First draft 2003-Dec-22
Updated 2004-Jan-10
At the end of October, I bought a iSight for my Powerbook 12″. It works like a charm
under MacOSX with iChat, I can do video chats with friends around the world on the internet. Since I am also
doing stuff related to AccessGrid, the idea pops up in my head,
“can I use iSight in Linux?”
After googling around the net and sending some mails asking library authors and
persons who issued questions. I finally got it working in my Debian machine.
Here’s how it goes. My Debian box in Intel Pentium IV machine, with Debian
sid(unstable), equiped with D-link IEEE1394 PCI card with Linux kernel version
2.4.22.
- Add kernel IEEE1394 module support
- Install “libdc1394″ and “dc1394_vloopback” libraries
- Coriander
- vloopback kernel module
Since iSight is a Firewire(IEEE1394) webcam, so your Linux kernel has to support IEEE1394 devices.
You will need to recompile your version 2.4.* kernel and add modules like ieee1394, raw1394, ohci1394, video1394.
You can easily find them in Linux kernel configuration UI.
In order to use the next application, Coriander, you will need to install libdc1394(1394-based DC Control Library).
At the time I tried to use iSight with Debian Linux, the libdc1394 package in Debian sid(unstable) doesn’t support
iSight yet. So I have to grab the CVS version from the CVS repository of libdc1394 sourceforge repository.
Look into http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=8157
for more details of getting CVS version of libdc1394. After installing CVS version libdc1394, you will find “dc1394_vloopback”
in /bin directory.
Coriander is a Linux graphical user interface (GUI) that let you control a Digital Camera through the IEEE1394 bus (aka FireWire, or iLink).
For more information, look into http://www.tele.ucl.ac.be/PEOPLE/DOUXCHAMPS/ieee1394/coriander/.
vloopback kernel module lets you use iSight as a Video4Linux device, so you can use iSight in applications like ‘xawtv‘ or ‘vic‘.
Fore more information, look into http://motion.sourceforge.net/vloopback/
Some result images
OK, that’s video, what about audio?
References
- http://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/2003/debian-powerpc-200308/msg00556.html
- http://www.tele.ucl.ac.be/PEOPLE/DOUXCHAMPS/ieee1394/coriander/
- http://www.tele.ucl.ac.be/PEOPLE/DOUXCHAMPS/ieee1394/cameras/
- http://motion.sourceforge.net/vloopback/
- http://www.google.com/search?q=iSight+IIDC
- http://darwin.nchc.org.tw/gallery/iSightInLinux
- What AG-vic says about Firewire cameras
Acknowledgment
If any comment, please mail to:
Julian Yu-Chung Chen
