readme

Webcam Linux driver for Quickcam

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	qc-usb: Logitech QuickCam USB Video Camera driver
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QUICKSTART
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Type "./quickcam.sh" in the current directory and follow the instructions.

Requirements
------------
An USB camera with ST Microelectronics bridge chip and either VV6410,
HDCS-1000, HDCS-1020 or Photobit sensor. Usually Logitech QuickCams qualify,
but check if your camera is supported from http://qce-ga.sourceforge.net.
Important notice: never trust that if camera named "xxxx" is mentioned
as supported, it really is. There are many different cameras sold
with exactly same name/model, with some working and some not. Examples
are QuickCam Notebook and Labtec cameras, of which some work and some don't.
VendorId and ProductId, as reported by lsusb, help much determining
whether a camera really is supported, but even they aren't failproof.
The VendorId should be 0x046D and ProductId one of 0x0840, 0x0850, or
0x0870 or the camera definitely is not supported by this driver.
	Required kernel: Linux 2.2.x (x >= 18), 2.4.x, or 2.6.x.
x86 is best tested, but the driver might also work on other architectures
(I got a success report on Alpha and PPC). SMP appears to work too.

Where to get it?
----------------
Well, you're already reading this so you obviously should already have 
the driver too. But just in case, here's the important links:
	http://qce-ga.sourceforge.net
	http://sourceforge.net/projects/qce-ga
	http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=12924
To get the latest version under development, use anonymous CVS
at http://qce-ga.sourceforge.net.
Here may be also some interesting links and information:
	http://www.ee.oulu.fi/~tuukkat/quickcam/quickcam.html

How to install?
---------------
The recommended way is now just to run the script "./quickcam.sh" in
the driver source directory. In some cases you might want to run
make manually, as described in the following:
	Type "make clean && make all" to compile the driver. The
resulting driver file is "quickcam.o" for kernels 2.2.x and 2.4.x,
or "quickcam.ko" for kernel 2.6.x. Type "make" to get some installation
options. Especially you should consider disabling debugging, it will make
the driver about 30% smaller and faster (this is now the default). And if
compressed mode is not supported with your camera, you might want to
compile the driver with "make all USER_OPT=-DCOMPRESS=0", which will 
save some more bytes.
	Note: /lib/modules/x.y.zz/build should be a symbolic link to your
kernel source. It is created automatically by "make modules_install" in
kernel source directory, but some distributions (such as Debian) might not
have it pre-installed correctly. You can make the link manually or by 
specifying alternate kernel source directory with LINUX_DIR=/usr/src/x.y.zz.
You can see the kernel version that you are running with "uname -r".
	The kernel source must be configured (with "make menuconfig", for
example) to have the same options as the kernel you will be running with the
camera. Also "make dep" must be performed in the kernel source directory
before the camera can be compiled against it. One way is to download fresh
kernel source into /usr/src/linux-x.y.zz, copy .config into the directory,
and then enter "make oldconfig && make dep". Then you can compile the
camera driver against the kernel source using the LINUX_DIR option, and
compile the kernel with "make bzImage && make modules", install the
kernel with "make modules_install" and running lilo, and install the camera
driver with "MODULE_DIR=/lib/modules/x.y.zz make install", and reboot.
With kernel 2.6.x you must use "make modules_prepare" instead of "make dep".
You should also compile the kernel and the camera driver with same versions
of gcc. Check gcc version with "gcc -v" and the version which was used
for compiling the kernel with "cat /proc/version".
	Easier is just to install the kernel source package from your Linux
distribution and compile then the camera driver. For example, in Debian
you should first check which "kernel-image" package is installed, and
then install the corresponding "kernel-headers" package, which is
correctly preconfigured (at least on x86).
	The driver is accessed using either /dev/video or /dev/videoX
device file. If you are using devfs, it should appear automatically when
the driver is loaded. If not, you can create the file manually with
	mknod /dev/video0 c 81 0
	mknod /dev/video1 c 81 1
	chmod a+rw /dev/video0
	ln -s /dev/video0 /dev/video
as root.
If you still don't have a clue, ask from 
[e-mail].

How to load?
------------
You need USB and Video4Linux support in your kernel. Check that they
are compiled, if not, reconfigure kernel, compile and install. It took
a long time to find the Video4Linux checkbox in 2.2, it is in 
	Character Devices / Video4Linux
When you have a supported kernel, just load the necessary drivers with
	modprobe videodev
	modprobe usb-uhci	# Either UHCI or OHCI,
	modprobe usb-ohci	# loading the another will fail
	insmod ./quickcam.o(.ko) compatible=3
(or "modprobe quickcam" if you have already installed it).
If it works, you can install these lines into some startup script
in /etc to load the driver every time you boot up your computer.
	If you're using hotplug (package "hotplug" on Debian), the driver
should be loaded automatically (in 2.4.x and newer kernels) when you plug
the camera in (after you have installed the driver with "make install").
For hotplug to work, the UHCI or OHCI driver has to be first loaded,
on Debian typically by inserting the correct driver name into "/etc/modules".

How to run?
-----------
After the driver has been loaded, you can run your favorite camera software 
such as Xawtv, Motv, or Mplayer/Mencoder (see file APPLICATIONS for some
suggestions). If you have multiple video devices, do
	cd /proc/video/quickcam
	ls -la
to see which devices are allocated for the qc-usb driver. You can examine
the contents of the video* files in the above directory by using e.g. "cat".
Specify /dev/video* device file corresponding to the desired camera
to the program what you are using.
	There's an utility called "qcset" that you can use to change
driver options on-the-fly. Run "qcset -h" for more info. It is recommended
that you use qcset to change driver options instead of using module parameters
when loading the module with insmod. The module options might go away in
future, and you can set different options for each plugged camera only with
qcset. Check out the possible module parameters with "qcset -h".
If some piece of program doesn't work, try enabling more compatibility levels:
	qcset compatible=16x,dblbuf
By default all compatibility is disabled, because it is the user applications
not the driver which should be fixed. Meanwhile, use either compatible=1
or 3.
Some programs that require compatible=1: anything using the Xvideo driver.
Some programs that require compatible=3: motion, vic.
	Other available options with qcset:
-b and -c	Set camera exposure time and gain, when automatic adaptation
		is disabled. When enabled, -b selects the target image
		brightness, into which the adaptation algorithm tries to
		settle.
-o and -u	Set camera color balance. If the color strength (-o) is
		less than half of the maximum (the default), all colors
		have the equal gain and hue (-u) has no effect. Otherwise,
		the relative color gains are balanced according to hue
		and color strength. These options have effect only with
		the HDCS and Photobit sensors, and on Photobit only when
		automatic exposure control has been disabled (adaptive=n).
-w		Set image sharpness. This option has effect only when
		image quality is 5 (best). Zero value corresponds
		to quality 3 (bilinear). Also, this option has no effect
		when compression is enabled.
-g v		Enable lookup-table with the given gamma value
-g rg:gg:bg	Specify different gamma value for each channel
-g rg:gg:bg:rw:gw:bw	Specify also color gain for each color channel
		Gamma and color correction is useful if your sensor does
		not support hardware correction with options -o and -u.
		The gamma values should be between 0.5...1.0 and the
		balance weights around 0.7-1.3. You can but probably should
		not use equalization simultaneously with software lookup-table,
		because the advantage is dubious.
		Software lookup table will have no effect when compression is
		enabled (compress=y).
-e filename.pnm	Compute and enable static equalization from given PNM/PPM
		image file. Similar to "equalize=y", except that the
		equalization lookup table is calculated from given image
		file only once, and not constantly. This avoids problems
		with flat surfaces or other views that do not contain
		balanced colors (e.g. if you would point the camera at
		full-red car, equalization would make it not to look red
		at all).
		How to generate own image for equalization:
		- qcset equalize=n quality=bilinear -g -
		- xawtv -noxv -noscale (disabling Xvideo is required)
		- Point the camera into something that contains good balance
		  of all primary colors, red, green, and blue. Something like