[FreeBSD 8/9] USB webcamd and video4bsd: Call for testing

[Hans Petter Selasky]

On Sunday 10 January 2010 18:40:17 Brandon Gooch wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 1:37 PM, Hans Petter Selasky <hselasky at c2i.net> 
wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > During the last couple of days I've spent some time to finish my webcam
> > daemon. My webcam daemon is basically an application which consists of
> > userspace Video4Linux USB webcam drivers and some uLinux glue code which
> > links with libc, pthreads and libusb. The webcamd talks to
> > /dev/video_daemonX which is provided by the video4bsd kernel module.
> > There is full support for mmap/read/write/open/close. poll is not
> > supported.
> >
> > Basic operation and idea:
> >
> > /dev/video_daemonX is the interface for the webcamd. /dev/videoX is the
> > interface for the V4L application. The video4bsd transports all data
> > between these two devices. In the case the V4L application is using mmap,
> > no data is copied due to shared kernel memory buffer!
> >
> > Licensing issues:
> >
> > Effectivly the webcamd userland program becomes GPL'ed due to the V4L USB
> > drivers which are GPL licensed. Some files inside the webcamd remains BSD
> > licensed which allows for building similar BSD licensed daemons.
> >
> > The rest of the code is BSD licensed.
> >
> > Source code:
> >
> > 1) FreeBSD 8-stable
> >
> > 2) Apply the patch below and re-install libusb in /usr/src/lib/libusb:
> >
> > http://p4web.freebsd.org/chv.cgi?CH=172876
> >
> > http://perforce.freebsd.org/chv.cgi?CH=172876
> >
> > 3) Compile ulinux (webcamd + libv4l + pwcview) and video4bsd (must be
> > checked out in the same folder due to dependencies)
> >
> > svn --username anonsvn --password anonsvn \
> >      checkout svn://svn.turbocat.net/i4b/trunk/usbcam/video4bsd
> >
> > make all install
> > kldload video4bsd
> >
> > svn --username anonsvn --password anonsvn \
> >      checkout svn://svn.turbocat.net/i4b/trunk/usbcam/ulinux
> >
> > make fetch
> > make patch
> > make all
> > make install
> >
> > # this will attach to the first detected webcam:
> > ./webcamd
> >
> > # this will try to attach to the given USB unit, interface and V4B unit.
> > ./webcamd -d ugen4.1 -i 0 -v 0
> >
> > # this will display webcam contents from /dev/video0 by default.
> > ./pwcview/pwcview
> >
> > Feedback and bug reports are welcome.
> >
> > Yes, I am working on getting this into ports!
> >
> > Known issues:
> >
> > 1) If you detach the USB webcam you need to manually restart the webcamd.
> >
> > --HPS
> >
> > Support: I will be available at #bsdusb on efnet during the day.
> 
> Seems to work for just a second or two (I see my ugly mug on-screen),
> and then this:
> 
> # ./pwcview/pwcview
> Webcam set to: 320x240 (sif) at 5 fps
> libv4lconvert: Error decompressing JPEG: fill_nbits error: need 8 more bits
> libv4l2: error converting / decoding frame data: v4l-convert: error
> parsing JPEG header: Not a JPG file ?

Hi,

Maybe this is related to a bug in the recent JPEG library. Try googling.

You can also try another mode:

webcamd -s vga

Or other commands. See webcamd -h .

--HPS