Happy with my sucess in my motion alarm project I wanted better resolution. In my stupidity I did not check if it was working with Linux.
I bought a Philips SPC230NC at a fair price/performance for my needs. I connected it to my box where I have my other web camera attached and dmesg showed that a new unknown USB device was attached. After some Googling I found the following at Philips website:
Question
Are there Linux/*NIX drivers for the Philips webcams?Answer
No, there are no official Linux/*NIX drivers for the Philips webcams.
Linux users can look here
FreeBSD users with an SPC900 can look here
The pages that is refered to has not been updated since 2006 and I did not manage to get them running on my Ubuntu 8.10 system. According to people that has got it to run, it works very bad.
My recommendation is to avoid Philips products until they understand who is the customer.
HARDWARE VENDORS, it is NOT an advantage to hide the specifications how to connect to your device.The secrets is in the hardware design, not how to access it. This just shows ignorance to your customers and a total no understanding and what a technical advantage is. Probably this decision is taken at high level in the organisation where the understanding of open and free is none. A good example of a company that has understood the strength of open and free is Intel
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