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Ask Slashdot: Fixing UVC Camera Issues Under Windows?

Posted by timothy on from the you-get-to-keep-both-pieces dept.

Khyber writes: I bought some cheap Chinese camera glasses with built-in microphones. These are (supposedly) UVC cameras manufactured in 2015. Under Windows XP, these cameras are seen perfectly fine and work as web cameras; even the microphones work. Under Windows 7, the camera appears to install just fine, however I get the 'This device can perform faster if you connect to USB 2.0' (which it is connected to) and when I try to load it up with any camera viewer such as manycam or any chat program's built-in previewer, I cannot receive any video from the camera. I can get audio from the camera microphones under Windows 7, so I am wondering if the camera device is having problems enumerating as a USB 2.0 device due to some change in Windows 7 (which it doesn't seem to have issues doing under XP,) or if the UVC driver for Windows 7 is missing something in comparison to the one used for Windows XP. Anybody else had issues getting newer UVC cameras to work in newer operating systems?

8 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. Since when has /. become tech support? by jfdavis668 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think that technical support for your driver issue is a good reason to post on /.

    1. Re:Since when has /. become tech support? by Khyber · · Score: 4, Informative

      You must be new here. :)

      Anyways, this is not a driver issue, per se. I believe this is a Windows issue. I have seen reprts of other UVC devices in laptops (their built-in webcams) having the exact same issue.

      Turns out, those devices are UVC 1.0, and Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, changed something in their newer USB Video Camera driver that breaks devices following the UVC 1.0 spec, despite Microsoft claiming that Windows 7 has full support for UVC 1.0 devices.

      For those people with laptop issues, usually they could fix it by finding the (semi-rare) updated driver from the manufacturer website.

      This manufacturer has no driver. It is a claimed plug and play. And funnily enough, it works under Linux and OSX 10.4+ as advertised!

      This is what leads me to believe that this is not a driver issue on my end, but a MS driver issue.

      And I really, REALLY don't feel like having to constantly run in Test Mode to run a modified driver that's protected by WFP.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  2. Device compatability / driver problems ... by Alain+Williams · · Score: 4, Funny

    You must be running Linux, why don't you just be safe and come back to Microsoft, all hardware vendors make sure that their kit works with Microsoft Windows. Oh, wait .....

    1. Re:Device compatability / driver problems ... by Anon-Admin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Ok, I laughed at this one.

      Because I have that same camera and it works perfect under Linux. LOL

    2. Re:Device compatability / driver problems ... by Junta · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There's a crapton of stuff that works only well under Linux out of the box now.

      In our lab, there are like a bucket of USB serial adapters. All of them work with every linux device. But almost none of them work well with windows.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  3. USB 3.0 chipset, 2.0-only cable/connector by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've gotten this a lot with devices besides cameras (eg. an LG G3 phone), even when plugged into a 3.0 port. It seems to be caused only by devices with a standard micro-USB connector, not a full-sized one. My thought is that the device's USB chip is 3.0-capable, but the connector and/or cable don't have the extra pins/wires for 3.0 so the device is reporting itself as 3.0 but can only run as 2.0 which makes Windows complain. I haven't seen any problems because of it, even under Windows (I normally connect the devices to Linux machines).

  4. Ask Slashdot: How Can We Improve Slashdot? by abelenky17 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    By not posting stupid tech-support questions... some random guy's hare-brained scheme... or pseudo-science that isn't backed up by common sense.

  5. Maybe you need to upgrade by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Windows 10 probably fixes this.
    I'd just go ahead and upgrade if I were you.
    Couldn't hurt...