. (preferably the
capture card should have analog audio out in that case)

Cheers,
Hermann

Re: Digital compact cameras that can be used as video devices?

[Theodore Kilgore]

Hi,

I will try to answer some of the questions to the best of my ability:

First, as I think I mentioned, responding to your similar query on the 
gphoto-users list, there is a division of labor in Linux between still 
camera support and support for streaming. The reason for this is that 
still camera support can be done 100% in userspace, whereas streaming can 
not. So what you will typically find is that if device X is a dual-mode 
device which is fully supported, then it will be supported by Gphoto as a 
still camera, with accompanying information about that over there, and by 
the video4linux project as a streaming device, with any information about 
that found over here.

The rest of my response, you will find "in line" below.


On Wed, 29 Apr 2009, Robin van Kleeff wrote:

> Hey everybody,
>
> I have been searching for information on using compact photo cameras
> as video devices (and also for compatibility with gphoto through the
> gphoto websites/mailing list).
>
> I was wondering if any of you knows which cameras (brand, type) I
> should focus on?

I can only mention the cameras that I personally have supported. I do not 
know very much about any others. The cameras that I have supported usually 
run toward being cheap. As to the rest of them, I think that you will find 
practically all of the current support for dual-mode cameras to do 
streaming is in the gspca project. The most current support of all is, of 
course, in the most current code. That code may not be in your current 
kernel version, but by intention you ought to be able to download it and 
look at it and compile it and install it. What will happen if you do these 
steps is, the modules in drivers/media/video will be compiled for the 
kernel which is detected on your installation, and the currently existing 
modules in drivers/media/video will be overwritten. Within reasonable 
limitations, the code is supposed to work with recent kernel releases.

So, my first proposal to you would be to download the most current version 
of the code. Since Jean-Francois Moine is the maintainer of the most 
current gspca code, which is probably what would interest you, I would 
suggest to do

hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/~jfrancois/gspca/

and to take a look at the subdirectory

linux/drivers/media/video/gspca

and/or the directory

linux/Documentation/video4linux/gspca.txt

and see if you find anything there of interest. I think I mentioned 
already, in response to your post on the gphoto-users list, that the 
cameras supported by the drivers libgphoto2/camlibs/sq905 and 
camlibs/digigr8 and some of the cameras supported by camlibs/mars can also 
perform now in streaming mode. However, my impression was that you are 
looking for a better camera than one of these. I do not blame you for 
that; those things are all cheap cameras even though some of them take 
fairly decent photos, with resolutions up to 640x480. There may be some 
other cameras that you will recognize, though, because gspca does support 
lots of cameras. Also do not neglect to look for cameras which are not in 
gspca but will also be listed in the source code I suggested to you to 
download. Some of the other things supported in linux/drivers/media/video 
are cameras, too. And some of those may be still cameras as well as video 
cameras. So if you recognize such a thing, then, good.

Also, a remark or two about how to recognize a camera:

There is, of course, the documentation in linux/Documentation/video4linux 
which might help. However, that documentation is often sketchy. The 
problem is, there are lots of mass-produced chips out there for running 
cameras, and there are lots of brand names and "models" where the 
mass-produced chip has been slapped into a case and a decal or 
paintbrush has been used on the plastic exterior, claiming that this is 
model X from manufacturer Y. The same chip might be inside 40 different 
so-called models from various manufacturers. Even worse, if the 
manufacturer feels like buying some other chips, in job lots, and putting 
them into the next batch of the same make and model, then said 
manufacturer might just go right ahead and do that. So the only way to 
know what is really supposed to be there is to look at the two four-digit 
hexadecimal numbers consisting of the vendor number and the product 
number. If you want to see some samples of this in action, then go to the 
website qbik.ch and browse the lists there. That website, incidentally, is 
supposed to give information about various USB hardware and the status of 
its Linux support. It is always out of date, of course. One of the reasons 
for that is, developers who supported a chip which runs in 40 cameras do 
not want to bother to go there and put in an entry for every single one of 
them. Another reason is (and I have had that experience several times!) 
that I personally have supported some device and know it works, and the 
code is out there in some project. But before I got to qbik.ch someone 
else has already been there and informed us all that the device does not 
work and is unsupported. And then after doing the support myself I can not 
change the other guy's entry. If he disappeared, then the entry will never 
get changed.


> I'm interested in digital compact camera that can be
> used to take decent quality pictures, and also function as for
> instance a web cam for applications such as Ekiga.  I am unable to
> find any lists of cameras that are supported.

Sorry, I do not know anything at all about Ekiga.

>
> By the way, I am much more an end-user then a developer, so forgive me
> if I ask dumb questions, or if I ask questions that are outside of the
> scope of this mailing list.

If there is no other list dealing with this kind of inquiry, then clearly 
the questions are not outside of the scope of the mailing list.

>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Robin
> --

Hoping that this helps some, and hoping that some others can fill in 
the blanks that I left.

Theodore Kilgore