Re: video(4) landed. "No webcam driver" is dead.

hi!

please file bugs at bugs.freebsd.org with the relevant information -
camera hardware, dmesg, reproduction steps (especially cut/paste
command lines) and screenshots.

I need to do the same for our, err, "australia mode" (upside down)
images that only happen to me on I think vlc, not with others.


-a

On Mon, 10 Aug 2026 at 09:03, Fernando Apesteguía
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 9, 2026 at 11:41 PM Abdelkader Boudih <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> For years, the go-to move for dodging a video call was "well, I run FreeBSD, and there's no webcam driver, so."
>>
>> Camera stays off, nobody questions it, everyone assumes a serious systems person and not someone hiding from a standup. That excuse is now retired.
>> By Adrian Chadd, Baptiste Daroussin, and me.
>> We did this. On purpose. I don't know what we were thinking.
>>
>> video(4) is a new kernel-side capture framework:
>> a common device model for things that produce frames, instead of every capture driver reinventing /dev/videoN from scratch.
>>
>>  Initial consumers:
>>
>> uvideo(4): USB Video Class webcams, converted onto the new framework. Most of the hard logic here was already done for us - OpenBSD's Robert Nagy and Marcus Glocker wrote the original driver years ago, Baptiste ported it to FreeBSD.
>> fwcam(4): Apple firewire camera. work perfectly for me, but Australian mode (upside down) for Adrian.
>>
>> Where its been tested:
>>
>> across basically the whole Apple fleet here : MacBooks, iMacs, Every one of those machines is now missing exactly one thing (WiFi, still catching up on some chipsets).
>> Also tested on regular Laptops with integrated webcams, which mostly just worked .
>>
>> Diffs for the design: D58367-D58369
>>
>> What's coming next:
>>
>> PCI capture cards - the "I have a real capture card, not a webcam".
>> SBC-class cameras (think Raspberry Pi camera modules) - CSI-ish targets, for anyone doing embedded/SBC work on FreeBSD
>>
>> I'd love it if you:
>>
>> Threw a UVC device at uvideo(4) that has those non generic cameras. (especially 2k, 4k, thermal cameras, ect).
>> Have an firewire webcam
>>
>> Once a few more hackers have tested this, I will post it to freebsd-current@.
>
>
> Thank you all for this!
>
> I tested it a few weeks ago in current. It worked fine when using Google Meet but it does not work fine with pwcview.
> I
>  tested again in FreeBSD hammer 16.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 16.0-CURRENT #8 main-n288009-d025b84268ec and pwcview (1.4.1_9) does not work properly, it looks like the image is quadrupled in four columns... It's difficult to explain, but I can provide a screenshot if necessary :-). This was run on a laptop with an embedded webcam.
>
> Similar effect in pwcview for a Logitech USB camera:
>
> ugen0.6: <vendor 0x046d C270 HD WEBCAM> at usbus0
> uvideo1 on uhub0
> uvideo1: <vendor 0x046d C270 HD WEBCAM, class 239/2, rev 2.00/0.21, addr 7> on usbus0
> uvideo1: 2 format(s), iface_index=1, endpoint=0x81, psize=3060, isoc
> uvideo1: default format: pixfmt=0x56595559, 640x480, max_fbuf=2457600
> uvideo1: UVC camera on /dev/video1
>
> This camera works fine in Google Meet, it does not with pwcview.
>
> pwcview worked fine with webcamd, though.
>
> Please, feel free to reach out should you need more details.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
>>
>>
>> As for meetings: the next generation of excuse is already in production. "Sorry, can't turn my camera on, I'm running TempleOS this week, it's between me and God." Untestable & Unfalsifiable. Nobody's going to ask follow-up questions. You're welcome.
>>
>> Sent from HolyC Internet Missionary.