Hardware - webcam recommendations? HK-47 - 22.08.2006, 16:29 Uhr Titel: webcam recommendations?
i currently have a D-Link DSB-C310 webcam (ov51x), which, aside from being poorly supported in linux (requires jpeg decompression), has rather poor image quality in both linux and windows. not to mention that it has recently been causing me problems in linux, as its built-in microphone is being detected as my system's sound card for some reason. i didn't have this problem before, and i figured it's a sign that i should replace this thing already.
so what would you guys recommend for a decent (i don't really need any fancy features), cheap webcam that's well-supported in kanotix/linux in general?
mzilikazi - 23.08.2006, 00:31 Uhr Titel: RE: webcam recommendations?
I went shopping for a web cam and tried 3 different cameras from 3 different manufacturers that were supposed to give up to 30fps. HA! I was lucky to get 10fps. This is completely unacceptable in my book. (I do videoconferencing for a living so I'm kind of used to much better fps). So I took a trip to the local pawn shop where I purchased a Sony analog video camera for $40, plugged it into my BTTV card and voila! 40fps! All for the same money that they want for those ridiculous and very cheaply manufactured web cams. I realize that not everyone wants a giant camera sitting around but if you don't mind, a real video camera will outperform any of the webcams. BTW you can get a BTTV card for < $20 US if you do not have one. The BTTV cards just work under Linux and you'll never have to muck about with a webcam driver.
HK-47 - 25.08.2006, 11:01 Uhr Titel: RE: webcam recommendations?
thanks for the reply, mzilikazi. i use my webcam only for videoconferencing, and while i agree that the video quality of webcams is poor, in my case my internet connection is too slow (512kbps) for to take advantage of high frame rates.. what really annoys me about my current webcam is that the image is so dark that it's totally unusable under any conditions other than braod daylight. adjusting the brightness only "whitens" the image instead of brightening it.
i'll try to find a BTTV card. however, i live in the philippines, and the hardware choices are rather limited here (pretty expensive, too), so i'm not sure if i can find one. i don't even have an idea on how to determine whether a video capture device is a BTTV card.
and just in case i have no choice but to go the webcam route, what webcam would you suggest?