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Ask Slashdot: Got the BigPicture?

Posted by Cliff on from the does-it-work? dept.

Here's a followup to an article we did earlier on video converencing. Dave Dash and another nameless submittor both wish to know if 3Com's Big Picture videoconferencing can work under Linux. If it does work, Dave also wants to know whether whatever software necessary will also work with NetMeeting users. Any takers?

5 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. big picture on zdtv by John+Kozan · · Score: 3

    If you ever watch ZDTV you'd notice that they have a big deal with Intel to give away a couple tons of the net cams, then have people call in and ask questions on the air and such... it would be great if some of us linux and solaris users could get on there also... and tell Leo and Kate what thier doing wrong (despite all thier cool linux props on the set) I remember seeing the Intel Bigpicture card/capture card as being one of the few supported by Video4Linux... pretty cool also, if anyone can point me to the java version of the Zdtv realplaces chat software, that would be great (I just cant find it)

  2. BigPicture does work under Linux by kaese · · Score: 4

    I have the 3Com/USR BigPicture kit (the Camera + PCI card), and I have it working fine under Linux. I couldn't get it working under the 2.0.x kernel with V4L (Video4Linux) added in manually, but under 2.2.x kernels it has worked like a charm. I just modprobe the standard built-in BTTV module, and it loads it up and works perfectly without any changes necessary or anything; honestly, this has been one of my best hardware experiences under Linux.

    I'm not aware of any Netmeeting-compatible tools out there though.

  3. There is a standard... by _Stryker · · Score: 2

    ... and it is called H.323. Check out http://www.openh323.org/.
    ---

  4. Support for digital cameras.. by ole · · Score: 2

    gPhoto does not yet support video conferencing streams over networks, allthough it has a live
    camera plugin. You might want to check out the
    project pages at www.gphoto.org
    and help write a driver for your 3COM (?) camera.

  5. YES IT WORKS WITH LINUX! by Richard+Head · · Score: 3

    yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
    I use it as a web cam. as for video conferencing there is some software out there for linux, but alas, most "popular" windows video conferencing software is crapware and use a bizzare/wierd compression setup. Net video conferencing is still in it's alpha phase and shouldnt be looked at as a serious thing for at least another 3-4 years when the linux groups get together and make a standard that the big companies obviously cant get together..
    Other than that the 3com bigpicture makes a killer video capture device.at an affordable price! not like that video capture card project for linux that wants to charge users $500.00 for a crappy card and even crappier drivers.