Alternative software like AMCAP for getting video from USB cam - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: cowasaki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 26, 2021, 10:26:55 pm
content: AMCAP works with the USB camera on my microscope but are there any alternatives out there? I have the Adobe Cloud suite but none of the packages seem to work with USB cameras. What are other people using?Thanks

author: JohnnyMalaria
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 26, 2021, 10:38:40 pm
content: OBS Studio?

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 26, 2021, 11:33:58 pm
content: A pretty long list:https://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Webcam_Related_Software

author: oPossum
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 26, 2021, 11:42:48 pm
content: VLC

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2021, 12:09:56 am
content: Quote from: oPossum on January 26, 2021, 11:42:48 pm+1

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2021, 06:20:25 am
content: I actually use this odd one:https://www.e-consystems.com/e-CAMView-Windows-camera-streaming-app.asp#Features(Web page is anoying on not just giving you a download tho)It's actually a demo app for the cameras they make, but in reality its basically the same thing as AMCAP and works with anything detected as a camera on windows. Appears to do a minimal amount of buffering and works fast even when displaying absurd resolution video from fancy USB3 cameras.

author: cowasaki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2021, 07:30:43 am
content: Quote from: Berni on January 27, 2021, 06:20:25 amThis looks like it might be ideal. I will take a look when I get into my workshop later. Thanks

author: cowasaki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2021, 07:31:49 am
content: Quote from: Benta on January 27, 2021, 12:09:56 amVLC? For watching what is effectively a web cam? I didn't know it did that.

author: cowasaki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2021, 07:32:34 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on January 26, 2021, 11:33:58 pmThanks but I'm running Windows

author: cowasaki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2021, 08:41:37 am
content: Quote from: cowasaki on January 27, 2021, 07:31:49 amOK VLC does it. I will have to work out what options I need for everything as the default has worse video than amcap

author: cowasaki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2021, 08:46:46 am
content: Quote from: cowasaki on January 27, 2021, 07:30:43 amI cant download it as it requires registration but doesn't accept details.EDIT: It wouldn't accept any legit email addresses but did accept bob.dylan@ici.comNow downloading

author: cowasaki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2021, 08:57:03 am
content: OK so e-cam-view works as well as AMCAP with a good quality output. VLC does work but in trying to be clever with dozens of options falls over on not offering a fully default option. As such it is displaying an out of focus 4:3 image rather than the correct image. As e-cam-view just works I will use that rather than spend however long it takes going through all the options with codecs etc just to find the correct one that AMCAP and e-cam-view detected and worked withThanks everyone. That was really helpful

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2021, 07:10:29 pm
content: On Linux I've yet to find an optimal scientific image capture package.For people using Linux, maybe imagej (which I remember as very old) or in the case of astronomy images, wxastrocam?I'd really love to have a still and video capture program that was well suited to doing on screen measurements.

author: cowasaki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2021, 09:28:26 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on January 27, 2021, 07:10:29 pmI know VLC is available on linux so maybe that's the way to go. I couldn't be bothered messing around with a dozen settings just to get the default image as comes out of the camera so I went with the other one which is fine.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2021, 10:49:59 pm
content: VLC works fine for video capture alone. So does obs.

author: ve7xen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2021, 08:12:55 am
content: Quote from: cdev on January 27, 2021, 07:10:29 pmImageJ feels old in its quirky design, but it's still getting updated (last Dec 2020) and is quite powerful. I kind of like it. I end up using it fairly often to pull missing dimensions from datasheets / CAD drawings. Doesn't support realtime video, though, which would be a really nice addition.