Black screen, V4L, tried everything I could find to try...

[tekoholic]

I'm running: AMD Duron 1.3G, 768M PC2700 DDR, Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn 2.6.20-16-generic with all current updates, Currently running with an old Nvidia MX-440-based off-brand card, replacing tomorrow with a new NV Geforce 7300 GT, 2x Pinnacle BT878-based capture-cards, both unused, for the moment, CAM = USB 1.1 Micro Innovations IC200C, V4L1, Nearly 400G of HDD, root fs on ext3, all else on lvm2 with reiserfs

I've been all through the forums, FAQ, Manual, and what I could guess or find out about this cam...

At this point, I've done EVERYTHING I could find, in the FAQ, forum, and such, and I still get the evil black screen in place of the desired cam-image.

Xawtv worx, although image is blue/green, and the following errors are shown on cli (even without the -nodga...):

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me@sys:~$ xawtv -nodga /dev/video0
This is xawtv-3.95.dfsg.1, running on Linux/i686 (2.6.20-16-generic)
/dev/video0 [v4l]: no overlay support
v4l-conf had some trouble, trying to continue anyway
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-ledfixed-medium-r-*--39-*-*-*-c-*-*-*" to type FontStruct
Xlib:  extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
station "/dev/video0" not found
game over

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zmu -d /dev/video0 -q -v

gives me:

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Video Capabilities
  Name: Micro Innovation IC200
  Type: 1
    Can capture
  Video Channels: 1
  Audio Channels: 0
  Maximum Width: 352
  Maximum Height: 288
  Minimum Width: 160
  Minimum Height: 120
Window Attributes
  X Offset: 0
  Y Offset: 0
  Width: 352
  Height: 288
Picture Attributes
  Palette: 4 - 24bit RGB
  Colour Depth: 24
  Brightness: 16384
  Hue: 0
  Colour :0
  Contrast: 0
  Whiteness: 0
Channel 0 Attributes
  Name: SPCA508
  Channel: 0
  Flags: 0
  Type: 2 - Camera
  Format: 49088 - Unknown

I'm not sure, at this point, what else to do? I fought with my notebook's built-in cam last night, until I found that v4l2 is not yet supported, in the hopes that I might learn enough to make this one work. Now, however, I have to wonder if even v4l1 is fully supported?? All else worx well with this cam (albeit blue-green)... Why won't ZoneMinder???

[jameswilson]

if other apps can view the cam, im wondering if you are using a high res (ie 640x480) and running out of shared mem?

[cordel]

The question is can you get a snapshot through xawtv. If so then you should be able to get it to function under ZM.
Also in some recent kernels, there have been issues in V4L. You might try an older or newer kernel.

[jameswilson]

Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-ledfixed-medium-r-*--39-*-*-*-c-*-*-*" to type FontStruct
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
station "/dev/video0" not found
game over

This will cause you issues in xaw as it x cant overlay the grab. I beleive you can set xaw not to use overlay mode but im not sure of the command

[tekoholic]

if other apps can view the cam, im wondering if you are using a high res (ie 640x480) and running out of shared mem?

Cam is allegedly capable of 352x288, but using that res, I got nothing but a broken-image symbol. Somewhere, I think I read that this was inaccurate, and it needed to be 352x264. Upon setting this res, I get the black screen...

Not sure about shared memory... How might I check / edit this?

[tekoholic]

Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-ledfixed-medium-r-*--39-*-*-*-c-*-*-*" to type FontStruct
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
station "/dev/video0" not found
game over

This will cause you issues in xaw as it x cant overlay the grab. I beleive you can set xaw not to use overlay mode but im not sure of the command

Hmm, didn't think that looked like good news... Upon putting this vid-card back in system, I did just barely install the drivers, without any of the usual tweaks (as my new card arrives tomorrow). In fact, I can't even remember if I restarted X after the install. I'll do that now, and come back to post the results.

[tekoholic]

At this point, I'm beginning to believe that this battle is lost... I decided to reboot... Video card drivers are now enabled, getting nearly 1000 fps in glxgears, if that means anything... Nothing else has changed, and now, the camera cannot be found by xawtv:

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user@host:~$ xawtv -nodga /dev/video0
This is xawtv-3.95.dfsg.1, running on Linux/i686 (2.6.20-16-generic)
X Error of failed request:  XF86DGANoDirectVideoMode
  Major opcode of failed request:  136 (XFree86-DGA)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  1 (XF86DGAGetVideoLL)
  Serial number of failed request:  13
  Current serial number in output stream:  13
v4l-conf had some trouble, trying to continue anyway
v4l2: WARNING: framebuffer size mismatch
v4l2: me=1024x768 v4l=0x0
Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-ledfixed-medium-r-*--39-*-*-*-c-*-*-*" to type FontStruct
station "/dev/video0" not found

I also tried video1 & 2, same errors, and with each attempt, one of the BT878 capture cards appears on screen, rather than the cam... All video devices exist, all have been chmodded a+rwx, and I'm completely lost...

[jaromrax]

probably you have contrast = 0 and nothing can be done about that in ZM - look at other posts (also my cry for help)