• Creative Video Blaster WebCam II
• CVideo-Mail Express
• Digicom Galileo Plus

• Dobbelt clikking on the Install.sh file will install the drivers.
• Restart the MediaServer by starting the "Media" preference panel, and click "Restart Media Server".
• Under "Video Settings"/"Video Input" select the "CPiA Camera #0". It this options does not exist, you might have to reboot the machine, and it that does not help, please contact me :(
• Restart the MediaServer again.
• Now the "TV", "CodyCam" and "VideoRecorder" applications should work.
• Extra: If you know what DMA Channel your parallel port is using, you can improve the performace of the driver by editing the file ~/config/settings/kernel/drivers/cpiappc2 and remove the '#' in front of the dma line. You will also have to change the "3" to the right dma channel. You will have to restart the MediaServer for this to take effect.

• "Image size" - If a media application does not specify what resolution it want to use, this one is used.
• "Framerate" - The max framerate the camera will produce, lower framerates will produce better results in low-light scenes.

• "Auto exposure" - When enabled the camera will try to controll the Exposure and Gain parameters to produce the best lighted pictures.
• "Exposure" - Only works when "Auto exposure" is disabled, it controlls the exposure.
• "Gain" - Only works when "Auto exposure" is disabled, it is used to increase the lighting in low light conditions.

To increase the framerate it is possible to compress the data that is moved from the camera to the computer.
• "Type" - Select wich type of compression to use:
  • None - No compression will be done.
  • Automatic - The camera will try and find the best compression, all you have to do is tell it what framerate and quality you want.
  • Manual - The camera will send those pixels that changes more that what the "Y Quality" and the "UV Quality" settings say.
• "Decimate" - Only half the scanlines will be captured.
• Settings that have a meaning when "Automatic" is selected:
  • "Target"/"Framerate"/"Quality" - This is what the hardware manual says: "The Framerate and Quality parameters are used to determine the actual target rate/level for a target parameter and the minimum acceptable level/rate for the untarget parameter." Play around with the parameters, and you should get a feeling on how they work.
  • "Decimate" - If decimation is enabled the camera will only use it when the framerate can not be met otherwise.
• Settings that have a meaning when "Manual" is selected:
  • "Y Quality"/"UV Quality" - Sets the thresholds for Y (chromatic) and UV (color) components.

• Q:Why must I reboot the computer when I install the drivers?
• A:Normaly you don't have to, but sometimes the camera is it a state where the driver can not comunicate with it.
  Instead of rebooting, it might help to disconnect/reconnect the camera, and then restart the MediaServer.
  
  
• Q:Why don't you just use Be's parallel port driver?
• A:Even though Be's driver might be IEEE1284 complient, it seems like the CPiA cameras don't follow the 1284 specs 100%.

• 0.2.0
  • To speed up the data transfer, the kernel driver now supports dma transfers. To enable this feature edit the file /boot/home/config/settings/kernel/drivers/cpiappc2, and remove the '#' in from of the line: "# dma 3 # only enable this if you are sure...". If you're parallelport uses another dma channel you must off cause change the "3" to the right one. The "Devices" preference panel will help you find the right one.
  • It is now possible to disable the Auto exposure, and fine tune it yourself.
  • The compression level can also be configured.

This software is released under the GNU General Public License, see COPYING for details.

Links

• For Linux drivers & hardware documentation, see http://home.eunet.no/~jtotland/vision/

• VLSI Vision, for releasing documentation and sample code for there CPiA hardware.
• Jarl Totland, for the cordination of the Linux driver, and for pushing VLSI Vision to release dcumentation :)

Jesper Hansen
jesper@funcom.com
http://home.c2i.net/damnrednex