Those of you who've followed my ramblings over the years will be aware that the first decent webcam I bought for the 'big' Compaq desktop was an HP HD 2300, a few years ago. Last year, I decided to 'transfer' this permanently to ye anciente Dell lappie, and treat the Compaq to a new one - a Creative Live! Cam Sync HD webcam.
I had to modify the mount for this to give me 'pan & tilt' capability; originally it only had a 'tilt "hinge"'. I'd got an old Trust webcam sitting around which never worked in Linux; I binned the camera itself, but kept the mount, because the ball-joint had a screw-fitting directly into the top of it. Very useful, I thought.....and so it proved.
That was 7 months ago. Today, it simply quit working. I checked & double-checked all the cables and connections; not one Pup would recognise it any longer. Unplugged, re-booted, plugged back in, ran
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lsusb
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Both of the above are UVC-compliant. I did my research before purchasing either, and came to the conclusion that any camera that was certified to work with the UVC kernel module should be hassle-free. And so it turned out. (Makes life so much easier!)
I had a scout around to find out what was available locally, referring to the UVC chip ID listings as I did so. The only two I could find locally that I knew should definitely work were the Logitech Pro c920 (a beautiful camera indeed, but at close to three figures, a bit out of my comfort zone, to say nothing of my budget!)
Which left one other 'contender'; the Microsoft LifeCam HD-3000. It's been on the market for well over a decade now, and appears to be almost universally available everywhere you look. Reasonably-priced, and not bad-looking, TBH.
For some reason, I'd always shied away from this one, but I've read several blogs/forum posts in various places over the last 6 months where folks have been saying how it just 'works' in Linux w/out any problems. And it's certainly in the UVC device listings.....has been for a long time.
So; I took the plunge, and purchased one.
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I have to admit to being quite impressed with this thing! It's got an extremely sharp, clear, crisp picture; good resolution, too. In fact, it's got a larger range of resolutions available to it than either of the other two.....and it's the only one of the three which consistently maintains a 30 fps average all the time. Which makes for better video quality, as y'all know.
The others start off at 30 fps, but invariably drop away to between 8 and 13/14 fps. Just the point where it begins to get 'jerky'.
It doesn't have a 'snapshot' button, but Guvcview, my preferred cam app, has a software snapshot function anyway, so not an issue. (Same goes for the marvellous little VideoView, which watchdog provided to me a while ago, and which I turned into a .pet package, I was that impressed with it.) And, unlike the others, it also appears more responsive to the picture controls; brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, sharpness, etc.
I've always maintained that there's no shame in mixing M$ and Linux apps; whatever it takes to maintain your work-flow, and get the job done. It appears the same goes for some of their hardware, too.
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I have no hesitation at all in recommending this thing to anyone who wants a USB webcam for use in Puppy. It's reasonably-priced, works extremely well, is literally just 'plug'n'play'.....can't fault it, really. As with everything in this life, you do 'get what you pay for'; one reason why I avoid 'el cheapo' gear from the Far East like the plague.
This one has Mike's 'seal of approval'!
Mike.