How To Update Camera Driver In Ubuntu Askubuntu

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Introduction

Contents

Choosing a Webcam
Testing Your Webcam Using Cheese
Webcam Software
1. Configuring Webcam Software
2. VLC
3. FFmpeg
4. MPlayer
5. MEncoder
6. Skype
7. streamer
Identifying Your Webcam
Driver installation
See Also
External Links

This document describes how to choose, setup and use a webcam in Ubuntu. If you are reading this folio, you are probably in either/both of the following situations:

Looking for information on which webcam to buy.
Trying to setup and use your existing webcam.

Please annotation that this document is intended for the electric current release: Ubuntu 10.ten (Maverick Meerkat).

1. Choosing a Webcam

Webcam support in Linux is mainly provided by the Linux UVC Project's UVC driver. This aims to provide a universal driver in the same way that a generic driver handles USB storage devices (memory sticks, hard drives etc). However, other drivers also exist that may allow more devices to be used. When looking to purchase a webcam for employ with Ubuntu, yous should look for a UVC compatible camera. The Linux-UVC projection has a good listing of UVC uniform webcams.

2. Testing Your Webcam Using Cheese

Ubuntu aims to provide 'out-of-the-box' or 'just-works' functionality for webcams. This means that yous should exist able to plug-in your webcam and utilize it straight away: no driver disks or installation. To test whether or not your webcam works in this fashion, install Cheese, a GNOME programme for capturing video and stills from a webcam. It can as well apply some special effects. Cheese is included in the Main repositories since Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron). It uses the gstreamer library, which utlilizes the video4linux2 API.

Download and install Cheese using the following steps:

Open a concluding window.

Type in the post-obit command:

              sudo apt-get install cheese

Run Cheese. Cheese should automatically discover your webcam and display live video stream.
To record video or accept a snapshot, click either on photograph or video and select Accept a Photo or Start recording.
- If Cheese doesn't display the output from your webcam, test that the trouble is not with Cheese earlier trying anything else by using one of the programs in the next section.
- If Cheese displays a garbled flick or one with poor colour/brightness/contrast, go to the Ubuntu wiki Webcam Troubleshooting page for steps to resolve this.

3. Webcam Software

This is a list of software that allows you to practice a simple 'plug-in-and-go' test with your webcam. You should try 1 of these programs if Cheese didn't display anything at all to make certain that Cheese is not causing the problem.

Empathy has been the default VoIP/Video Conversation awarding since Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), and tin can be used to establish whether or non your webcam is working.

3.i. Configuring Webcam Software

In some cases your media player (VLC, mplayer, amongst others) will demand to know the video and audio device files for your webcam. Before you plug in your webcam, effort the post-obit two commands at a console:

          ls /dev/video*          ls /dev/audio*

Brand a note of the devices actualization. Now plug in your webcam, allow the organization a few seconds to annals the device, and run the ii commands over again. The new appearances should belong to your webcam (for instance, /dev/video0 and /dev/audio2). If nothing new appears, you lot may need to switch your webcam on. For a built-in webcam, y'all may accept a function primal to do so.

3.2. VLC

3.ii.i. Using the GUI

In VLC, cull 'Open capture device' from the file card and enter the video and sound device files (encounter higher up) in video device name and audio device name, respectively. If you only desire a 'mirror' (to see what the webcam is showing), click 'OK' and you're done. If you lot wish to record, tick off 'Stream/salve' in the 'Advanced options' section. Click the settings button right next to it. Tick 'File' off under 'Outputs' and enter a filename. Encapsulation method can be left at the default (MPEG TS). Under 'Transcoding options', tick 'Audio codec' and 'Video codec'. These can as well safely be left the defaults (obviously greater compression results in lower file sizes, and so experiment). Click 'OK' in the Settings screen and once again in the principal webcam screen (Video4linux). If you want to have more control, you can access several settings, including resolution, by clicking the Advanced options button.

3.two.2. Using the Command Line

A unproblematic test of just the video from your webcam can be done as follows. This assumes the webcam is installed as '/dev/video0'.

          $ vlc v4l2:///dev/video0

If you wish to exist able to apace start a video session with your webcam, the resulting vlc command is printed in the Customize line at the lesser. You but demand to prepend 'vlc', east.g.

          vlc v4l2:// :v4l-vdev="/dev/video0" :v4l-adev="/dev/audio2" :v4l-norm=3 :v4l-frequency=-one :v4l-caching=300 :v4l-chroma="" :v4l-fps=-one.000000 :v4l-samplerate=44100 :v4l-channel=0 :v4l-tuner=-ane :v4l-audio=-1 :v4l-stereo :v4l-width=640 :v4l-height=480 :v4l-brightness=-1 :v4l-colour=-1 :v4l-hue=-i :v4l-contrast=-1 :no-v4l-mjpeg :v4l-decimation=1 :v4l-quality=100

The recording instructions will similarly need to be appended. Copy the contents of the 'Stream Output MRL' box nether 'Settings' and change ":sout=" to "--sout " and append it to your vlc command:, e.1000.

          vlc v4l2:// :v4l-vdev="/dev/video0" :v4l-adev="/dev/audio2" :v4l-norm=three :v4l-frequency=-1 :v4l-caching=300 :v4l-chroma="" :v4l-fps=-ane.000000 :v4l-samplerate=44100 :v4l-channel=0 :v4l-tuner=-1 :v4l-audio=-ane :v4l-stereo :v4l-width=640 :v4l-tiptop=480 :v4l-brightness=-1 :v4l-color=-ane :v4l-hue=-i :v4l-contrast=-1 :no-v4l-mjpeg :v4l-decimation=1 :v4l-quality=100 --sout "#transcode{vcodec=mp1v,vb=1024,calibration=one,acodec=mpga,ab=192,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=mpeg1,dst=/tmp/exam.mpg}}"

To simple accept a few snapshots, open the webcam without recording and cull 'Snapshot' under the 'Video' bill of fare.

3.3. FFmpeg

FFmpeg is a cross-platform audio/video recording, conversion and streaming application.

3.iii.one. Recording Video

To record both video and audio using FFmpeg, kickoff brand sure it is installed:
```
              sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
```

Run ffmpeg with arguments such as these:

              ffmpeg -f oss -i /dev/dsp -f video4linux2 -southward 320x240 -i /dev/video0 out.mpg

With recent versions of Ubuntu (>= 12.10) y'all should use avconv instead of ffmpeg control:

          avconv -f oss -i /dev/dsp -f video4linux2 -s 320x240 -i /dev/video0 out.mpg

iii.4. MPlayer

MPlayer is capable of displaying a webcam video stream,

three.4.1. Recording Video

To record video from the command line:

Open a final window and type the following:
```
              mplayer television:// -tv commuter=v4l2:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0
```
- This example assumes that your webcam device is at /dev/video0
- The resolution (width=??? & height=???) should exist chosen to match the output of your device.

3.v. MEncoder

The companion to MPlayer, MEncoder tin record from a webcam to video files.

3.five.i. Recording Video

Recording AVI, without audio:

              mencoder tv:// -tv commuter=v4l2:width=320:height=240:device=/dev/video0 -ovc lavc -o webcam.avi

Recording AVI, with audio:

              mencoder television:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=320:height=240:device=/dev/video0:forceaudio:adevice=/dev/dsp1 -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=64:mode=iii -o webcam.avi

Type 'man mencoder' for more than info on the sound options.
/dev/dsp1 refers to the webcam USB Audio device.
/dev/dsp refers to the audio card.

You may need to install these programs with

          sudo apt-get install mplayer mencoder

Photographic camera Monitor from anarchy infinito shows a tray icon that lets you know when your webcam is on. It has been in the Universe repository since Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) and is released under the GPL.
luvcview is a skillful program you tin can apply to test that the camera is working. It has been in the Universe repository since Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron). If it doesn't work, you may need to update the UVC driver (see Manual install instructions beneath).
guvcview is based on luvcview and has a graphical user interface. It has been in the Universe repositories since Ubuntu nine.x (Karmic Koala).
Camorama (not updated since 2007), xawtv, aMSN, and Kopete can all exist used to test and employ your webcam. They have been in the Universe repositories since Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) autonomously from Kopete, which is in the main repositories.

iii.6. Skype

See the defended Skype and SkypeWebCams pages.

3.7. streamer

The streamer package provides a very simple command line interface for taking pictures:

          streamer -f jpeg -o /path/to/epitome.jpeg

The package tin be installed as follows:

          sudo apt-get install streamer

4. Identifying Your Webcam

Although webcams may wait quite different from ane another, they often share similar or identical major components. This means that drivers may piece of work for many dissimilar makes and models with niggling or no modification.

To definitively identify your webcam, the post-obit information will be of use:

Make and Model Proper name/Number.
Any version or revision information. This is frequently printed on the device or its packaging and volition read something similar to REV 01 or VER. two.2. This information tin be particularly useful.
The output of the lsusb. Blazon lsusb -v into a terminal window.
- This program prints information about the devices connected to the USB bus. If you scroll through it, you should discover some information nearly your webcam.
Blazon lsusb -n into a terminal window. This version of the command lists the device's USB ID; a number that is unique to every device.

v. Driver installation

Linux Webcam drivers are provided by several different projects. Although the Linux UVC project covers many devices, support for others is provided elsewhere. This section aims to help you install your webcam's drivers if they accept not been automatically installed by Ubuntu.

If the drivers for your webcam haven't been loaded automatically by Ubuntu, you may have to install them manually.

ov51x - The Ubuntu wiki page is here.
ov51x-jpeg - This is a hacked driver past http://www.rastageeks.org/ and more info is available hither.
- Suported Hardware - A listing of webcams supported by the rastageeks driver.

6. See Also

Troubleshooting Webcams - The Ubuntu wiki page.
UVC - The Ubuntu wiki page for the Universal Video Class.
Installing the Eyetoy as a Webcam with Kopete

7. External Links

Using a USB Webcam to capture videos for upload to YouTube
The Linux Idiot box Project Homepage - This is the project responsible for the video4linux drivers for webcams and tv capture/tuner devices.
- The linuxtv.org V4L-DVB Wiki Webcam Page - This page contains lots of information about webcam support in Linux.
The UVC Homepage - The home of the Universal Video Form for Linux project. This project aims to provide a universal commuter for Linux webcams.
FFmpeg - This project develops the cross-platform recording, conversion and streaming solution for audio and video.

CategoryHardware CategoryCommandLine

Source: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Webcam

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