Accessing a camrea

13 Apr 2006 2:24 PM

JJ

Whats the best way of way of getting the feed from a USB camera?

I have been reading about DirectShow, but it seems that microsoft support
for that is dwindling. What methods are available for accessing the feed
from camera's in VB .net, that will still be useable in windows Vista?

Thanks,

JJ

13 Apr 2006 3:14 PM

zacks

Both of my digital cameras, a Nikon D70s and a Casio EX-S500, but
appear as disk drives when I plug them in to an XP based PC. So a
simple drag and drop will copy the photo files to my hard drive. So it
stands to reason that any class/method that accessed folders and files
should be able to access photo files in a USB connected digital camera.

13 Apr 2006 4:05 PM

james

I think he is talking about a USB VIDEO camera. Much different than seeing
the contents of the CF card in your
Nikon or Casio. In the case of a video camera, he needs to access the video
stream.
Here's a sample project by Ken Tucker:

http://www.vb-helper.com/howto_net_video_capture.html

james

<za***@construction-imaging.com> wrote in message
Show quoteHide quote

news:1144941264.434654.289170@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Both of my digital cameras, a Nikon D70s and a Casio EX-S500, but
> appear as disk drives when I plug them in to an XP based PC. So a
> simple drag and drop will copy the photo files to my hard drive. So it
> stands to reason that any class/method that accessed folders and files
> should be able to access photo files in a USB connected digital camera.
>

13 Apr 2006 4:14 PM

zacks

Ahh, the only mention in his post that alludes to video streaming is
the reference to DirectShow, which is something I was unaware of, so I
assumed he was talking aobut still cameras. But my Casio supports video
capture to AVI and those are accessed in the same manner as the JPGs.
But I guess he is talking about a digital video cam, which I have no
experiance with.

15 Apr 2006 9:20 AM

JJ

Sorry I didn't make my question clear - it was about video streaming. And I
wanted to apply the software to any usb camera, not just specific models.

Thank you for you comments though, they may still prove useful.

JJ
<za***@construction-imaging.com> wrote in message
Show quoteHide quote

news:1144944848.546478.48280@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Ahh, the only mention in his post that alludes to video streaming is
> the reference to DirectShow, which is something I was unaware of, so I
> assumed he was talking aobut still cameras. But my Casio supports video
> capture to AVI and those are accessed in the same manner as the JPGs.
> But I guess he is talking about a digital video cam, which I have no
> experiance with.
>

15 Apr 2006 9:23 AM

JJ

Hi James,

I've tried the avicap32.dll method as detailed in the artical in your link,
but it does not work on my sony usb camera. I want a solution that works for
all usb video camera's that the system recognises.
The only one which seems to work is the DirectShow method. But, as I've
mentioned, there seems to be a few posts suggesting that DirectShow may be
on its way out.

I don't want to develop an app that will be out of date when vista arrives!

A bit stuck at the moment....

JJ

Show quoteHide quote

"james" <jjames700REMOV***@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:OIZaFQxXGHA.3656@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>I think he is talking about a USB VIDEO camera. Much different than seeing
>the contents of the CF card in your
> Nikon or Casio. In the case of a video camera, he needs to access the
> video stream.
> Here's a sample project by Ken Tucker:
>
> http://www.vb-helper.com/howto_net_video_capture.html
>
>
>
>
> james
>
>
>
>
> <za***@construction-imaging.com> wrote in message
> news:1144941264.434654.289170@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>> Both of my digital cameras, a Nikon D70s and a Casio EX-S500, but
>> appear as disk drives when I plug them in to an XP based PC. So a
>> simple drag and drop will copy the photo files to my hard drive. So it
>> stands to reason that any class/method that accessed folders and files
>> should be able to access photo files in a USB connected digital camera.
>>
>
>

15 Apr 2006 1:33 PM

james

Show quote Hide quote

"JJ" <a**@xyz.com> wrote in message
news:eJEf34GYGHA.4988@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Hi James,
>
> I've tried the avicap32.dll method as detailed in the artical in your
> link, but it does not work on my sony usb camera. I want a solution that
> works for all usb video camera's that the system recognises.
> The only one which seems to work is the DirectShow method. But, as I've
> mentioned, there seems to be a few posts suggesting that DirectShow may be
> on its way out.
>
> I don't want to develop an app that will be out of date when vista
> arrives!
>
> A bit stuck at the moment....
>
> JJ

That may be a tough one if DirectShow is going away. I have a feeling
(haven't had access to Vista builds to test)
that a lot of things may break when Vista finally arrives.
............whenever that is :-)
I have seen several C++ samples, (from searching on CodeProject and a couple
of other sites) but, VB code samples
don't appear that plentiful. You might try contacting the author of the
sample I posted the link to and see if he has any
suggestions.
james

16 Apr 2006 9:24 AM

JJ

Thanks James. I think I'll do that

I might be wrong in my understanding. It seems that 'XNA' is where microsoft
is concentrating - users of VS 2005 should have some documentation about it.

I can't quite get my head around whether XNA replaces directX (and hence
directShow) or whether it encorporates it ?

Directshow doesn't seem to be documented very well.

'confused! :-|

JJ

Show quoteHide quote

"james" <jjames700REMOV***@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:OvcuoEJYGHA.5012@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>
> "JJ" <a**@xyz.com> wrote in message
> news:eJEf34GYGHA.4988@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>> Hi James,
>>
>> I've tried the avicap32.dll method as detailed in the artical in your
>> link, but it does not work on my sony usb camera. I want a solution that
>> works for all usb video camera's that the system recognises.
>> The only one which seems to work is the DirectShow method. But, as I've
>> mentioned, there seems to be a few posts suggesting that DirectShow may
>> be on its way out.
>>
>> I don't want to develop an app that will be out of date when vista
>> arrives!
>>
>> A bit stuck at the moment....
>>
>> JJ
>
> That may be a tough one if DirectShow is going away. I have a feeling
> (haven't had access to Vista builds to test)
> that a lot of things may break when Vista finally arrives.
> ...........whenever that is :-)
> I have seen several C++ samples, (from searching on CodeProject and a
> couple of other sites) but, VB code samples
> don't appear that plentiful. You might try contacting the author of the
> sample I posted the link to and see if he has any
> suggestions.
> james
>
>
>