Logitech MSN Webcam Codec Reverse-Engineered 255
Alexis Boulva writes "Tonight, Ole André Vadla Ravnås of the Farsight project (LGPL), which 'is an audio/video conferencing framework specifically designed for Instant Messengers' for the GNU Linux operating system, finished coding a release candidate of libmimic, 'an open source video encoding/decoding library for Mimic V2.x-encoded content (fourCC: ML20), which is the encoding used by MSN Messenger
for webcam conversations.' Ole, on the libmimic site, remarks that 'It should be noted that reverse-engineering for interoperability is 100%
legal here in Norway (and in most European countries).' Looks like the Free/Open Source Software movement is very close to closing up one of the most noticeable software gaps remaining from its glorious efforts."
Re:Why not use ichat/AIM's video protocol? (Score:1, Informative)
What's cool about this is that Logitech are the kings of decent webcams, and now they can be used with free software like linux.
Just great. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:video conf between windows and Linux ??? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:video conf between windows and Linux ??? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Just great. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Legality in US? (Score:4, Informative)
We're currently debating wether to implement the new copyright etc laws though. (and be 'we' I mean fringe left and some computer scientists complaining, while the main stream press keep their daily schedule of reporting fairly amazingly trivial and non-important 'news')
Re:Why not use ichat/AIM's video protocol? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Just how many video codecs do we need? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just how many video codecs do we need? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why not use ichat/AIM's video protocol? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wonderful! (Score:5, Informative)
Why? GnomeMeeting [gnomemeeting.org] is compatible with Netmeeting on Windows (both use the H.323 protocoll). You can just use that.
Anyway, it would be grat if this project would be somehow implemented by gaim.
Re:Credit where credit is due. (Score:3, Informative)
Gnomemeeting already worked.
Gaim-vv already worked.
The videoconferencing was already available.
The issue here was _interoperability_ with MSN using friends, where Microsoft played as an obstacle, now removed.
Re:Wonderful! (Score:4, Informative)
GnomeMeeting is compatible with Netmeeting on Windows
Maybe, but H.323 (the network protocol *meeting uses) doesn't pass through firewalls without an awful lot of effort. It can pass through a Cisco PIX (en expensive, but very good professional firewall), but I don't know a single consumer grade firewall that can pass H.323, which means that at least one of the ends must be unfirewalled (or using firewall software only). In that case, whoever is unfirewalled needs to be the receiver of the call. It's very limiting, and doesn't suit many needs.
Re:Wonderful! (Score:5, Informative)
gaim-vv is the answer: it's a fork of gaim, specifically created in order to have GAIM capable of doing audio/video conversation.
It relies on external libraries, so the topic's related to the (hopefully near) advances in gaim-vv to support msn and other protocols: as of yesterday you were only able to see other people's webcams from a yahoo! account.
I hope that things will change, now
Re:Wonderful! (Score:4, Informative)
USB Webcams on Linux, a nightmare... (Score:2, Informative)
Why do USB MassStorage and USB HID are standartized protocols and USB Video isn't!? I just can't understand that.
Right now is a very difficult task indentify a Linux-compatible USB Webcam... most use a combination of two chips, the CCD sensor and the USB interface. Linux must have drivers for both chips, and some combinations don't work. Worse, some manufactures mix different combinatios of those chips under one webcam model, so you can't know for sure if one model is really supported.
A real mess...
Re:Wonderful! (Score:2, Informative)
Basically they forked to experiment, and will backport once it is tweaked to working.
Re:Reverse Engineered From The Disassembly (Score:4, Informative)
Most licences prohibit "reverse engineering" too - it's just not enforcable since the local laws explicitly allow reverse engineering. Of course IANAL so I can't tell you if the lagal "reverse engineering for interoperability purposes" also include disassembly. I would think it did.
Re:Reverse Engineered From The Disassembly (Score:2, Informative)
Reverse engineering is a good thing.
Re:Credit where credit is due. (Score:2, Informative)
When do we get webcam drivers? (Score:2, Informative)
How do we actually use the stuff when it's near to impossible to get any off-the-shelf webcam to actually have driver support in Linux?
Seriously, this is one FAQ I really wish was in huge bold typeface on the sites for GnomeMeeting and similar projects:
WHERE DO I GET HARDWARE THAT WILL LET ME USE THIS PROGRAM?
What kind of cameras are the people who hack on these chat clients using, how expensive are they, are they still on the market, can you get them in Australia and New Zealand, what Linux distribution do you need to be running to have out-of-the-box hardware support without compiling from source, etc.
There's the Qbik list [www.qbik.ch], but it's pretty cryptic and not always up to date, and I've not yet got a simple straight list of 'these models of cameras work with GnomeMeeting, go buy them'. Why is this so hard? Why can't it be in the software FAQ? It's the number one question on every potential user's mind, surely.