View Source: OmniVisionWebCam - Waikato Linux Users Group

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The Omnivision chips are used in some cheap webcams for example, from [DSE] as well in the Sony EyeToy.

There is a driver (licensed under the [GPL]) that you can download from http://alpha.dyndns.org/ov511/download.html#ov51x - the module will be called ov51x. It should work with 2.2, 2,4 and 2.6 kernels. This driver has stalled in this form but there is some development going on with it slightly modified and this is known as the <tt>ovcamchip</tt> [Module] currently.

Unfortunately, these cameras serve images up in [JPEG] format only, and this behaviour will require application-level support. No webcam software for [Linux] seems to handle this (yet - at least for [V4L] version 1). The source code for the driver (linked above) comes with a small program that can grab and save [JPEG] images from the camera. JohnMcPherson has a modified version of this program that will display captured video in an X window -
grab the "showvideo" package from [our software archive|http://www.wlug.org.nz/archive/software/ov51x/]. It appears there are some issues with [JPEG] patents - see [here|http://news.com.com/Finding+patent+truth+in+JPEG+claim/2100-1001_3-945686.html?tag=st.rn] and [here|http://news.com.com/RIM+inks+deal+for+JPEG+patent/2100-1047_3-5918219.html?part=rss&tag=5918219&subj=news]

The [LinuxKernel] maintainers would not allow something like [JPEG] decompression inside a kernel module... they will argue (correctly) that this is something that should be done in userspace.
However, this lets the camera work with any video4linux program instead of only programs that do jpeg decompression themselves.
One such driver is now available for download from the following website: http://www.rastageeks.org/ov51x-jpeg/ - you will need the following [Module]s loaded:
* videodev
* ov51x
* ov519_decomp

You may need to use [UDev] to setup devices on <tt>/dev/video</tt> and <tt>/dev/video0</tt> and to set the correct permission.

5 pages link to OmniVisionWebCam:

Last edited on Friday, October 28, 2005 12:06:49 pm by IanMcDonald

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