OpenSolaris

Heads-Up: USB video class driver for webcams

Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 09:23:03 +0800
From: Colin Zou <Colin.Zou at Sun dot COM>
To: onnv-gate at onnv dot eng dot sun dot com, on-all at Sun dot COM
Subject: Heads-Up: USB video class driver for webcams

We have putback the following into Solaris Nevada ON gate in build 56. Webcams
compliant to USB video class spec are supported on Solaris.

PSARC 2006/484 USB Video Class Driver
6422599 USB video class driver to enable USB webcams

PSARC 2006/649 USB Interface Association support
6463853 USB IAD should be supported in solaris (updated usb bindings, FWARC
2006/671)

PSARC 2006/605 USB: Clarification of isoc_pkts_length
6484743 ehci driver does not use isoc_pkts_length interface correctly
6463917 ohci isoc transfer don't support packet number great than 1
6463920 uhci need to update according to PSARC 2006/605:Clarification of
isoc_pkts_length
4631155 Support usb2.0 or high speed usb isochronous devices

Some background information:

- USB Video Class spec is available on usb.org, it defines the interfaces of a
USB video device. Both 1.0 and 1.1 spec versions are supported by this driver.

- Some new webcams in the market are compliant to the USB Video Class spec, some
others are vendor specific. This driver supports the former ones only.

- The current list of supported & tested webcams is as following:

      Logitech Quickcam Ultra Vision
      Logitech Quickcam Pro 5000
      Logitech Quickcam Fusion
      Logitech Quickcam Orbit MP
      Logitech Quickcam Pro for Notebooks

The above devices are tested, and their main functions (video capture and
control) are supported by the driver. The vendor specific features (e.g. face
tracing) are not supported.

- Users are encouraged to try some other webcams that are explicitly announced
to compliant USB video class spec.

- There are a lot of opensource video applications could be ported to Solaris to
make use of this driver. For example, Ekiga, a video conference application, its
video plugin is targeted at Nevada build 58 or later. However, by now, there is
no related applications integrated in Solaris yet.

For bug category:
        solaris/driver/usbvc

For questions:
         usb-help at Sun dot COM

Manpage:
        usbvc(7D)