[SWLUG] Ubuntu and webcams

[Andrew Sprott]

Hi People

I haven't been to a meeting for a while because I have been spending a lot 
of my
time in Pembrokeshire. I together with 2 other friends have set up an astronomy
group who meet at Trefach caravan park. http://astronomy.crysania.co.uk

I modeled the group on the SWLUG, as we didn't want to bog our selves down
with membership stuff..

Yesterday we received a package from the people who distribute Ubuntu and we
were given a few Ubunto disks which were a live and install disk. Steve 
Wainwright
installed Ubunto on a Dell dimension and it works flawlessly, and compared to
Redhat or SUSE he found it extremely easy to install and use.

I'm cross posting this message he posted to the QCUIAG group, and I'm hoping
that some of you can help.

<snip>

Hi,

I see from time to time that some of our members are using Linux to capture 
AVIs etc.
and to control webcams. I have just set up an ubuntu Linux machine. The machine
has a Hauppauge WinTV PCI card fitted. The device manager of ubuntu Linux knows
that the card is there. I would like to do two things initially:
1) to obtain an application that will be able to capture AVIs from the 
WinTV capture
card being fed with composite video.
2) to install a webcam such as a ToUCam on this machine that will connect 
via the
USB port. Whatever webcam I pug in is detected and shows up in the device
manager. The scanner program that is included in the ubuntu distro is able 
to get an
image of sorts from the Hauppauge WinTV PCI card.
Can anyone please give me some guidelines and hints on where I might obtain the
applications I need?

Thanks
Clear skies
Steve

Dr. S.J. Wainwright

</snip>

Andrew Sprott
http://astronomy.crysania.co.uk