On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Derrik Pates wrote:
> If it connects via composite/S-Video, then dare I say it's just a plain
> old camera, not requiring any special support.
Agreed. At a minimum it's a camera that you could hook to any SVHS
compatible device. That's kinda cool.
> Also, I don't know anything about an "onboard hardware processor", but
> my PowerMac 7500, and many other OldWorld systems, have a chip known as
> "planb" that's used for video input, and the traditional AWACS
> chip/driver is used for audio input. Take a look and see if the
> distribution you're using includes a kernel module called "planb", or if
> you build your own kernel, enable it in the kernel build.
Derrik,
Do you personally have planb working on your PM? If so, what
disto / version and what kernel / xawtv/v4l version have you had the
success with? I've spent better than a month trying to find some
iteration / combination to make it work. At one point it looked like
xawtv 3.38 worked with a patched 2.4.18 kernel, unfortunately I've not
been able to duplicate that success (and the xawtv/v4l folks don't offer
3.38 as a tarball anymore). I tried Yellow Dog (YDL) 3.0 with no avail
and I'm getting ready to try YDL 2.2 or 2.3 since Michel offers rpms for
xawtv.
In short, xawtv changed how they polled devices... as a result you can
change any of the other parameters except which input (Composite / SVHS)
to use. I've tried forcing it any number of ways to no avail. After some
discussion on the v4l list xawtv presumably is in the right, after all it
works with most everything else. A friend and I spent a considerable
Saturday afternoon trying to hack both the driver and v4l/xawtv stuff to
no avail. Thus, the reason why I'm backing down to an older version of
YDL. Seeing as ssh will be the only thing running on these security is
not too much of an issue, I suspect most of these systems will end up
behind firewalls anyway which is what prompted trying to get linux running
on these macs. I could not successfully ssh tunnel any of the
Mac ClassicOS webcam ftp traffic... I spent a considerable time trying to
make that work as well (note, I've exhausted every free as in beer avenue
on this route and better yet, looked at a few shareware options as well to
no avail)
It's fustrating since I have 4 7500's at my disposal. It's the perfect
platform for a cheap webcam server, especially since most people don't
want to use them anymore. And while this is all going on, I had a
co-worker tell me he's got two AV capable G3's and 2 AV capable 7600's
that are mine. Make that 8 macs with capture ability that I'd like to get
online as webcam servers. :(
Sean...
--
The punk rock will get you if the government don't get you first.
--Old 97's
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