[cpia] modified gqcam source avail

Jack Diederich jack_diederich@email.com
Sat, 4 Mar 2000 14:11:12 -0500 (EST)


Long time lurker, first time poster.

I noticed alot of you use gqcam, for those that want to be on
the cutting edge, you can find a hacked version here<a href="http://zundlk.ne.mediaone.net/gqcam-0.6+.tar.gz">gqcam-0.6+.tar.gz</a>. The server is on a cable modem, so the upstream isn't
great but it should be OK. If I screwed up the link, just go to
the host, there is a link to the source from the homepage.

I've been trading emails with the author, and at least some of
the changes will go into the next release of gqcam.

The basic change is that now gqcam is multi threaded, so at the
same time an image is being displayed, another thread is grabbing
an image.  On my EZcam, this means I can get 30 frames per second
(when there is no motion, of course) and about 15 fps when there
is alot of activity.  There is a little status box in the software
that displays the fps from the last second, as well as a running
average for the whole session.
I think I've licked all the deadlocks, but if you find any please
let me know.

To get over 15 fps you have to change the sensor_fps value to
something higher (like the max).  The CPU load is about 40% on
my PIII 500Mhz, half in gqcam/X and half in the driver.


That said, I have a couple random questions.

my setup: kernel 2.3.48, cpia 7.1, Ezonics EZcam CPiA ver 1.30 (2.10)

1) I can't unload my cpia module, which means I have to reboot anytime
I change the driver, does anyone else have this problem or know
of a solution? I can unload cpia_usb.o, but not cpia.o

2) Where does the DBG() output go? /var/log/message?

3) None of the hue/color/brightness/image size ioctls succeed,
is this normal? (I was trying to track it down w/ DBG message)

4) When I crank the sensor_fps to 30, and the target_fps to 30,
/proc/cpia/video0 reports that the camera actual_fps is 128
fps, I'm guessing this is a bug

-john smallberries
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