Date: July 6, 2006 4:04:55 PM CST
Subject: unsupported camera (vimicro/chinese web cam)
Hello,
I am currently studying in China and want to be in touch with friends and family over the webcam that I bought here, but alas it is unsupported by your program.
The camera, according to the system profiler, is this:
PC Camera:
Version: 1.00
Bus Power (mA): 500
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Vimicro Corp.
Product ID: 0x305b
Vendor ID: 0x0ac8
I am using the lastest release of macam (0.8.7) and the latest of mac os x: os x.4.7 Macam knows the name of the camera and thinks it is working with the camera. All of the functions of the application appear to work with the camera. The problem is that it captures absolutely no video. The snapshots/videos are just black screen. I have checked your faqs and this model is not listed as supported or even mentioned.
I have done some research on this and have seen that other mac users have tried using this camera without success because of the company not supporting macs. There is a linux driver that says it supports this model, it is called "spca5xx/LE" and can be download at many websites if you google it. I also read elsewhere on the web that linux drivers can be ported easily to mac os x because of the shared *nix code. I can't say if that is true, but perhaps a simple solution to this would be to port it from this driver. There is of course an official windows XP driver as well readily downloadable on the net.
I will gladly test any driver you come up with/ future release of macam and reply with details as per its functionality.
Many thanks for your contribution to mac os x,
-Phil
