Windows 10 kills webcams - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: raptor1956
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 03:18:38 am
content: I mentioned in another thread about going through some old stuff and found an old Logitch HD Pro 910 webcam. I don't usually have things like that hooked up to my PC for privacy/hacking reasons, but I do shoot a good deal of video in my lab and having another HD camera from time-to-time is a plus. So I install it and download and install the software and don't ya know the software pukes right from the get go. A little Googling revealed that M$ has removed support for h.264 and some other things and now anyone with these devices that's also on the current Windows version is SOL.Anyone know why M$ removed support for h.264 etc?Brian

author: Jeff_Birt
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 03:30:46 am
content: I doubt if they have. All that I could find on the subject was that Win10 comes with H.265 out of the box, I also saw a bit about them adding H.264 support to the Edge browser. I would suspect that maybe the codec is just not installed by default?

author: Jeff_Birt
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 03:35:14 am
content: OK, just found this:http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/windows-10-anniversary-update-breaks-most-webcams/It is an issue with something they did in the Win10 anniversary update to allow sharing the video stream. Take off your tin foil hat it is not a conspiracy.

author: raptor1956
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 04:23:36 am
content: Quote from: Jeff_Birt on September 24, 2016, 03:35:14 amWhat tinfoil hat would that be? It's hard to imagine the smart guys at Redmond were completely unaware that this would break millions of webcams and other cameras so either they're more incompetent than I thought or they just don't give a damn. It will be interesting to see how long before they have a solution and if that solution is generally effective -- time will tell. Meanwhile, millions of webcams and other cameras are now useless and there are people that earn a living with them or depend on them to do so...Brian

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 09:59:09 am
content: It sounds like someone thought webcams would just allow uncompressed video to be sent which is not the case with most for some reason. Good intention, bad result.

author: ade
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 10:10:02 am
content: QuoteFrom the article posted above:Quote

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 01:18:24 pm
content: I don't suppose this so called "Frame Server" is actually something that was created to make it easier for them to intercept or copy the video stream for their own purposes?

author: Jeff_Birt
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 01:49:15 pm
content: Quote from: rdl on September 24, 2016, 01:18:24 pmMore tin foil hat territory. There has been a complaint for a long time that a webcam could not be 'shared', i.e. if Skype was using it then nothing else could. In the past I have used a separate camera sharing software that connected to the cameras and could feed out multiple streams. This was an odd case where we had several cameras on a student construction project and then found out that all the parents loved to watch their kids actually work so we needed to provide multiple connections. On a personal PC I'm not sure why you would want this functionality but I'm sure people have come up with use cases.I suspect MS does not give a crap about my webcam feed or yours. I'm always amazed how folks can generate conspiracy theory's.QuoteMy understanding based on the article I linked above is that the issue was that some software would only accept a compressed video feed, that seems like a bad assumption on part of the software designed to receive a stream from a webcam. In other words the software designed to work with a webcam 'assumes' that it will always receive a compressed stream, MS adds a frame server and 'assumes' most software will accept a non-compressed stream. Too many assumptions...I have watched a lot of videos on Channel 9 where the MS guys explain the compatibility testing they do. Given the scope of the task, i.e. an infinite combination of PC hardware, with perhaps tens of thousands of applications that 'might' be affected it would be too easy to miss something like this. This is not an attempt at an excuse for them, just thinking out loud about the scope of the problem.

author: linux-works
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 01:58:52 pm
content: I suspect MS does not give a crap about my webcam feed or yours. I'm always amazed how folks can generate conspiracy theory's.sorry, but this is now post-snowden era and you don't get off that easily.the new default is to assume malice, and you are usually going to be right, when it comes to anything privacy or security related.the governments are like drug addicts, they have a monkey on their backs. once they tasted this spy-power of theirs, they are hooked. they don't want to give up that sweet, sweet power they now have.the new default - when it comes to obvious use-cases, is to assume that there was pressure to have some feature there and this usually will not come via user requests. even parallel construction is now known, so we have to look thru excuses and see the real intent on feature A or B.we are waking up. its not 'tin foil hat'. please stop with the BS. many of us have a systems/network security background and can see the power-grabs happening daily in the computer field. its very possible that there was pressure to do anything that supplies 'data' to those who have an insatiable need for such 'data'.I suspect what google does, too. anyone who can be a source of mass data is ripe for power-abuse. many changes in win10 were not there for the user's benefit. we are not children anymore. this is post-snowden. stop with the 'tin foil hat' bullshit. we know this crap happens all the time, now.

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 02:04:54 pm
content: Quote from: Ars-TechnicaThat sounds like an enabler of potentially bad stuff. It is definitely not "tin hat" territory.Remember, Cortana is just another "app".

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 02:06:48 pm
content: It's also an enabler of good stuff...

author: linux-works
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 02:07:05 pm
content: I have watched a lot of videos on Channel 9 where the MS guys explain the compatibility testing they do. Given the scope of the task, i.e. an infinite combination of PC hardware, with perhaps tens of thousands of applications that 'might' be affected it would be too easy to miss something like this. This is not an attempt at an excuse for them, just thinking out loud about the scope of the problem.MS, like google, has 'more money than god'. they have zero excuse for major fark-ups like this.a 100 man company, yeah, they can invoke that excuse. 'manpower limits'. yeah, sure.MS and google and large companies like that, crying that they don't have enough *resources* to test something major and no one who *wrote* the code could envision this?we are not talking about really old hardware - old SCSI or IDE drives or ISA bus sound cardsthese are modern enough webcams, not some windows 95 era hardware.didn't see it coming, or could not test for before releasing patch - pure 'bull cookies'.is MS evil, stupid or just under staffed? yeah, right

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 02:57:14 pm
content: Quote from: linux-works on September 24, 2016, 02:07:05 pmMy bank account balance is at -200 and thats not the extend of my debt, and even I have more money than god.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 03:57:17 pm
content: Did not break the web cam Win10 broke the in built SD card reader, I cannot seem to get it to work, Its there in systems no mark against it.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 05:05:58 pm
content: Quote from: linux-works on September 24, 2016, 02:07:05 pmI don't really think it matters how much money or resources a company has. The problem is, when a company gets sufficiently large, layers of bureaucracy and people management get in the way, where communication between teams or even individual members breakdown. Even if your dev team is pretty tight, you will always get slip-ups. Happens all the time, even in for mission critical projects, like avionics and space exploration.

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 05:49:51 pm
content: horses for courses !it's why you should keep your old computer, IMO along with its working OS . so IF you need to get images from an Old 2004 CompactFlash card or maybe run OLD 2002 PC Games, you have aOffLinecomputer &working MSOS that will run them. or use it to run a 2004 - 2007 webcam for video recording / old webcam moding FX esc esc- haveing more than one computer is not a bad thing .

author: joeqsmith
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 06:06:16 pm
content: Quote from: jonovid on September 24, 2016, 05:49:51 pmAgree. As impressed as I am with my new PC, I am equally unimpressed with Windows 10. Everything I run into, I do a search and it seems like everyone else is having the same problem. Basic stuff that I took for granted, like email. So I still run my XP P4 machine. Sad, very sad!

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 07:06:03 pm
content: Quote from: joeqsmith on September 24, 2016, 06:06:16 pmUsing a mail client built into your os in this day and age is very sad lol, I'm amazed anyone still does it.

author: joeqsmith
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 07:21:40 pm
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 24, 2016, 07:06:03 pmWhy's that? For sure, if I had to use the Win 10 client, I would drop it.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 07:32:45 pm
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 24, 2016, 07:06:03 pmI use the mail client built into iOS, as I'm sure do countless millions of others. Why so strange?

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 08:00:13 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on September 24, 2016, 07:32:45 pmA mobile device is another story altogether, but still using something like outlook when there are vastly superior options you can access from any browser just make more sense on a desktop. I gave the windows 10 mail app a try but it was just a mess compared to the straightforward setup gmail uses.Dedicated email clients, especially ones that save emails locally, are a throwback to the days when you didn't have gigabytes of storage provided to you, or it would take too long to fetch the email you needed from the server.Whenever I encounter someone who has an issue with their outlook it still baffles me as to why they use it, but generally they are in that age range where you would expect it.

author: strangersound
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 09:09:25 pm
content: Quote from: jonovid on September 24, 2016, 05:49:51 pmYeah, agreed. They stick them on the curb, I pick them up. Very rarely is there anything wrong with them, aside from being bloated with malware, startup filled with nonsense, the usual user caused Windows problems. And if they do have a hardware failure of some sort, I just part them out, which usually results in more ram and HD's to stick in the good ones. And the power supplies and such an be reworked for other stuff. Yeah, I like to hoard obsolete PC's.

author: joeqsmith
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2016, 11:32:52 pm
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 24, 2016, 08:00:13 pmI can see the plus side for the private user going with a public system but how is it handled on the corporate side?

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2016, 12:03:24 am
content: Quote from: linux-works on September 24, 2016, 01:58:52 pmThis!I'm amazed when I see people still trotting out that naive line "no one is interested in your PC activities, thinking they are is just tin foil hat conspiracy theory rubbish". When I see it, I think this person must either be incredibly isolated from all non-MSM news sources, or they are sitting at an astroturfing company desk, doing their shift as 50 or so virtual personas, keeping the world safe for the stinking Elites.Btw, my immediate thought about the web-cam problem, and now the 'frame server' stuff, is that Microsoft has TWO prime design agendas. One is to serve the gov/security agencies with more spying powers, the other is to impose absolute DRM enforcement on all PCs at the OS level. (WHY has no one mentioned DRM in this thread yet?)Video streams are a high-value asset in the DRM world. What's the bet the Win10 'frame server' doesn't just enable forking streams, but also is intended as a DRM gatekeeper, monitoring for and killing anything that may not be DRM-kosher. Uncompressed simple web-cam streams being one example, since they don't contain any DRM proof-of-ownership keys. Guilty until proven kosher, is exactly the mentality associated with the DRM pushers.Edit:Quote from: strangersound on September 24, 2016, 09:09:25 pmYou and me too.I can't afford to lay in a huge larder full of long-life food. But I can hoard old PCs.I have a hunch that at some point it may be necessary to revert to systems from before some particular generation. Modern machines are becoming far too interdependent and 'cloudy'. A situation that seems to be just asking for a dramatic non-recoverable event, whether deliberate or accidental. Infectable monocultures always end up crashing with some form of contagious blight.Some cautious people these days advise 'stay away from crowds'. I'd add 'keep your old install CDs'.

author: raptor1956
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2016, 08:07:35 pm
content: I've been reading a bit more on this and apparently M$ is/was supposed to have a fix by mid September -- they didn't say which year though...Brian

author: raptor1956
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2016, 12:47:15 am
content: And now for some good news ... I think!It looks like M$ has updated the OS to handle webcams though I've seen no news reports to confirm it. I re-downloaded the webcam software from Logitech and tried again last night and low and behold it now appears to be working. So, I'm not sure why there has been no reporting of this or just how complete the fix is or what exactly the fix is, but for me at least my C910 webcam appears to be working now.Brian