Webcam problem...

[Clive45]

Using OpenSolaris b134 as my host OS with virtualbox + guest additions running Win XP SP3 as the guest. Everything works fine - printer, scanner, except my QuickCam. The drivers were installed from the supplied CD and I have updated the installed cam drivers. The program starts OK (Quickcam), it is recognized in the hardware profile in XP and it has been mounted, but I simply cannot get any video. Any ideas as to the nature of this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Ramshankar]

Unfortunately this is a known and documented issue with webcams and other isochronous devices. You shouldn't hold your breath on getting this fixed though.

[Clive45]

Thanks for taking the time to reply - even if it isn't what I want to hear! Could you elaborate further on precisely what the known problems are I wonder? It seems puzzling to me that a webcam is recognised correctly in Win XP, yet fails to initialise under VBox.

Thank you.

[Ramshankar]

Thanks for taking the time to reply - even if it isn't what I want to hear! Could you elaborate further on precisely what the known problems are I wonder? It seems puzzling to me that a webcam is recognised correctly in Win XP, yet fails to initialise under VBox.

Thank you.

USB support is one of those things that requires several and varied devices to be tested and verified to get them working perfectly. Unfortunately, we can't test a huge deal of such isochronous devices. While some few devices work, in general isochronous devices (like webcams and sound cards) will have very poor performance. This is partly VirtualBox's fault since it -is- a virtualizer and some devices are very finicky about timing and partly on the Solaris USB subsystem that makes things a little hard for us (for instance, we need to buffer data and re-initiate calls when they are not really needed while the host applications usually assumes and works with a stream started once, VirtualBox requires a little more explicit control).