Webcamoid 8.0 sfs

[justamel]

I'm an "older" Newbie. My system is: Presario CQ61, 4GB RAM, 250GB HDD. Recently did Frugal Install of Xenial 7.5.

Have a webcam that I would like to use and stumbled upon Webcamoid 8.0 in a Linux Questions Forum post by Mike Walsh. (I think it was Linux Q. forum). I downloaded the SFS from Mike's post link. Loaded it and now when I open it there is one "active" window with desktop showing through, plus many other similar windows within it and getting progressively smaller "off into the background" one within the other???

In the "active" window the various choices: config. sources, config. audio, take photo, etc are active, but when I click on "take photo, or video" nothing happens, ie: there is no indication of the camera being active and although the video choice gives a saved file, there is nothing in the file. It does not play back.

Any ideas what the problem is??

Also, I see that Cheese app. is listed as being available and I did use it several years ago with LucidPuppy but that was with a Full Install. Could I use this webcam app. with my present Frugal Install??

Thankyou in advance.

[taersh]

Try PupCamera.
I think it should be installed by default in Xenial.
Though, I don't know if PupCamera can record videos

[rockedge]

@justamel

open the PPM and update it.
search for guvcview and install it. Menu item for it should be in Menu->Multimedia->guvcview

This might be what you are looking for

[mikewalsh]

@justamel :-

Mm. Bit of a 'bag o'worms' you've opened here, mate..!

The version of WebCamoid you're describing was the very first 'stable' release.....except it wasn't, really. We're now up to verson 8.8.0, and the developer, like so many others, has gone 64-bit ONLY.

32-bit is on the cusp of extinction, and it's a small miracle to find anything being actively maintained for 32-bit these days. Everything is moving to 64-bit only, and several distro suppliers have dropped 32-bit versions of their OSes completely. Oh, you can still find 'em.....but it's rather pointless when nobody's building software for them anymore.

I've just tried 8.0.0, AND its successor, 8.1.0, and quickly reminded myself of why I dropped 'em. Very unstable, and would crash at the slightest excuse. I run 64-bit 8.8.0 in BK's Quirky64 April 7.0.1, and it's as stable as they come. Works well, there.

-------------------------------

I'm in 32-bit Xenial ATM. Cheese doesn't work here; well, not for me, anyway. My Logitech c920 HD 'Pro', a UVC, kernel-module-supported plug'n'play webcam, works fine with Cheese in Xenialpup64. Here in 32-bit Xenial, Cheese doesn't even find the camera.....and this is on the exact same hardware!

Webcam software is one of the few areas where Linux is NOT well-supported, unfortunately. The 'standard' webcam app, Guvcview, although it WILL record video/audio output from a webcam, is an absolute PITA to set up. It totally depends on having a reasonably new version of ffmpeg to function even remotely well, and this has been one of Pup's "Achilles heels" for a long time; OOTB, until very recently, they've always come with very old, small, stripped-back versions.

Other options.....well; there's Luvcview, originally put together by01Micko for the Slacko Puppies, but although it will record video, it's a no-go on the sound.

(Edit:- Okay, done some experimenting. In Guvcview, if you set the video codec to 'MJPG' and the audio codec to 'MP3', you'll get a proper recording.....in an .mkv (Matroska) 'container'. Any other combo - there's plenty to choose from - doesn't seem to work.

You'll know if audio is working, anyway. When you start recording, the VU meter should show up top left corner of the camera monitor......and if it's set right, the VU meter will be moving when you talk, clap your hands, snap your fingers, whatever.

You MAY need to go into Alsamixer to select the webcam's sound card, and adjust the microphone recording level.)

Mike.

[justamel]

This is just to say thankyou for the replies/suggestions.

Not certain where I'll go from here, but this item is not a critically important one. With regard to "newer versions" of apps. and 64bit being dominant to exclusive, I am using xenialpup 7.5 32bit because in my first post it was suggested that my system (mainly the AMD Sempron M120) was only marginally capable of running 64bit stuff and staying with 32bit was likely to be preferable.

This too is not critical because I am not a "power user" by any means. The main thing I am is what I am NOT, and that is not a fan of Windows. Guess that is a whole other topic.