1Vaio Picturebook Motion Eye Camera Driver Readme
2------------------------------------------------
3	Copyright (C) 2001 Stelian Pop <stelian.pop@fr.alcove.com>, Alc�ve
4	Copyright (C) 2000 Andrew Tridgell <tridge@samba.org>
5
6This driver enable the use of video4linux compatible applications with the
7Motion Eye camera. This driver requires the "Sony Vaio Programmable I/O 
8Control Device" driver (which can be found in the "Character drivers" 
9section of the kernel configuration utility) to be compiled and installed
10(using its "camera=1" parameter).
11
12It can do at maximum 30 fps @ 320x240 or 15 fps @ 640x480.
13
14Grabbing is supported in packed YUV colorspace only.
15
16MJPEG hardware grabbing is supported via a private API (see below).
17
18Driver options:
19---------------
20
21Several options can be passed to the meye driver, either by adding them
22to /etc/modules.conf file, when the driver is compiled as a module, or
23by adding the following to the kernel command line (in your bootloader):
24
25	meye=gbuffers[,gbufsize[,video_nr]]
26
27where:
28
29	gbuffers:	number of capture buffers, default is 2 (32 max)
30
31	gbufsize:	size of each capture buffer, default is 614400
32
33	video_nr:	video device to register (0 = /dev/video0, etc)
34
35Module use:
36-----------
37
38In order to automatically load the meye module on use, you can put those lines
39in your /etc/modules.conf file:
40
41	alias char-major-81 videodev
42	alias char-major-81-0 meye
43	options meye gbuffers=32
44
45Usage:
46------
47
48	xawtv >= 3.49 (<http://bytesex.org/xawtv/>)
49		for display and uncompressed video capture:
50
51			xawtv -c /dev/video0 -geometry 640x480
52				or
53			xawtv -c /dev/video0 -geometry 320x240
54
55	motioneye (<http://www.alcove-labs.org/en/software/meye/>)
56		for getting ppm or jpg snapshots, mjpeg video
57
58Private API:
59------------
60
61	The driver supports frame grabbing with the video4linux API, so
62	all video4linux tools (like xawtv) should work with this driver.
63
64	Besides the video4linux interface, the driver has a private interface
65	for accessing the Motion Eye extended parameters (camera sharpness,
66	agc, video framerate), the shapshot and the MJPEG capture facilities.
67
68	This interface consists of several ioctls (prototypes and structures
69	can be found in include/linux/meye.h):
70
71	MEYEIOC_G_PARAMS
72	MEYEIOC_S_PARAMS
73		Get and set the extended parameters of the motion eye camera.
74		The user should always query the current parameters with
75		MEYEIOC_G_PARAMS, change what he likes and then issue the
76		MEYEIOC_S_PARAMS call (checking for -EINVAL). The extended
77		parameters are described by the meye_params structure.
78
79
80	MEYEIOC_QBUF_CAPT
81		Queue a buffer for capture (the buffers must have been
82		obtained with a VIDIOCGMBUF call and mmap'ed by the
83		application). The argument to MEYEIOC_QBUF_CAPT is the
84		buffer number to queue (or -1 to end capture). The first
85		call to MEYEIOC_QBUF_CAPT starts the streaming capture.
86
87	MEYEIOC_SYNC
88		Takes as an argument the buffer number you want to sync.
89		This ioctl blocks until the buffer is filled and ready
90		for the application to use. It returns the buffer size.
91
92	MEYEIOC_STILLCAPT
93	MEYEIOC_STILLJCAPT
94		Takes a snapshot in an uncompressed or compressed jpeg format.
95		This ioctl blocks until the snapshot is done and returns (for
96		jpeg snapshot) the size of the image. The image data is 
97		available from the first mmap'ed buffer.
98
99	Look at the 'motioneye' application code for an actual example.
100
101Bugs / Todo:
102------------
103
104	- overlay output is not supported (although the camera is capable of).
105	  	(it should not be too hard to to it, provided we found how...)
106		
107	- mjpeg hardware playback doesn't work (depends on overlay...)
108
109	- rewrite the driver to use some common video4linux API for snapshot
110	  and mjpeg capture. Unfortunately, video4linux1 does not permit it,
111	  the BUZ API seems to be targeted to TV cards only. The video4linux 2
112	  API may be an option, if it goes into the kernel (maybe 2.5 
113	  material ?).
114