I updated my presentation camera rig this week with a new camera. I replaced the old Quickcam for Notebooks Deluxe with a Dynex 1.3MP Web Cam. I was hoping that going from 640x480 to 1280x1024 would solve a lot of the problems with the 0.1 setup. Alas, it did not.

I encountered two primary problems. First, Cheese would occasionally turn into a slide show when capturing at full res with a maximized window. It was very annoying. The frame-to-frame lag was long enough for me to write an entire word. The other problem, and this is the deal breaker, is that the camera has a fixed focus distance of about thee feet. If I position the camera three feet from the writing pad, the writing pad occupies about 640x480 of the captured image. Fail.

I guess I need a camera that will stream at 1.3MP (or better) and either automatically focus or a focus adjustment (the old camera had the latter). Cameras that I could find on the net that meet these requirements all cost $70 or more. Meh.

I have an alternate plan, but I'll have to actually write some code. I have an older Canon PowerShot A70 that I don't use. I seem to recall that there are some libraries available that allow real-time capture of single frames directly from the camera. The library basically tells the camera to take a picture, and then it downloads that picture. If I can get it to stream fast enough, say 10fps to 15fps, that should be a usable solution.

Given that nobody has written a V4L driver to stream from these cameras in this manner, I suspect that I may be heading down a road of disappointment. If it wasn't for disappointment, I wouldn't have any appointments.

firmware
Did you try the Canon replacement firmware ?
Comment by Xav Wed 24 Feb 2010 01:17:24 PM PST
RE: firmware
I had never heard of such a thing. Are you referring to CHDK, or is there something else? It doesn't look like my A70 is supported, but it might be worth trying on one of my other Canons. Thanks for point this out!
Comment by IanRomanick Wed 24 Feb 2010 07:45:55 PM PST
comment 3
Yes, that's the one. It has webcam capabilities IIRC, and a camera is always better than a plain webcam at that.
Comment by Xav Thu 25 Feb 2010 02:47:23 AM PST
Hack a day

Here is an article on Hack a Day, with an idea which may help you:

http://hackaday.com/2010/03/03/monocle-fixes-webcam-farsightedness/

Comment by Anonymous Wed 03 Mar 2010 02:00:34 PM PST
RE: Hack a day
It's times like this when I remember how awesome of a collaboration tool the interwebs can be. I will definitely give that a try. My cam is quite a bit smaller than the one in that hack, but I'm sure I can find some way to mount it. Thanks for the tip.
Comment by IanRomanick Thu 04 Mar 2010 12:17:19 AM PST