How to connect a webcam

mihael

If I connect a usb web cam to my Meizu Pro 5 UBports 15.04 edition, how can a view the image on my device screen?

I installed cheese but it does not run giving an error of not being able to connect to the Mir server.

guru

Try using http://appear.in and see if the browser uses your additional cam too.

mihael

@guru Thanks for the idea! I did not subscribe to appear.in but I found another website that would let me access my webcam through the browser. Still, only the front camera of the phone was available in that test. Does appear.in let you choose the camera you want to use on mobile?

guru

When I do a connect with some USB cam, in /var/log/syslog the following lines show up:

Jan 25 11:26:57 ubuntu-phablet kernel: [63770.026862][USBPHY]slew calibration:FM_OUT =329,x=4183,value=4
Jan 25 11:26:57 ubuntu-phablet kernel: [63770.605713]usb 1-1: new full-speed USB device number 3 using musb-hdrc

and a new device is created in /dev:

phablet@ubuntu-phablet-bq:~$ ls -ltr /dev/usb*
crw------- 1 root root 189,  0 Jan 23 20:37 /dev/usbdev1.1
crw-rw---- 1 root root  10, 20 Jan 23 20:37 /dev/usb_accessory
phablet@ubuntu-phablet-bq:~$ ls -ltr /dev/usb*
crw------- 1 root root 189,  0 Jan 23 20:37 /dev/usbdev1.1
crw-rw---- 1 root root  10, 20 Jan 23 20:37 /dev/usb_accessory
crw------- 1 root root 189,  3 Jan 25 11:28 /dev/usbdev1.3   <********* new

Connecting the browser to appear.in does not let you select any device and I have no idea about what else could be used to get the movie to the (MIR-) screen. Linux' vlc would be my first guess on any desktop system with X11.

mihael

@guru Oh, when I connect my usb cam, the /var/log/syslog says "Device not responding to set address" and no new device is created in /dev/usb* ...

guru

@mihael I have to admit, that this BQ E4.5 still runs the latest OTA of Canonical. The UBports BQ E4.5 I do have too, sits at home, I will try it later/tomorrow.

mihael

@guru Thank you for offering to help with this. I have a usb endoscope camera that I want to use and that is why I would like to view it on my phone.

doniks

maybe the media player app can be hacked into submission to show the camera rather than a file

https://github.com/ubports/mediaplayer-app/blob/master/src/mediaplayer.cpp#L128

that is, IF the device is setup by the OS

mihael

I have no idea which devices are my cams. There are so many /dev/video* ...

guru

Btw: I have no /dev/vi* device at all, not in my BQ E4.5 running Canonical's UT, and not in the UBport's one.

I pluged today a cam into the latter and the result is the same:

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ ls -l /dev/vi*
ls: cannot access /dev/vi*: No such file or directory
phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ ls -l /dev/usb*
crw-rw---- 1 root root  10, 20 Jan 26 07:59 /dev/usb_accessory
crw------- 1 root root 189,  0 Jan 26 07:59 /dev/usbdev1.1
 
(plugin)
 
an 26 08:03:28 ubuntu-phablet kernel: [  222.669106][USBPHY]slew calibration:FM_OUT =329,x=4183,valu
e=4
Jan 26 08:03:29 ubuntu-phablet kernel: [  223.247221]usb 1-1: new full-speed USB device number 2 usi
ng musb-hdrc
 
 
phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ ls -l /dev/usb*
crw-rw---- 1 root root  10, 20 Jan 26 07:59 /dev/usb_accessory
crw------- 1 root root 189,  0 Jan 26 07:59 /dev/usbdev1.1
crw------- 1 root root 189,  1 Jan 26 08:03 /dev/usbdev1.2

Over the night I got an answer in the old ubuntu-phone mailing list, her it is:

Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2018 20:36:33 +0100                                                               
From: Christoph Schulz <ch.schulz@joinout.de>                                                       
To: ubuntu-phone@lists.launchpad.net                                                                
Subject: Re: [Ubuntu-phone] connecting an USB video cam to the BQ E4.5 -- how to view the video  stream?
...
Maybe QtMultimedia detects the webcam and you can use it from there?

$ cat >cameras.qml <<EOT
import QtQuick 2.4
import QtMultimedia 5.6

ListView {
  model: QtMultimedia.availableCameras
  delegate: Text {
    text: "id: " + modelData.id + ", name: " + modelData.displayName
  }
}
EOT

$ cat >$HOME/.local/share/applications/cameras.desktop <<EOT
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Camera List
Exec=qmlscene $HOME/cameras.qml
Type=Application
X-Ubuntu-Touch=true
EOT

Then refresh your app scope and start it from there and see if there
are more than the two default cameras (front/back).

My E4.5's output:

  id: undefined, name: Camera 0 Back facing
  id: undefined, name: Camera 1 Front facing

Hope this helps.

For the moment this is all. No

I followed the advice of Christoph, and it shows only the two mentioned cams (Back and Front).