Testing GUVCView in Acer Aspire 1 laptop

I reported on GUVCView a couple of days ago:

https://bkhome.org/news/202204/guvcview-webcam-viewer-compiled-in-oe.html

I built Easy 3.4.7 RC, and ran it on my baby laptop. This has a "VGA Webcam", which is only 640x480.

I have a piece of masking tape stuck over it, being somewhat paranoid that someone could hack in and look at me. Took the tape off, and ran GUVCView. Actually, ran it in a terminal, 'guvcview', so as to see any error messages. It works, here is a snapshot:

There was no other resolution setting, just 640x480, also was unable to change the video frames per second, it recorded at 14.2fps.

To record video, audio needed some setup. There are two audio input settings; "PORTAUDIO" and "PULSEAUDIO". The former gave an error message on the terminal, so chose the latter which worked. However, had to go into the Pulseaudio volume control and un-mute the microphone, then wind the volume up a bit.

640x480, or even lower resolution, would be fine if you just want the webcam window in a corner of the desktop, if, for example, you were making a video showing something on the desktop and also want to show yourself talking.

I think the next step up will be to buy a USB video camera, and use GUVCView to record videos. So, what is a good Linux-compatible and inexpensive USB video camera? Up to 1080p.   

Tags: easy