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Ask Slashdot: Fixing UVC Camera Issues Under Windows?

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?

3 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 /.

  2. 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).

  3. 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