Allwinner V3 action camera, PC uvc webcam camera streaming record capture using Linux Mint or Ubuntu

[petesimon]

My generic RICH F60 Allwinner V3 camera (link - click here) works as a PC uvc webcam in Linux Mint 19 or Ubuntu 18. Just install some applications as described in this text file https://glot.io/snippets/fdn5tlm1oc/...usage-help.txt , power on the camera first, disable camera screen saver, connect the camera to usb 2.0 or 3.0 port, select "PC Camera", and start the webcam application "guvcview" https://w.wiki/5SZ or another such as "cheese" on the computer. Notice that this webcam device might be "/dev/video0" or "/dev/video1" depending on how many cameras are simultaneously connected. There are also many other webcam applications and tools under "Software Manager' and "Synaptic Package Manager".

At first it wasn't working, so I tried different USB cables and different USB ports on the computer. Also, when using the "guvcview" application, the default setting makes the video come out green. So just change the "Camera Output" setting to RGB3 or another. You can also change the capture codec to MJPG, h264 and others. Maybe restarting Linux may help for troubleshooting. * May need to use a USB2 port instead of a USB3 port (hm or vice-versa).

Here is more technical info dumped by "dmesg -w" command in a terminal - https://glot.io/snippets/fdn5tlm1oc/...esg-output.txt

click on a small image to see a large image


more images will be in this online album - https://imgur.com/a/3jzv0L0

more info is here. it's taken from the glot.io text file (link is given above)

# Help info for webcam and uvc camera in Linux. I am using LinuxMint 19, similar to Ubuntu 19.

# tested with a generic F60 Allwinner V3 action camera.
# * disable screen-saver / screen time out on the camera

# open a terminal and install "v4l-utils" package to get the "v4l2-ctl" command to tweak camera stuff
sudo apt-get install v4l-utils -y

# open a terminal and install "uvcdynctrl" command line tool to tweak camera stuff
sudo apt-get install uvcdynctrl -y

# open a terminal and install "guvcview" or "cheese". just one app is okay.
# these are graphical / visual applications that are easy to use
# "guvcview" is very nice but "cheese" was not working for my 2nd webcam on /dev/video1
sudo apt-get install guvcview -y
sudo apt-get install cheese -y

# can start "guvcview" in a terminal and show verbose information for a webcam
guvcview -w 1 -d /dev/video0

# use uvcdynctrl to list, control and get info for webcams/uvc cams
# use -d /dev/mediaX and change X to a number 0, 1, or 2 etc for different cameras
# if /dev/mediaX does not work, try /dev/videoX
uvcdynctrl -l # list available devices
uvcdynctrl -d /dev/video0 -f # show available video formats for 1st webcam
uvcdynctrl -d /dev/video0 -c # show available image controls for 1st webcam

# also use v4l2-ctl to get info for webcams/uvc cams
# change /dev/videoX to /dev/video0 or another
# or maybe use /dev/mediaX and change /dev/mediaX to /dev/media0 or another
v4l2-ctl --list-devices # list available devices
v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0 --list-ctrls # list settings of the camera device

# get more information in a terminal how to use these tools and applications...
man guvcview
man cheese
man uvcdynctrl
man v4l2-ctl

# open a terminal and do these commands to see what video and uvc modules (software drivers) are loaded
# if no video or uvc modules are loaded, then see the information online websites
lsmod | grep uvc
lsmod | grep video

# also see these websites links for more info
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Webcam
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UVC
http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.13/media/v4l-drivers/uvcvideo.html
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Webcam_setup

[eltiah]

Hi,
My goal is to get this working for Allwinner V316. Does it require custom firmware? I've shared my firmware dump for my V316 on the other post.
Thanks

[petesimon]

For even more information, check out this other thread - https://www.goprawn.com/forum/allwin...bcam#post15463

[petesimon]

On a 12 year old HP Pentium computer, with USB 2.0 and running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Linux x64 and with kernel 5.4.0-39, my "Goldfox" Allwinner V3 camera ( link here ) will NOT work as a webcam. The problem is similar to description in this other thread https://www.goprawn.com/forum/allwin...bcam#post15463 . However, the same camera will work fine as a webcam on a newer Acer i7 computer running Windows 10 x64. Maybe the CPU, chipset, features and USB speed of the computer running Linux is the cause of success or failure for using an Allwinner V3 camera as webcam. Also maybe using a powered USB hub between the Linux computer and the Allwinner V3 camera would help. 🤔



Here is a dmesg output.

[36216.762283] usb 2-1: new high-speed USB device number 13 using ehci-pci
[36216.919134] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=1f3a, idProduct=100e, bcdDevice= 2.33
[36216.919140] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=4
[36216.919143] usb 2-1: Product: Android
[36216.919146] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: USB Developer
[36216.919148] usb 2-1: SerialNumber: 20080411
[36216.920048] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device Android (1f3a:100e)
[36217.441525] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_INFO) UVC control 2 on unit 1: -110 (exp. 1).
[36217.441756] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_INFO) UVC control 2 on unit 2: -32 (exp. 1).
[36217.443601] uvcvideo 2-1:1.0: Entity type for entity Processing 2 was not initialized!
[36217.443608] uvcvideo 2-1:1.0: Entity type for entity Camera 1 was not initialized!
[36217.443907] input: Android: UVC Camera as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-1/2-1:1.0/input/input14
[36218.465539] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 2 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[36218.977811] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 2 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[36219.489538] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 2 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[36220.001537] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 2 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[36220.513541] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 2 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[36221.025391] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 2 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[36221.537531] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 2 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[36222.049541] uvcvideo: Failed to query (GET_DEF) UVC control 2 on unit 2: -110 (exp. 2).
[36224.570372] usb 2-1: USB disconnect, device number 13