The page concerning the webcam support for developers is TodoWebcam?

Webcam In aMSN

Common errors:
You are firewalled or behind a router

Mac OS X:
Apple error code -9405
People told my webcam picture is purple and my picture is double

Linux:
You are using the pwc driver
Webcamsn extension is not loaded. You have to compile it.
Capture extension -Capture- is not loaded, you have to compile it
If webcam still doesn't work on Linux, try the test procedure

Windows:
The image output is distorted and/or amsn crashes with memory access problems




If you are unable to view a webcam in aMSN after a contact has send you an invite, or after you have issued the command to receive/send webcam, and you are behind a router, you may need to follow these steps:

If you receive: IP-Restrict-NAT and you receive false in webcam wizard, that means your connection is firewalled. (does not send the IP)

If this is the case, you will need to open some ports for the webcam to use because they are currently blocked.

To do this, open your router web-based configuration (check router manual for details on this). Once you have the web-based configuration open, browse for a setting called "port forwarding" or "port range forwarding" or something similar to that. (This might be found under the advanced features for your router).

Now that you have the port forwarding page open, you will want to set the port forwarding range so that aMSN will be able to accept and send the webcam stream.
Here's an example of how you will set up your port forwarding:

Note: xxx.xxx.x.xxx is the IP of your machine that you are trying to send / receive webcam


If you have a web server open on your port 80, you can try to disable it too, sometimes it helps.

General port instructions for Apple Airport Base Station or Airport Express (of course, use ports 6891 to 6900 in the configurations)
http://www.blueskyis.com/bittorrent/airportforwarding.php



You probably got this error when trying to send webcam to someone else, if you don't have a webcam and want to see the webcam of someone, go to actions menu and select "Ask this user to send you his/her webcam"

If you have a webcam, this error means your camera is not pluged, if you just pluged it, relaunch aMSN
If you tried to relaunch, it probably means your camera is not known by QuickTime?. Normally, it should works with Firewire camera (like iSight) and DV cam, and with USB webcams supported on Mac OS X

If you have a USB webcam unsupported on Mac OSX you can take a loot at:

iOXexperts ($$)
http://www.ioxperts.com/products/webcamx.html

Macam (Free)
http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net/

UsbVision? ($$)
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14209



If you have iOXexperts drivers to your camera version 0.8 update to 1.1
If you don't use iOXexperts try to update your camera drivers.
If you still have problems, go to aMSN Mac forum to ask for help
http://forums.cocoaforge.com/viewforum.php?f=14


Those of you who are using this driver should know that this driver is incomplete and may not work correctly with amsn... You won't be able to change your settings like britghness/color/hue/ etc... You MAY not be able to run it in high resolution mode unless you use the pwcx proprietary driver. (But it seems there's now a PWC driver that support high resolution). Note that aMSN currently supports only the high resolution mode'





You need to make sure there is a webcamsn.so in /msn/utils/webcamsn/
and also in /msn/utils/webcamsn/webcamsn/

If these do not exist, you need to enter each of those directories and type make to compile the source into a webcamsn.so file.






If you dont have a capture.so file, you will need to build it by opening a console
and typing "make" in your /msn/utils/linux/capture directory. If everything works correctly, you will have a capture.so file.



If capture seems not working so well with your webcam, you can try that






The test is shipped only with the source packages, not the binaries,. So, if you need to test your webcam, you have to download the sources package at http://amsn.sourceforge.net/download.php.

To run a test to make sure you webcam is functioning, go into your /msn/utils/linux/capture directory and type :


You should then obtain something like :



The test.tcl window should pop up with "camera settings" and "choose device" buttons. Click "choose device". Your camera should be listed underneath the Devices section. If you select the correct webcam device, an option should appear under the Channels section. You can click on this Channels option. If everything is functioning, you will see a preview of your webcam functioning. You can then click on Camera Settings. Under camera settings you can adjust your camera's Brightness, Contrast, Hue, and Color.

If you have gotten the test.tcl to run, but still cannot use your webcam, please try running the command v4l-info:



This command will give you information about your webcam. If you have questions, please let us know which palette you are using and we should hopefully be able to help you.



At the moment the windows capturing program captures at the resolution of the desktop. However tk requires its images to be in certain resolutions. Therefore you need to set your screens colour resolution to 32 bit (24bit may also work, I'm not sure though).

To change your colour resolution, right click on your desktop and press 'Properties', then select the 'Settings' tab, finally in the 'Colors' drop down box select the '32 bit' option. You may need to change the 'Screen area' if you can't select that colour resolution.

Hopefully this is a temporary problem and the capture code will be improved to fix this problem.

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Version : French