Web cam is upside down

[rooney09]

Hi guys,
I've been looking for couple of days to fix my camera problem on skype (which is upside down) but still I haven't found any solution. I found the ajos's thread about fixing the camera but didn't work for me either..(probably cause I am a beginner and a noob in ubuntu)
As I remember I had the same problem on my Windows 7 and fixed it by a program called: Driver Genius Professional.
Well, I have Ubuntu 12.10 now.
My laptop is Asus K50IJ.

When I type
lsusb:
I get this:


Bus 001 Device 002: ID 04f2:b071 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd 2.0M UVC Webcam / CNF7129
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 046d:c019 Logitech, Inc. Optical Tilt Wheel Mouse
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

I think this is the whole info I can give you for now :S
Any tips to fix it up will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

[rooney09]

I am attaching a screen-shot.
Here you go! (http://img802.imageshack.us/img802/9430/screenshotfrom201301031.png)

[tgalati4]

It certainly gives your video conferences a sense of sophistication.

I would run with it. Put your hands up in the air and pretend to be doing a hand stand. Not many folks can do a video conference while doing a hand stand.

A quick search of the forum showed going back to 12.04 fixed the issue. Not really a helpful fix. Try posting a bug report. There might be a work around using ffmpeg and /dev/video0, but a better fix would be to fix the webcam driver.

Perhaps there is a switch for the webcam module. What module is being loaded for the webcam?


lsmod

Search "Chicony" on the forums shows that this is a common problem, without an obvious fix:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2093384&highlight=Chicony

Are there any module (or kernel) switches for the uvc video driver?

Some helpful advice from this site:

http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/#footnote-3

"Hold the computer upside down."

[rooney09]

I wish my web camera driver works as cool as your humor does :)
Am I wrong or as I saw there is no chicony web cam driver release for 12.10?
I also checked out and tried all these links which you gave me but it seems that neither of them work :S


Name: Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd 2.0M UVC Webcam / CNF7129

Ubuntu releases: 10.04 LTS

At least I got this:


Module Size Used by
joydev 17457 0
snd_hda_codec_via 46599 1
coretemp 13400 0
rfcomm 46619 0
snd_hda_intel 33491 3
snd_hda_codec 134212 2 snd_hda_codec_via,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep 13602 1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm 96580 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
microcode 22803 0
psmouse 95552 0
bnep 18140 2
arc4 12529 2
parport_pc 32688 0
serio_raw 13215 0
bluetooth 209199 10 rfcomm,bnep
ppdev 17073 0
snd_seq_midi 13324 0
snd_rawmidi 30512 1 snd_seq_midi
ath9k 131316 0
uvcvideo 76749 0
videobuf2_core 32851 1 uvcvideo
videodev 120309 2 uvcvideo,videobuf2_core
videobuf2_vmalloc 12860 1 uvcvideo
binfmt_misc 17500 1
videobuf2_memops 13368 1 videobuf2_vmalloc
mac80211 539908 1 ath9k
snd_seq_midi_event 14899 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 61521 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_timer 29425 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
ath9k_common 14055 1 ath9k
ath9k_hw 395218 2 ath9k,ath9k_common
ath 23827 3 ath9k,ath9k_common,ath9k_hw
snd_seq_device 14497 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
cfg80211 206566 3 ath9k,mac80211,ath
asus_laptop 24722 0
sparse_keymap 13890 1 asus_laptop
i915 520539 3
snd 78734 15 snd_hda_codec_via,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_ hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_se q_device
input_polldev 13896 1 asus_laptop
mac_hid 13205 0
lpc_ich 17061 0
drm_kms_helper 49112 1 i915
drm 288670 4 i915,drm_kms_helper
i2c_algo_bit 13413 1 i915
soundcore 15047 1 snd
video 19335 1 i915
snd_page_alloc 18484 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
lp 17759 0
parport 46345 3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp
hid_generic 12493 0
usbhid 46947 0
hid 100366 2 hid_generic,usbhid
atl1e 33208 0

[tgalati4]

Several webcameras are stuffed into uvc--USB video camera driver. This is a generic, catch-all driver that supports several webcams. The link I posted shows the current status of that driver and does show upsidedown video for your camera. It includes the helpful note about turning the camera upside down.

If you are handy, you can take your screen apart and physically turn the camera right side up. The fact that you needed a special Windows driver hints that the camera was installed upside down.

The alternative is to flip the video in real time. And I am thinking outloud here . . .

ffmpeg -i /dev/video0 -top 0 /dev/video1

Then select /dev/video1 for your application.

Or, try to get a hold of this guy (from a 2009 thread) and see if he can offer suggestions.

https://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/linux-uvc-devel/2009-June/004886.html

Get familiar with these tools:

qv4l2 - Graphical Qt v4l2 control panel
uvcdynctrl - Command line tool to control v4l2 devices
uvcdynctrl-data - Command line tool to control v4l2 devices - data files
uvcdynctrl-dbg - Debug Symbols for uvcdynctrl
v4l-conf - tool to configure video4linux drivers
v4l-utils - Collection of command line video4linux utilities
v4l2loopback-dkms - Source for the v4l2loopback driver (DKMS)
v4l2loopback-source - Source for the v4l2loopback driver
v4l2loopback-utils - Commandline utilities for the for the v4l2-loopback module
v4l2ucp - Video for Linux 2 Universal Control Panel

uvcdynctrl--this sounds like a tool to dynamically control uvc devices--something that you are trying to do.


sudo apt-get install uvcdynctrl
man uvcdynctrl
uvcdynctrl

[rooney09]

When I type this:

ffmpeg -i /dev/video0 -top 0 /dev/video1

Then select /dev/video1 for your application.

I get this:


ffmpeg version 0.8.4-6:0.8.4-0ubuntu0.12.10.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2012 the Libav developers
built on Nov 6 2012 16:51:11 with gcc 4.7.2
*** THIS PROGRAM IS DEPRECATED ***
This program is only provided for compatibility and will be removed in a future release. Please use avconv instead.
/dev/video0: Operation not permitted
So, I guess this is not a viable way.

After installing the v4l2ucp package and getting in the control panel, I ticked the Vertical flip but sadly nothing has changed.
Screen-shot (http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/7762/screenshotfrom201301040.png)

About the
uvcdynctrl one, I am not quite sure how to modify and what to modify cause when I type
uvcdynctrl -c I only see these options:


Listing available controls for device video0:
Brightness
Contrast
Saturation
Hue
White Balance Temperature, Auto
Gamma
Gain
Power Line Frequency
White Balance Temperature
Sharpness
Backlight Compensation

and I guess there is no option to invert the camera.

P.S. About Hans, I will mail him if we don't make it.

[coldcritter64]

OP I notice you tried the vertical flip, did you also try the horizontal flip ? (that is the one I would try in your situation). I would have thought upside down video as being horizontally flipped ;)

[evilsoup]

That looks like a permission problem; I guess you could try running ffmpeg as root (though you shouldn't need to). First try this command:



ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 -top 0 -f video4linux2 /dev/video1


If that spits up the same error, try running it with sudo



sudo ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 -top 0 -f video4linux2 /dev/video1

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Maybe the "v4l1compat.so" solution in this bug report will help.

Webcam is not working on skype with Ubuntu 12.04 (https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/skype/+question/195310)

[rooney09]

OP I notice you tried the vertical flip, did you also try the horizontal flip ? (that is the one I would try in your situation). I would have thought upside down video as being horizontally flipped
Neither of them works.


That looks like a permission problem; I guess you could try running ffmpeg as root (though you shouldn't need to). First try this command:



ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 -top 0 -f video4linux2 /dev/video1


If that spits up the same error, try running it with sudo



sudo ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 -top 0 -f video4linux2 /dev/video1


Alright, here is what I have now:

ffmpeg version 0.8.4-6:0.8.4-0ubuntu0.12.10.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2012 the Libav developers
built on Nov 6 2012 16:51:11 with gcc 4.7.2
*** THIS PROGRAM IS DEPRECATED ***
This program is only provided for compatibility and will be removed in a future release. Please use avconv instead.
[video4linux2 @ 0x1847900] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, video4linux2, from '/dev/video0':
Duration: N/A, start: 5343.206661, bitrate: 147456 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: rawvideo, yuyv422, 640x480, 147456 kb/s, 30 tbr, 1000k tbn, 30 tbc
Requested output format 'video4linux2' is not a suitable output format


I've just experimented while the camera was turned on and I received this as output x]


ffmpeg version 0.8.4-6:0.8.4-0ubuntu0.12.10.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2012 the Libav developers
built on Nov 6 2012 16:51:11 with gcc 4.7.2
*** THIS PROGRAM IS DEPRECATED ***
This program is only provided for compatibility and will be removed in a future release. Please use avconv instead.
[video4linux2 @ 0x25c2900] Cannot find a proper format for codec_id 0, pix_fmt -1.
/dev/video0: Input/output error

[rooney09]

Maybe the "v4l1compat.so" solution in this bug report will help.

Webcam is not working on skype with Ubuntu 12.04 (https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/skype/+question/195310)

Okay I think this seems to work ..
When I typed:


sudo apt-get install libv4l-0
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype

The skype has opened and the camera inthere was fine (except this one in the options menu - it shows a black screen).
Let me give you a Screen-shot (http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/7762/screenshotfrom201301040.png) to see what I am talking about.

But when I close it and restart it (this time by the shortcut left on my desktop) I am again with the upside down.

EDIT: Finally!

I found
Exec=skype and replaced it with
Exec=bash -c 'LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype'

Now it works with one word - brilliantly :)
Many thanks for the help guys and I am sorry if I disturbed you too much.

[evilsoup]

That's alright, this stuff is the whole point of the forum.

Please mark the thread as 'solved' using the thread tools at the top of the page.