A tag for video camera and microphone?

[Michael Vogt]

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 03:40:06PM +0100, Enrico Zini wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 10:26:03AM +0100, Tanguy Ortolo wrote:
> [quoting in full because the original message did not reach the list due
>  to list configuration; Tanguy's email now added to email whitelist]
> 
> > While looking for a Jabber client with audio/video support, I thought it
> > might be useful to have a facet to describe video cameras (aka webcams)
> > and microphones, like hardware::camera for still image cameras.
> > 
> > Perhaps something like hardware::videocamera and hardware::microphone?
> > The existing tags works-with::video and works-with::audio are also
> > relevant for videoconferencing software, I think. And perhaps
> > hardware::video, but I am not sure, since this one seems to designate
> > graphic output rather than input.
> 
> You are right, I just noticed that the current hardware::camera is more
> for things like gphoto which can interface with digital cameras and
> download photos, and we don't have a tag for webcams.
> 
> OTOH, hardware::camera is currently used to tag both kamera and
> gtkam, and webcamd and cheese. So we might be looking at splitting the
> existing tag in two.
> 
> hardware::video is for graphic card drivers and utilities, so I agree
> with you, it doesn't fit.
> 
> We could split hardware::camera in hardware::digicam (making it explicit
> what it is for) and hardware::videocamera or, probably better,
> hardware::webcam? hardware::videocamera looks more like something to
> control expensive video cameras via Firewire connections for the Debian
> Video Team than something for jabber video chats. That's yet another use
> case that we currently miss, I'd say (I'm thinking all the tools to deal
> with DV streams: dvsource, dvswitch, kino, dvgrab, kdenlive, and fancy
> that! There's even a dvbackup :)
> 
> So here's a draft proposal:
> 
>   Split hardware::camera into 3:
> 
>    - hardware::digicam
>      (kamera, gtkam, gphoto2, ...)
>    - hardware::webcam
>      (webcamd, camorama, cheese, ...)
>    - hardware::videocamera
>      (dvsource, dvswitch, kino, dvbackup, ...)

I like this! I added support for hardware::webcam and
hardware::digicam to the detection library now. If someone with a
videocamera can provide me with "udevadm info --export-db" output I'm
happy to try to add it as well.
 
> There isn't much for audio input either. I don't know if we should be
> specific and say "hardware::microphone" or just be generic and say
> "hardware::audio", to say "packages that use a sound card".

To me it sounds like its useful to be able to distinguish between
output and input - but I assume in practise most of the time a system
will support both anyway. I don't know yet how this can be detected
though :) 

Cheers,
 Michael