Webcam

[JavaRN]

Installing XP on roboard was easier than I thought, but installing a webcam is becoming hell! I already tried some three different brands of webcams two of which are causing blue screen, the other shows gabled data.

Anyone managed to install a webcam successfully please specify the brand and the model. Thanks

Charles

[roboard]

If possible, please let us know which usecams you use and how them fail in the installation process. A detailed description will help us in answering and solving you problem.

In general, a usbcam should work on RoBoard. If it work on your desktop or laptop but not on RoBoard, the most possible cause is that its driver uses MMX (and SSE/SSE2) instructions to accelerate image grabbing.

We have tried several usbcams of different brands for demo purpose; all of them work on RoBoard. Currently, the most used usbcam in our demo is Microsoft Lifecam VX-500.


An additional remarks: RoBoard is much faster than most robot controllers, but also much slower than the newest laptops. So don't capture high-resolution images (e.g., > 1024*768) as ones do on their laptop; otherwise, the capture speed may be very slow (1024*768 at 1fps).

[JavaRN]

I tried using "old" webcams as they have low resolution (most of them 320x200). I've tried Lyromedia, Labtec personal webcam, and another one which I don't remember the brand name. All of these worked on my laptop (old pentium 4) but produced a blue screen on roboard - even at the lowest resolution 160x120 5fps. I am running SP2 on my roboard. I think it would be useful if DMP would issue a list of webcams which can work with roboard.

[PedroR]

Hi JavaRN

I assume you have tried connecting the cam to different USB ports on the Roboard and result is always the same, correct?

Also, let me ask you also if you performed a full XP install ans check that you have installed all TWAIN related stuff (for example if you use nLite to slim down the installation you have the option to remove TWAIN which would probably be needed now).

A couple of additional questions:

- What is the Blue Screen Message you are getting (the HEX code and the message). If you are seeing the Bluescreen but it disappears very fast, you may need to disable automatic reboot. Please see the isntrcutions here
http://www.tunexp.com/tips/maintain_you ... to-reboot/

- Have you installed the webcam drivers PRIOR to connecting the CAM?
If that is not possible where are you supplying the drivers to the OS? Are they already on the HDD or are you using an external USB drive?

As a test you can run Windows MOvie Maker to make a capture of a small clip of movie.

Regards
Pedro

[JavaRN]

I assume you have tried connecting the cam to different USB ports on the Roboard and result is always the same, correct?

Yes

Also, let me ask you also if you performed a full XP install ans check that you have installed all TWAIN related stuff (for example if you use nLite to slim down the installation you have the option to remove TWAIN which would probably be needed now).

I used nlite but left all that has to do with cameras installed.

Have you installed the webcam drivers PRIOR to connecting the CAM?

yes

If that is not possible where are you supplying the drivers to the OS? Are they already on the HDD or are you using an external USB drive?

I copied them on to the roboard micro sd card first then installed them.

Regarding the blue screen, it always mention the camera driver *.sys file, with every camera I tried the error message is STOP 0x0000007E

[PedroR]

Hi JavaRN

0x7E is typically caused by either bad memory or bad device driver.
(in general bad memory can be the cause of anything lol)

The resources that describe the problem are available here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330182/en-us
and here
http://www.aumha.org/a/stop.php



I have two more questions:

- When does the blue screen occur? Immediately after you connect the camera or only after windows starts the hardware detection process and seems to install the drivers?

- Have you installed the VGA drivers AND the LAN drivers from Roboard?
When you go into device manager, are all devices OK or is there any device with a YELLOW exclamation or a red symbol?


As a general recommendation I would install all drivers from Roboard and also try connecting a Scanner or a Photograph machine to see if you get the Blue Screen as well.
Scanners rely on a lot of the same API of Webcameras so if a scanner works that would exclude any problem with Windows/TWAIN and would narrow it down to the device drivers of the webcam.

[JavaRN]

- When does the blue screen occur? Immediately after you connect the camera or only after windows starts the hardware detection process and seems to install the drivers?

The blue screen appears not after installation, but as soon as I run the webcam program/ jmf to capture a screen (jmf is a java utility which is compatible with all windows webcams), even if I use the program that comes with the webcam.

Have you installed the VGA drivers AND the LAN drivers from Roboard?
When you go into device manager, are all devices OK or is there any device with a YELLOW exclamation or a red symbol?

All devices are ok in fact I also connected to the internet and to my home network.

Did you manage to install a webcam on Roboard? Can you tell me the brand and model please?

[PedroR]

Hi JavaRN

From your description it seems an issue with the drivers as 'roboard' mentioned.

I myself have not yet tried a webcam on the ROboard but did you see the one the guys from Roboard used?

They have posted above saying they have used "Microsoft Lifecam VX-500" successfully.

Regards
Pedro.

[roboard]

Hi, JavaRN,

it seems to be a compatibility problem of your webcam device driver. (Googling Lyromedia/Labtec webcam can also find some discussion about driver issues.) To confirm this, you may use AMCap to try your webcams again.

We have tried 5 cheap webcams (all work) previously, but I forget their brands except the Lifecam VX-500 which we are using. For this issue, we will try to collect some webcam testing results and report them here.


Also some extra information about usbcam performance on RoBoard: We recently receive a message from a China robotics team, which says that they can capture 640*480 images at 20fps from a usbcam on RoBoard with Linux. While we can only capture 640*480 images at 3~5fps using OpenCV 1.1pre1a, it seems that usbcams perform more fast on Linux, or that we need a good DirectShow capture library to get better capture performance on WinXP.

[PedroR]

Hi JavaRN

any progress with this?
Do you need any additional information?

Regards
Pedro.

[Zacohk]

Hi,
Can Skype run on the Roboard (with video support)?

[PedroR]

theoretically yes.

The board has sound I/O and you can ad a usb webcam.

what we'd need to test is if we are able to tune it so that it can juggle all of these variables in real time: video, sound I/O, encoding and LAN.

My bet is that it can but you'd need to see video resolution low and may need to test and see if it works with wireless 802.11 as well in case you're building a mobile app.

[roboard]

We have tried 5 cheap webcams (all work) previously, but I forget their brands except the Lifecam VX-500 which we are using. For this issue, we will try to collect some webcam testing results and report them here.

We found two other usbcams we have tried as follows:

T.C. STAR (TCB-P496) webcam
http://www.tcstar.com.tw/product_Para-Cam_TCB-P496.htm

and Q-hand webcam
http://www.monday.com.tw/gdsale/gdsale.asp?gdid=1286389&co_servername=32cf7cdd9dde58ca

[JavaRN]

High everyone. Right now I am on vacation away from home (I am writing this in an internet cafe). Before I left I ordered two Microsoft lifecam vx-500 as suggested by roborard's technical people, when I return back next week I will keep you informed with my progress.

Regarding the list of webcams mentioned by Roboard, I still feel that that is the right thing to do, as there are many webcams around and IMHO for a humanoid you need a cheap and light webcam so that if the robot falls while debugging (and they do!!!!!) one does not have to worry about the webcam.

[JavaRN]

Microsoft's lifecam worked.