Logitech Quickcam Express USB webcam (0x46d/0x920) working under Linux (sort of)

Some notes on trying to get a Logitech Quickcam Express USB webcam (device ID 0x46d/0x920) to work under Linux.

This is page is mainly to provide a link to the correct driver for anyone Googling for the device ID (as I did).

So far (March 2005) the performance is not too excited: just as stated on the driver home page. The developers also state they have had no help from the manufactures :-(

Display Notes

I bought my Webcam in December 2004 from a large department store in Germany. It is a simple Quickcam Express, but could be referred to in Dec 2004 as the "new type" (see driver section below).

Requirements

You need this s/w installed:

The correct kernel drivers (videodev for for V4L for 2.6.10) and the correct USB modules for your system.
The correct webcam device driver (see below).
an application to drive read the webcam, eg Gnome Meeting (my target application).

What I have

(25/03/05) Gentoo 1.4 + some updates and additions (kernel 2.6.10 "gentoo-dev-sources")
Gentoo 1.4 + some updates and additions (kernel 2.4.20 "gentoo-sources")
Quickcam Express USB (device ID 0x46d/0x920)

Steps

1: Configure and build the kernel

(If you do not build your own kernel the correct modules may already be available: skip this step and see what happens.)

You may have to check the exact kernel options required: I already had USB support compiled in, but I did add CONFIG_VIDEO_DEV and CONFIG_VIDEO_PROC_FS (25/03/05 for kernel 2.6.10 only CONFIG_VIDEO_DEV).

If you at least have USB support available you can plug the Webcam in: this should show the device ID (0xHHH/0xHHH) in the system log which can then be used to determine which driver is required.

FAILED: I first tried the QuickCam Express Driver http://sourceforge.net/projects/qce-ga which did not recognise the device ID. This is when I discovered that mine is a "new" type QuickCam Express (different sensor chip).

FAILED: So I tried http://home.tiscali.dk/tomasgc/labtec/ that claimed support for this device ID. I got the latest stable, 0.3 and it recognised the webcam OK: "hub.c: new USB device 00:07.2-2.2, assigned address 6" (the README does not list the device but this is incorrect !). This has now merged into the spca5xx driver.

Current (25/03/05): http://mxhaard.free.fr/download.html spca5xx driver project, latest is "0.560315 19/03/2005" and supports 2.4 and 2.6 kernels. My device ID is now listed in the README.

Result (25/03/05):

gqcam 0.92 works a bit: dark, only the brightness control works, blue-ish by default, File/Preferences/Filters/RGB BGR conversion makes it better !!. Second time starting app=>brightness control jumps everywhere by itself !!. Reloading modules does not help.
xawtv 3.86: failed first time. But when gqcam was run first xawtv came up dark, but all controls lead to ioctl errors.
gnomemeeting 1.00: picture appears but bit dark even at max brightness.

/dev/video0 (symlink to v4l/video0)