How do I access several webcams with the same name?

Core Library Questions

eerriicc

How do I access several webcams with the same name?

in Core Library Questions • 2 years ago

Hi

I'm pretty new to Processing, but been developing software for quite some time.
That said, I'm trying to show the live video feed of five webcams at the same time.
Using Capture.list(), I can see that three of them have the same name, along the line of "generic webcam" (my Windows is German).

Since the Capture constructor requires a unique name, I'm out of luck, as it seems, with Capture. Am I right?
From the Capture Javadoc:

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If 'name' is null or the empty string, it won't set a specific device, which means that QuickTime will use that last device used by a QuickTime application.

Unfortunately, Apple's QuickTime API uses the name to select devices, and in some cases there might be cameras with the same name on a machine. If you ask for a camera of the same name in sequence, you might see if it just does the right thing and grabs each separate camera in succession. If that doesn't work, you might try calling settings() which will bring up the prompt where you can select a capture device.

I've browsed through the forum, and there seem to be a number of other Video libraries. Does anyone have experience with them and multiple webcams? Is it possible to address them or should I just give up?

Best regards,
Eric

Replies(4)

thomas.di..

Re: How do I access several webcams with the same name?

2 years ago

i worked with multiple webcams a while a go, so things may have changed.
but i can remember that i had some issues with the standard processing video library, so i tried the GSVideo Library and it worked. Then win7 came out, and it stopped working, because my device manager listet all webcams with the same name. under XP, multiple cams of the same type were named with numbers... eg "webcam#1", "webcam#2".... something like that,... i think in win7 there is something different in the registry, but i couldnt figure out what it was.

phironn

Re: How do I access several webcams with the same name?

2 years ago

I think it is an issue with the drivers first.

I have used several webcams with windows XP a while ago.

But those were firewire cams (pointgrey firefly mv) and I could just install the driver for each of the cams again.

So they appeared as thomas mentioned as device#1, device#2 etc.

Some std. webcams should support this as well.

I have seen that there is a multiple camera driver for playstation3 eye toy cameras ( http://nuigroup.com/forums).

You should definitely have different names in your device manager (device#1, device#2, ...).

Cheers,

-
Philipp Ronnenberg
Interaction design
-
http://www.phiron.de

Octomo

Re: How do I access several webcams with the same name?

1 year ago

Ok, well, sorry from bringing an old thread back to life but I had a hard time figuring this out... seems like Capture.list() shouldn't be used when trying to setup webcams with the same name.

this won't work:

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a=new Capture(this,640,480,Capture.list()[0]);
b=new Capture(this,640,480,Capture.list()[1]);

yet this might (it worked for me):

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a=new Capture(this,640,480);
b=new Capture(this,640,480);

I've been searching everywhere to find a way to change Windows' "devices" name... but it seems like processing (or Quicktime..) is taking care of it.

nnnnithin..

Re: How do I access several webcams with the same name?

2 months ago

It seems processing needs two different names for the two cams.

i also faced a similar problem.

finally i solved it by changing the name of the two cams in regedit (windows)

here's the tut for changing names of the two cams in regedit:

http://www.eightforums.com/customization/15321-tutorial-how-change-device-names-device-manager.html

it works :)

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