From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S266895AbUHaKJt (ORCPT ); Tue, 31 Aug 2004 06:09:49 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S267701AbUHaKJs (ORCPT ); Tue, 31 Aug 2004 06:09:48 -0400 Received: from mail.humboldt.co.uk ([81.2.65.18]:26264 "EHLO mail.humboldt.co.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S266895AbUHaKJr (ORCPT ); Tue, 31 Aug 2004 06:09:47 -0400 Subject: Userspace Camera Drivers From: Adrian Cox To: Linux Kernel Mailing List Content-Type: text/plain Message-Id: <1093946986.16190.96.camel@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.4.6 Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 11:09:46 +0100 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org The pwcx debate has made me wonder why USB camera drivers are in the kernel. I can think of two reasons: 1) libusb doesn't support isochronous transactions. 2) V4L is the only generally accepted video capture API. IEEE1394 cameras took a different path: 1) An isochronous transaction manager for kernel space - http://www.linux1394.org/video1394.php 2) A userspace library to access the cameras - http://sourceforge.net/projects/libdc1394/ Problem 1 may be fixed by Mac Cody's code, though I've not tried this myself yet: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=8816704 Is there an existing library that would handle problem 2? Gstreamer might do it, but the documentation is much more oriented to media playback than machine vision. - Adrian Cox Humboldt Solutions Ltd.