Subject: PCMCIA video

From: [email-masked] (Kevin C. Almeroth)
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 08:14:23 -0700 (PDT)

Here is my ongoing problem...  maybe someone can help:

I'm trying to source video from the smallest computer I can.
Here's my requirements:

1. Running Windows

2. Video input must accept NTSC
   - There are solutions that work (but not good enough quality)
     by packaging all the hardware in the camera and then just
     having the camera connect to a PCMCIA card.

3. Must use vic

Ideally I'd like some magical PCMCIA card that I can actually
order from the US that has Windows drivers that vic can use and
a magic cable that gets me from RCA/coax/BNC adapter to the 
card adapter.

Any ideas?

-Kevin

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From: "Fred L. Templin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1999 09:16:45 -0700

Kevin,

A company called Nogatech sells such a device, although I can't
speak to their compatibility with 'vic'. You can check Nogatech's
website at:

  http://www.nogatech.com/

Also, a colleague here at SRI has had reasonable success with
USB and parallel port cameras with 'vic' under Win95 and WinNT,
but as you observe the quality isn't all that great.

Good luck in your search; please let me know whether Nogatech
satisfies your requirment.

Fred
[email-masked]

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From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1999 12:24:23 -0400

>      having the camera connect to a PCMCIA card.

Nogatech, I believe, has a USB "fat cable" called USB Live! that allows
you to plug in a video source. They also have a PCMCIA card with NTSC
inputs. Given their shoddy treatment of a repair case (my original
PCMCIA card never worked properly and they then refused to exchange it
as being out of warranty), I'm reluctant to recommend them, but they
seem to be the major player in this field.

-- 
Henning Schulzrinne   http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs

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From: Peter Parnes <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1999 18:39:18 +0200

I have had severe problems with nogatech hardware and the lousy support
department :-( They have the smallest USB camera on the market but
unfortunately it is priced very high (compared to other USB cameras) and
the image quality is really crappy. 

We have tested loads of USB-cameras (for laptop use) and I personally
like the Philips EggCam best. The Intel create&share camera is quite
good as well (better drivers than the Philips one). 

Totally avoid the Kodak Cameras though! 

/P

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From: "Grosen, Mark" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1999 10:06:25 -0700

Intel has introduced a new USB camera that has
a video input jack as well:

http://www.intel.com/createshare/camera.htm

(This would require Win98 or Win2K) Don't know
if this would support vic.

Mark

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kevin C. Almeroth [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Thursday, September 09, 1999 8:14 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: PCMCIA video
> 
> 
>

---

From: "Fred L. Templin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1999 09:59:30 -0700

> the image quality is really crappy.

Hmmm. Quite some time back, I contacted Nogatech to see if they
would share their PCMCIA card interface spec's with me so that I
could develop a UNIX driver and they basically told me to get lost.
I just assumed that their proprietary Windows-based support must be
pretty good if they could afford to ignore the UNIX market; maybe I
was wrong??

Fred
[email-masked]

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From: DAVID PRICE <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1999 18:03:56 +0100

Dear All,

	Having seen these latest few emails it reminds me that
I have been meaning to check opinions on USB v Parallel Port
cameras.

All the parallel port cameras I have seen seem to place a large
CPU load on the hosting machine, I presume largely due
to the inappropriate nature of the parallel port and I guess
the generation of a large number of interrupts for the machine
to handle (yes?).  

What is the common experience / technical expectations of
using USB based cameras ??

Is USB inherently "better" for handling the sort of traffic
from video cameras when compared to parallel port cameras ?

Thanks for the opinions/experiences in advance...

Dave Price

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From: Peter Parnes <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Sep 1999 19:28:21 +0200

> using USB based cameras ??

parallel < USB < "grabber card"  

USB takes much less CPU than parallel port cameras and much better
quality. The best quality and performance is achieved with a real
grabber card.  My experience is that that the CPU load can vary A LOT
with different USB-WDM drivers (for Win98 I recommend service pack 1,
DirectX6.1 and DirectMedia6.0 as they all seem to affect USB grabbing). 

A HUGE problem with USB cameras and Win98 is that if the grabbing
program crashes while the WDM driver is opened (that is while grabbing
video) then the driver is locked until the OS is rebooted, great work
Bill ;-) 

/P