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Some of the comments here about v4l2 and cameras make me feel so old. :) When v4l2 came out, the main target were TV cards (analog TV cards, digital / satellit

Some of the comments here about v4l2 and cameras make me feel so old. :) When v4l2 came out, the main target were TV cards (analog TV cards, digital / satellite / cable TV was just starting for most western countries) and video capture cards. We did have webcams, but they were rare, basic, and only worked properly in movies. The top resolution was 640×480. I'd know, I had one of the best models back then, Creative Go Plus! I've supported v4l2 across a few flamewars. In Windows back then you needed a closed source driver with a proprietary API for each TV card. It was impossible for a 3rd party application to support more than a few cards and usually you would only be able to use the software that came with the card. For Linux, if your hardware was supported, a common API was exposed. Thus any 3rd party application could take advantage of any TV card. This is why projects like MythTV were made possible and accessible to many. Alas, I can see why a system designed over 20 years earlier, might not fit the needs for modern cameras and computational photography. We have seen so many changes in these 20 years, that having a new library to interface with camera sensors, hardly seems something to fret over. ;)

chrischen 4y ago
Wow 480 vertical pixels is not bad when you consider current generation M1 macs have merely 720 vertical pixels in its built in web cam.
- michaelt 4y ago
  Oh, 640x480 wasn't the streaming video resolution, that was the single-shot mode. Products of the era would provide 30fps at 176x144, over the parallel port [1]. [1] https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392263252707 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392263252707
  - asabil 4y ago
    Also known as QCIF format
  - rasz 4y ago
    v4l2 came out in 2001. At that point every TV tuner card supported full framerate capture at 768x576/720x480 for over >3 years already. Its only ~12MB/s and cards supported bus mastering, the only problem was storage and CPU power for realtime encoding. https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Brooktree_Bt848 https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Brooktree_Bt848 https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Bttv_devices_(bt848,_bt878) https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Bttv_devices_(bt848,_...
  - chrischen 4y ago
    Ok in that case I’m pretty sure the macbook camera is also limited to 720 for stills.
seba_dos1 4y ago
libcamera uses v4l2 (among others). I don't understand what you mean.

chrischen 4y ago

Wow 480 vertical pixels is not bad when you consider current generation M1 macs have merely 720 vertical pixels in its built in web cam.

michaelt 4y ago
Oh, 640x480 wasn't the streaming video resolution, that was the single-shot mode. Products of the era would provide 30fps at 176x144, over the parallel port [1]. [1] https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392263252707 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392263252707
- asabil 4y ago
  Also known as QCIF format
- rasz 4y ago
  v4l2 came out in 2001. At that point every TV tuner card supported full framerate capture at 768x576/720x480 for over >3 years already. Its only ~12MB/s and cards supported bus mastering, the only problem was storage and CPU power for realtime encoding. https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Brooktree_Bt848 https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Brooktree_Bt848 https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Bttv_devices_(bt848,_bt878) https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Bttv_devices_(bt848,_...
- chrischen 4y ago
  Ok in that case I’m pretty sure the macbook camera is also limited to 720 for stills.

seba_dos1 4y ago

libcamera uses v4l2 (among others). I don't understand what you mean.