A Message to Companies
The following remarkable companies have provided assistance to the macam project:
Pico Instruments
Jeilin Technology
Apple
ecamm network
Cyber Snipa
When will your company appear in this list?
To all companies involved in the creation, marketing, and selling USB webcams:
including:
Chip designers and vendors
Camera manufacturers and vendors
Camera resellers
Please make information about your cameras available!
The basic information needed to add support in macam is not a
trade-secret, as it is readily available to anyone with the
camera and USB sniffer (hardware or software). However, the
result of it not being available is loss of support, and
consequently loss of sales. Potential customers will choose
other options that are supported.
Because the information that the driver needs is not secret,
it might as well be available openly. The gains are tremendous.
If the information is available, and used in an open-source
project such as macam, then the driver will always be available,
and the information needed to modify the driver is always
available. For example, macam was the first non-Apple driver
to be a Universal Binary (both PPC and x86). In the future,
macam can be adapted to new versions of Mac OS X as necessary,
and this can be done by anyone with the necessary skills.
It does not have to be by the camera manufacturer, or anyone
else involved in the selling of the camera. This is the ultimate
customer service: even if all the companies involved disappear,
the information is still available to keep the camera working!
This might be scary for a lazy manufacturer that relies on
planned obsolescence for new sales; but for an innovative company,
this should be seen as a clear benefit!
For each webcam, this information is needed:
Manufacturer name
Camera name and model number
Camera USB Vendor ID
Camera USB Product ID
USB Controller chip used in camera
Image sensor chip used in camera (needed for some controllers)
For each USB controller chip, this information is needed:
Manufacturer name
Controller chip name and model number
Basic programming instructions (setting formats, start/stop video, communicating with sensor, etc.)
Any initialization instructions
For each image sensor chip, this information is needed:
Manufacturer name
Sensor chip name and model number
Information about sensor registers
Any initialization instructions
Manufacturers are welcome, indeed encouraged, to make their
own additions to the macam source code and submit patches for
inclusion in the code-base. Please code against the most recent
source code available in order to simplify patching. Manufacturers
are also allowed to use the macam source code to create their own
drivers (subject to the GPL license).
Companies are also encouraged to test their cameras with
the latest driver and submit reports. Many cameras will already work,
as there are controllers that are used in many cameras.
Other cameras might only require minimal additions to the macam code.
Potential customers will only know that if someone let's them know.
By testing and submitting the information to this project,
customers will know what to look for.
When will your company appear in the list above?
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