Begin3 Title: mcam Version: 1.3.5 Entered-date: 17JAN2000 Description: Software for the Video Blaster II webcam, using the Vision CPIA chip. This program allows you to display and save frames on almost any PC, from 386 up, using any kind of parallel port, and any version of Linux from 1.2.13. It can run both as a server and as a client, or stand alone. As a server it allows more then one client to connect to it. Also you can send text messages from server to client and vice versa. Remote control of camera settings, and recording of images possible. On a 486 DX2 66 with nibble mode (simple par port), a frame grab takes less the 1 second, and 3.6 frames / second on a small picture, with compression on. To install; Copy mcam-1.3.5.tgz your home directory tar -zxvf mcam-1.3.5.tgz cd mcam-1.3.5 Follow instructions in README. I hereby wish to express my gratitude to Vision and all the people who contributed, as I used chunks of every thing, for the information made available, that made it possible to write this application. Changes from 1.1: On sceen clock with time and date. On screen user text, user controlled position and color. Separate controlled clocks for server and client, UTC and local time. Full client control. Changes from 1.3: Now compilation without X possible. 2 compile scripts are added: make_x, buildt and installs mcam, make_no_x buildt and installs mcam_no_x. mcam_no_x can run without X, but then no display of cause. This is useful if run as server, or .ppm upload with handshake from a script, on a machine that does not have X installed. -1.3.5: Now a choice of 2 character sets for on screen display, one normal one, and one where some characters have been assigned to umlauts. Performance: The achieved compression is 3 to 4 kB out for 300 kB in, if using the Berkely codec, or 5 to 7 kB out if using libjpeg. This should give one 352 x 288 color pic a second on V90, using a fast PC for the coding. Coding times for a 486 DX 2 66 are in the order of 4 seconds, when using the Berkely codec, about a second with libjpeg. With a faster PC the net becomes the bottle neck. Keywords: webcam, Video Blaster, Creative Labs, Linux, Grab, camera, CPIA, Vision, video, conferencing, video phone, internet, remote sensing, remote viewing, security, broadcast, TCP/IP. remote control, cpia, mpeg, mpeg2, chroma key, special effects, motion detection, jpeg, text on screen, chat, X. Author: jan@panteltje.demon.nl Maintained-by: jan@panteltje.demon.nl Primary-site: http://www.panteltje.demon.nl/mcam/ Alternate-site: ftp sunsite.unc.edu/pub/linux/apps/www/misc/ or wherever it happens to be moved on sunsite. Platforms: LINUX, UNIX Copying-policy: GPL End