BSD and USB Webcams

I have a Logitech Quickcam VC for the LPT-port. I bought this cam years ago, because at that time I had no machine with an USB port, and because there was a Linux driver for the Quickcam. Well after i bought it, i noticed that the Quickcam _VC_ is incompatible with the normal Quickcam. Die, Logitech, Die! This cam really sucks. First It requires Windows, second it requires a screen resolution of 800x600x32bpp, so you can’t run it on an old computer and third it requires a lot of resources, so you can’t do any work, while the camera program is running.
Now that I have enough computers with USB I am thinking about getting a new one. Unfortunately information about Webcams on BSD is hard to find, but last week someone posted a pointer to takaM’s list Some of the models listed there are even listed on Geizhals. So maybe I really should try to get one. I have also considered buying a standalone camera, like the Axis ones. I have also seen cameras with WLAN, but my budget is rather tight, 200 EURO’s is the maximum I can afford.

3 thoughts on “BSD and USB Webcams”

  1. I also wanted to connect a webcam to a FreeBSD machine once and did some research on Creative webcams:
    I have a Creative WebCam Plus, model PD0040 here, that gets listed in dmesg but it doesn’t work with vid as it has a OV518 bridge. There is another WebCam Plus, model CT6840 that has a OV511+ bridge that should work with vid. I once found such a cam on ebay but my bid was too low 🙁
    There are a few more webcams with a OV511+ bridge, but AFAIK they are all outdated a can only be found at ebay.
    There is a full list on: http://alpha.dyndns.org/ov511/cameras.html
    And a page about webcams under FreeBSD: http://skippy.typepad.com/dandelion/2002/12/building_a_free.html

  2. Thanks for the detailed info. I really wonder why Webcam support is so bad on FreeBSD (and Linux) 🙁

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