Does anyone know if it's possible to access the forward-facing video camera via software oneself, even if the Video Call feature is not available on your network ? I work for at a hospital and as a "pet project" ( telemedicine ) one of the doctors who has a Kaiser would like to be able to video conference in with the forward facing camera. I would like to pursue this ( and I just might get a Kaiser for myself in the process..hint..hint ), and am curious if anyone has attempted to access the QCIF camera directly.
Any suggestions will be welcomed. Thank you.
Yes
open the camera application, the open the camera menu. (little bar below in the screen) lower line in the middle shows camera, press this button and the camera switch to the forward camera...
And if you want the front camera to start up by default, I scanned the registry and you should change the following:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE --> software --> HTC --> Camera --> common
change the value of activecameraID from 1 to 2, voila front camera will start first.
offtopic: did anyone tried this already with an voip program and videovoiping? going to check it right away... Because it always starts the rear camera...
cheers
It doesn't work with MS Portrait
I have emailed MS regarding updates to Portrait and compatibility with front facing cameras. They replied saying they are aware of the Camera issue and that they would notify me of any updates.
I am not holding my breath... MS updates are few and far between compared to the rate of development achieved by some of the geniuses on here.
Thanks but....
Thanks for the replies, but I meant programmatically. I'm not trying to take pictures. I want to know where I can find information about how to programmatically access the camera, for a custom application that would run over 3G which would both stream video to the display, and capture and stream video out of the QCIF ....just as if the video call feature were available, but for networks where this is not possible.
As I said, this is for supporting a telemedicine application, that would allow the doctor to interact with a patient at bedside, when they are not physcially present.
For an application that would allow the video conferencing, you might want to consider MeBeam (www.mebeam.com). It's a flash based site that allows you to video conference with up to eight other people. I'm not sure if their flash application will be able to detect your hardware, but it's worth a shot.
Related
I have the Kaiser on its way. This is my first device with a front-facing camera. previously had the ATT 8525. Is there any other use for the front-facing camera other than with 3G video calling? Can it be used with messenger or skype or for anything else?
GermanGuy said:
I have the Kaiser on its way. This is my first device with a front-facing camera. previously had the ATT 8525. Is there any other use for the front-facing camera other than with 3G video calling? Can it be used with messenger or skype or for anything else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well with the TyTn it was possible to use the front camera with the Coolcamera application - for such things as a webcam etc, But, I think I read somwhere here that there is a problem with coolcamera and the Kaiser.
Perhaps someone can confirm (or not) that this is the case.
Mike
I read about that same problem in Pauls review thread on MoDaCo. I was wondering the same thing, what can the front cam do for us in the USA?
For starters, the built-in camera app does let you select the front cam "Camera 2" for stills and it lets you flip the image as well , so no need for a mirror on the back like my 8525 had.
Hopefully there will be a way to use it for video conferencing at some point.
RemE said:
I read about that same problem in Pauls review thread on MoDaCo. I was wondering the same thing, what can the front cam do for us in the USA?
For starters, the built-in camera app does let you select the front cam "Camera 2" for stills and it lets you flip the image as well , so no need for a mirror on the back like my 8525 had.
Hopefully there will be a way to use it for video conferencing at some point.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=329502
this report I found to be a step backward (??) in term of video conferencing ??
I don't know, a face is a face. I just checked this bug out using the camera app, Very Interesting!;
I set it to Camera2, my face was a mirror image, I held a text card and yes the text was reversed.
I set it to Camera2 Flipped, my face was "normal", text was readable.
Here's what's ODD, in the Camera2 setting, if I "barrel rolled" rotated the camera 360 degrees while watching the monitor, My face was always upright!
If I set it to "Camera2 Flip" and rotated the camera, my image rotates upside down as the camera rotates.
That's different!
Hello,
I tried to use the MS portrait but by default it selects the first camera not the secondary front facing. In options there is only one camera listed, whats the solution to this?
Thank you.
What are you tring to do? There is camera software for winmo phones that is great for using different cams and stuff here it is http://www.ateksoft.com/
If you haven't tried ComVu PocketCaster, I highly recommend it.
www.comvu.com or www.pocketcaster.com
I'm trying to use MSN messanger/portrait with the front facing camera?
You got portrait to work on the Kaiser? With me it always throws an error.
What version did you install?
beta, 3.1 but its using the main camera, not the front camera.
HI,
I recently bought HTC tytn II. My main purpose to buy this powerfull device is Voice chat and Video chat...
Please let me know the performance of MS portrait on tytn II... can we do voice chat smoothly?????
My experience of MS Portrait on my Kaiser is not very good.
It only seems to work with other versions of Portrait for voice or video and not with Live Messenger.
IM text chat to PC Live Messenger works just as well as "Mobile" Live Messenger to PC Live Messenger, and I stil get incoming Hotmail notifications.
Video, even over wifi LAN, was poor to non existent in my experience.
The only Camera it will work with is the rear facing camera, I tried setting up the forward facing camera in the camera app and then going into the settings for Portrait but still only the rear facing camera works.
I havent tried a 3g Video Phone call so I have no idea how well the Kaiser copes with the demands of 2 way video and audio processing and data transfer, but as far as portrait goes technically it works as a proof of concept but is far from being usable. Portrait is only beta software so there is hope for future improvements. Cool Camera and Webcam Plus, both from Ateksoft, were mentioned earlier but are not currently compatible with the Kaiser.
I have read somewhere that HTC have not released the full APIs for the cameras. I guess this will hinder 3rd party development.
Hi,
After some hard work, I can access front camera by a DirectShow app.
But seems the camera driver of DirectShow do not support front camera.
So I can only get some broken image from front camera.
Have some idea to fix it, but I have not any TyTN II in my hand currently,
does any guy like help to try it?
Allow me to tell it from the beginning.
======Background=============
There are two compoments to make camera able to use in DirectShow.
One is the capture filter, other one is the camera driver.
Camera driver of DirectShow will export two stream devices, one is CAM,
other one is PIN. CAM is used for control the camera hardware, PIN is used for
receive image data stream. The capture filter will use the camera driver to
control camera and receive image data.
But in HTC devices, the camera driver of DirectShow does not access
hardware directly. There are other camera driver, the HTC camera driver.
This driver access the camera hardware directly, and export a set of
private API. The CameraApp (like HTC CamApp and the CoolCamera) use
the private HTC camera API to control camera hardware. The DirectShow
camera driver of HTC device also invokes the private HTC camera API to
access camera.
=======Problems in TyTN II=======
In DirectShow, we can use the MSFT API FindNextDevice to access the
second camera device. But in TyTN II, HTC does not provide
a DirectShow driver for front camera. You can only find one camera device
in DirectShow.
After some hack, like capture the log output of camera driver, de-asm the
camera driver, I got a way to access the front camera by changing registry
item. But because the DirectShow camera driver only support the back camera, the
driver process the image data from front camera by using the image format
of back camera, after all, the image from front camera was broken.
=======How===================
If you want to access the front camera in DirectShow, before you create
capture filter, change the registry item below, it will change to 1 automaticly
by HTC camera driver after the capture filter closed.
Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\HTC\Camera\ActiveCameraID
Value: 2
=======More Info===============
The DirectShow camera driver of TyTN II is NULLCAM.dll.
The HTC camera driver of TyTN II is HTCCamera1.dll.
=======ToDo==================
From the log output of HTC camera driver. I find that the front camera senser
is OV7670. It is a 30M pixel camera senser.
Some old HTC device have 30M pixel camera, like Hurricane. Seems it use a
OV7xxx device too. Could I copy it into TyTN II, and install it as the front
camera driver of DirectShow, then I can access it in DirectShow?
Mine has no: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\HTC\Camera\ActiveCameraID
It should be: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\HTC\Camera\Common\ActiveCameraID
Cheers
I believe HTC use a proprietary DLL for accessing the front camera, as the Windows ones can't access it properly
You may create the item:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\HTC\Camera\ActiveCameraID
The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\HTC\Camera\Common\ActiveCameraID has not effect for switching camera.
FloatingFatMan said:
I believe HTC use a proprietary DLL for accessing the front camera, as the Windows ones can't access it properly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does the Windows ones means the DirectShow camera driver?
DirectShow camera driver is developed by HTC too, but HTC does not provide a front camera driver for DirectShow.
Anyone?
DirectShow use of the camera for me results in extremelly poor quality pictures and video. The images are sized 160x120, terrible quality and the frame rate for video capture and preview seems to be about 1 frame every 10 seconds. Is there anything I can do to improve the quality or do I have to go the route of reverse-engineering HTCCamera1.dll?
Jim
Anyone had any luck
Just wondering if anyone has had any luck here.
Changing the reg setting given in the thread I get access to the camera but the picture is all scrambled.
I would be happy with even a (super) low resolution poor quality image myself.
Maybe someone has a combination of reg settings meant for the front camera that at least give something recognizable from the back one when using DirectShow?
tell me please how i can lunch front camera directly from .lnk?
Secundary camera problem
Hey guys! I have a HTC touch dual and when I make a video call I can only see the other person, mine screen is black. Is there some sort of applicaton that can test components? I could use someting like testing program so a link would be nice
Thanks!
problem with camera
hello guys..i got a prolbem with my camera and i think after i flash with shifu roms..my phone is [email protected] [email protected] icant access my front camera anymore..before i can open and changing the front camera by click at the icon on the screen between storage card icon and the self timer icon..but now the icon seem disappear and leave a blank spot at the changing mode camera..can someone help me?
Anyone try this out? Does it work? If so, what rom are you running, and did you need to change anything?
Link here.
I'm at work but I'm really curious; Skype says it will work with *some* 2.2 devices, and if you have 2 cameras the wrong camera will work but we have only one camera so we might be in luck.
Fingers crossed...
Just installed it.. Will try it out!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
I tried it briefly in Vegan tab 5.1.1.
-Everything aside from video calling seemed to operate well. This includes voice calls.
-The video call function was not available in the settings menu.
When I read through the skype announcement I noticed that it will only show video of rear facing camera's in froyo. Can the front facing camera be spoofed to work like a rear facing camera?
jdoorny said:
Can the front facing camera be spoofed to work like a rear facing camera?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I think it can. I recall when trying to get Yahoo Messenger working for video calls, some genius developer modified the Yahoo app to add a "swap cameras" button. It worked, but the video was always transmitted and displayed sideways.
My fingers are crossed that it works out of the box, even if it's only in Froyo. This would get me to (sadly) downgrade from GtabComb.
Tested with ROMs:
- VEGAn-TAB 5.1.1 - No video option. Darn it.
- CM 7.0.3 (Stable) - No video option
- I wanted to try it on Clemsyn-Caulkin v5, but the keyboard was acting funky after loading that ROM. Pressing any numbers acted like I was pressing the BACK button. Weird. I might try it again later.
Skype has said that with 2-camera Froyo devices only the rear camera will work. We have only one camera, so here's hoping...
I'm under the impression that our front camera is actually the "rear" camera according to the system.
There is only an API for one camera by default, it wasn't until Gingerbread that they started differentiating between a front and rear camera. That's why older apps work with only certain front facing cameras- the developer had to figure out how to call the front camera on each device individually since it wasn't a standard system function.
This is why ReelPortal works on our tablets- Adobe Air (which the app was written in) recognizes only the rear camera currently, so most tablets can't be used for chatting with it. But on the G-tablet (and certain Archos tablets), there is only one camera and the system recognizes it as "the" camera.
I would assume that any app which uses the camera would see our front camera as the system camera (a.k.a rear camera). That has been my experience with market apps that use the camera, at least.
I think there is some other reason the video option is disabled. I just tried installing skype on an Optimus S as well (budget android phone with only a rear camera, also running froyo), and the option is not there either.
Skype says "Unfortunately, if you cannot see the video calling settings, it means your Android phone does not meet the minimum requirements needed to make Skype video calls". That's ridiculous. It looks like someone needs to rip open the app and find out where that restriction is.
This is beyond my realm of hacking ability. Anyone with skills willing to look at this?
Hey I found these posts while digging through a few different threads and thought i would leave it here for other G-Tab users who are following this thread. Thanks Dishe for asking all the questions in the other forums. Unfortunately it's not looking so hot for skype video calling on the G-Tab at this point. I will keep watching patiently hoping that someday it will work.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=16337833&postcount=399
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=16338146&postcount=1061
Yes- just to update everyone, here's what I found out.
Skype chose to use something called the NEON instruction set for hardware-based acceleration of video encoding / decoding. Problem is, not every mobile processor supports this instruction set (usually lower end hardware, like my LG Optimus). The Tegra 2 does not support NEON at all, and that is why our tablets don't offer the video option, and the ones that are hacked to work (by skipping the device check) will just crash after trying to sign in.
So, it is currently not possible for Skype to work on the G-tablet as long as they are pushing NEON acceleration.
This is the first time I've ever been upset to have a Tegra. All this time I actually wanted the G-tab BECAUSE of the high end Tegra2 for such an inexpensive tablet.
Why Nvidia left out support for this (while other CPUs include it) is beyond me, but on the plus side there is hope for the future. The Tegra2 is used in a lot of high end tablets these days, including the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Acer Iconia, Moto Xoom, etc... Right now Skype won't work on any of them, and I'm sure the company does not intend to alienate such a large portion of tablet customers. When they get supported, so will we.
Meanwhile, someone posted in one of the other threads about a CES demo this past year in which NVIDIA and Skype showed off HD video calling hardware using what they call "Skypekit" framework to build an app on a Tegra-based demo tablet.
So, stuff is coming folks. We just have to wait it out I guess, as there is nothing that can be done now.
I wonder if Skype does a hardware test or just a device check; maybe we can set the device ID or use some other trick to fool the software into thinking our gTabs are worthy.
mike_ekim said:
I wonder if Skype does a hardware test or just a device check; maybe we can set the device ID or use some other trick to fool the software into thinking our gTabs are worthy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read the post right about yours. It will crash because the Tegra CPU does not have the instruction set it needs. I've tried it.
Thanks for the info everyone. I was hoping to surprise the girlfriend abroad with a hacked apk to get skype to work, but I guess ooVoo will have to do for now.
Oovoo messes up my sound everytime. I've had good results with reelportal tho.
I have droid charge, I use skype everyday and it is so annoying to flip the phone to see the other person. Tegra chip wise everything is clear but how about the droid charge? Can any dev find workaround for this nonsense? I am willing to support that dev and donate some beer money.
This discussion is about the G-tab.
For other devices, there are threads here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1153285
and here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1148708
If you have architecture capable of NEON, one of those versions should let the software access the front camera.
mike_ekim said:
I'm at work but I'm really curious; Skype says it will work with *some* 2.2 devices, and if you have 2 cameras the wrong camera will work but we have only one camera so we might be in luck.
Fingers crossed...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So..if we are on 2.3 and have this device...are they saying it will work then? Getting my Tab in 2 days. It already has 2.3 on it.
New version of skype (v2) supports videocalling in tegra devices such as Asus Transformee or Xoom.
I'll test as soon as I get home if it works for the Gtablet.
Enviado desde mi GT-I9000 usando Tapatalk
Still no video call support
I just tested the new version of skype (version 2.5.0.108 downloaded from market) on my Gtab running Brilliant Corners 1.3.1 and there was still no video call option. I will keep playing with it and see if I missed anything obvious.
jdoorny said:
I just tested the new version of skype (version 2.5.0.108 downloaded from market) on my Gtab running Brilliant Corners 1.3.1 and there was still no video call option. I will keep playing with it and see if I missed anything obvious.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have to activate the videocall options on settings first.
I tested it on honeycomb flashback rom but as the camera doesn't work on our honeycomb roms yer the test was useful, lol.
Please check on settings that videocalls are enabled and test back on your brilliant corner roms.
However it would be nice if someone using a gingerbread rom can test it
titooo7 said:
You have to activate the videocall options on settings first.
I tested it on honeycomb flashback rom but as the camera doesn't work on our honeycomb roms yer the test was useful, lol.
Please check on settings that videocalls are enabled and test back on your brilliant corner roms.
However it would be nice if someone using a gingerbread rom can test it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I missed that and didn't change the settings.
When I changed the settings to accept video calls it worked. It was very buggy tho. The video came in clear, but it was rotated sideways (flipping the gtab on its side wasn't enough to fix the problem). The video I received also covered all the buttons for ending the call/muting the microphone etc. This made it difficult to end the call without guessing where the button would be underneath the incoming video. Also, when I exited the skype app while in a video call, the application closed but the video stayed on top. This made it impossible to do anything else while having a video chat going on in the background.
Overall this is a huge step forward. Video calls with audio are now working. I can't give extensive reviews on video quality, as I was only calling myself from my laptop to my gtablet and didn't spend much more time than was needed to see if it worked.
Some work will definately be needed to iron out some of the bugs before this becomes perfectly useable. For now I am happy with the progress that has been made and will wait patiently for someone smarter than me to work out the bugs.
Gtab running Brilliant Corners 1.3.1
---------- Post added at 11:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:42 AM ----------
After playing with skype for a little while longer, I noticed that skype is placing the video from the Gtab over the video from skype.
Let me try explain.
In a normal skype call, you have the large video from the person you are talking too taking up most of the screen. In one of the corners you have a video of yourself that is being sent to the other person. This video is rotated sideways when I hold the Gtab in landscape mode with the camera on top.
When I use the skype for android app on my Gtablet (brilliant corners 1.3.1), I get a third video laid overtop of the other two videos. The video is the same as the small one of myself in the bottom corner of the video chat, but with the correct orientation. I know that the other two video's exist (outgoing and incoming that normally exist in skype) because there is some space beside the 3rd video.
If that was confusing, let me try explain a different way: It's as if the video camera application is running over top of skype whenever I am in a video call. The 'video camera app' is persistantly on top whenever I am in a video call. It will even stay on top when I close the skype application during a video call.
I failed to notice this during my initial testing, as I had the gtab and laptop pointing at me, and failed to differentiate which video feed I was seeing.
I think the app would be perfect if the following were fixed.
-Outgoing video rotation is fixed.
-video being captured on gtab was not over top of the video's skype is recognizing.
Has anyone on different ROM's experienced these problems? I don't feel like going through the hassle of changing ROM's to test.
So, I really want to be able to attend a seminar with a whiteboard or projected powerpoint... record the video and audio and text on the whiteboard - WHILE using Note to take handwritten and/or typed notes.
My solution - thought I'd share this accessory structure for recording:
1 piece double sided clear 3M stickies;
1 right angle prism (about 5-8mm) with an aluminized hypotenuse (about $5 on ebay).
Then I just apply the prism to the sticky and on to the front facing camera.
Works GREAT for taking pictures/video while the note stays flat on the desk. Also great for traffic black box video with note 2 on the dash for heads up display hud.
Problems to solve:
1) background video/audio recording THAT ALLOWS S-memo or Polaris Office or similar to be on (still looking - advice greatly appreciated).
2) self-portrait camera shows orientation on screen correctly, but it transposes or mirror flips the image when saving such that text on powerpoint is mirror reversed.
3) FFC has no way to zoom in stock app.
willfck4beer said:
Problems to solve:
1) background video/audio recording THAT ALLOWS S-memo or Polaris Office or similar to be on (still looking - advice greatly appreciated).
2) self-portrait camera shows orientation on screen correctly, but it transposes or mirror flips the image when saving such that text on powerpoint is mirror reversed.
3) FFC has no way to zoom in stock app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats pretty creative.
1) You could setup Multi windows to have camera and S-memo running at the same time, then just minimise( drag the divider bar) the window with the camera. (not sure if that would work)
2) Use any video editing program you have (i.e Windows Movie Maker) and use that to flip the video to how it should be
3) stick the prism to the main rear facing camera, and use that to record and be able to zoom. If the video appears mirrored, then use the video editing program to un-mirror it.
Optimistic Pessimist said:
Thats pretty creative.
1) You could setup Multi windows to have camera and S-memo running at the same time, then just minimise( drag the divider bar) the window with the camera. (not sure if that would work)
2) Use any video editing program you have (i.e Windows Movie Maker) and use that to flip the video to how it should be
3) stick the prism to the main rear facing camera, and use that to record and be able to zoom. If the video appears mirrored, then use the video editing program to un-mirror it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your help! I appreciate it.
Unfortunately, I'm on stock because this is a work phone - waiting for the warranty to expire before rooting so can't add camera app to multiwindow yet. This was a great idea though!
The rear camera was a great idea too but it wouldn't let me keep the liveview comfortably on the desk for writing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVuKlVKZgQc&feature=youtube_gdata_player
This background configurable Secret Video Recorder SVR seems almost perfect;
Seems to lack orientation setting in exif metadata though. Would be tits if I could control horizontal and vertical (maybe with orientation lock?) mirroring flipping transpose live on android itself rather than reencoding on desktop pc in post processing.
willfck4beer said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVuKlVKZgQc&feature=youtube_gdata_player
This background configurable Secret Video Recorder SVR seems almost perfect;
Seems to lack orientation setting in exif metadata though. Would be tits if I could control horizontal and vertical (maybe with orientation lock?) mirroring flipping transpose live on android itself rather than reencoding on desktop pc in post processing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems like a cool app. Might come in handy
willfck4beer said:
Thanks for your help! I appreciate it.
Unfortunately, I'm on stock because this is a work phone - waiting for the warranty to expire before rooting so can't add camera app to multiwindow yet. This was a great idea though!
The rear camera was a great idea too but it wouldn't let me keep the liveview comfortably on the desk for writing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't sweat it man, no one at your work will even know that your phone is rooted. Well, that is unless they're into rooting phones themselves and really dig into your phones information.
1-You shouldn't let your coworkers dig into your phone like that.
2-If they're into rooting phones, then they won't care anyways.
Go ahead and take the plunge man, you'll be glad that you did!!!
SwiftKey'ed from my White Sprint Note 2 using XDA Premium
Look at an app called Arcnote. Does exactly what your want and more
This is a good point. Just haven't had the need yet. And I'm concerned about a hardware failure... warranty not being honored due to root... and having to pay our have firm pay. Maybe this is obviated by insurance though?
Arcnote is awesome but seems to require focus and manual capture of pictures of slides.
Secret video recorder svr from zero noise dev team is exactly what I was looking for for background video and audio recording. This thing is sweet! Five stars. Arc note would be badass if it could post process video... detecting each slide transition, capturing a photo and then doing its auto zoom, keystone magic. Thank you for the recommendation nonetheless!
willfck4beer said:
This is a good point. Just haven't had the need yet. And I'm concerned about a hardware failure... warranty not being honored due to root... and having to pay our have firm pay. Maybe this is obviated by insurance though?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Solutions for your warranty problem :
1. Use a a one click root & unroot program called framaroot v 1.4.1 : See this link for tutorials - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1mQz4n-Z-M
download : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2130276
3. When ever your sending this phone for any repair just one click unroot.
2. Use Trainagle away app from play store to reset your binary ( this is what your warranty guys check) - Now you are back to factory Cheers !
Thanks good call