I recently purchased a cheap usb webcam, labeled "digigr8", capable of
15fps at 640x480 and 30 fps at 320x200.

The only problem, however, is finding if this device is supported by
some linux driver. So far, I've been unable to find ANY info about who
is the manufacturer (why does taiwanese low-end stuff lack a physical
address and the name of the manufacturer? Are these things
manufactured on sweat shops? I sometimes wonder... :).

By booting windows, the only info I was able to gather is this:

From the INF file: "USB PC Camera 301P"

Driver:    usbVM302.sys
Ver:       4.2.1010.41
Desc:      Video streaming and Capture Device Driver
Copyright: VM., 2003.

By googling around, I was able to find another camera that also
identifies itself as "USB PC Camera 301P", so I guess all cheap
cameras use the same chipset and driver.

See:
http://www.orite.com.tw/english/manual/tc320-eng-manual.pdf
http://www.globalsources.com/gsol/Index/1/3catalog_id/22000000003844/...

The mad behaviour of not including any useful reference on the .sys
driver to locate the company or chipset manufacturer is a classic on
asian hardware providers and windows drivers. There's a spec in
windows allowing to embed copyright and company info in the .sys
drivers for a reason!. What are they thinking?. I even looked at the
file with a hex editor trying to find some hidden copyright notice but
there was none.

I'm trying to avoid tearing the tiny camera apart, since it seems to
be glued, there are no visible screws.

So, what's the easiest way to find what chipset is inside this beast?
(I'm sure this camera is a 100% perfect copy of the reference
implementation of some chipset manufcturer -who must have devised a
CCD+USB controller on a chip-... the chinese/taiwanese folks aren't
often very imaginative and just end up releasing the products based on
the chipset manufacturer's demo boards :).

Any good USB sniffer (that works on 2.4-kernel linux, or winders) that
I should know about?. No flames, please. :)

Thanks so much.

I'm going to post here the details on the bloody ZC0310PLUS chipset (I
finally found about it by opening up the camera), in the interest of
having this message archived by Google Groups, maybe it'll help
someone...

============================
Z-Star microelectronics webcam chipset (ZC0310PLUS)
and its current (lack of) linux support.

The most puzzling fact, of course, is buying something and then upon
close inspection, finding that the device is manufactured by....
NOBODY. I mean, yes, there's a "Made in China" in there, but absolutly
no physical address, no company name. This is not the first time I run
into products like this. I wonder if they manufacture this in
sweatshops, aboard ships crossing the ocean, or what.... :)

Now back to the point: the USB webcam-style camera is only labeled
"DigiGR8".

Without further info, I booted XP, and looked at the device's windows
drivers, looking for clues about the manufacturer. I found NOTHING:

Driver:    usbVM302.sys
Ver:       4.2.1010.41
Desc:      Video streaming and Capture Device Driver
Copyright: VM., 2003. (<= VM... very useful!. There's a spec that
allows embedding copyright and company name info into .sys
driver files, yet most Asian companies choose not to include that.
Sheesh!).

Then, I did a google search, learned about this nice GPL software
called USBSnoop for win32, available at:
http://benoit.papillault.free.fr/usbsnoop/index.php.en

Installed it (amazing, no reboot needed!, unlike commercial USB
sniffers selling for $69usd!)
... and found the device:

USB\Vid_0ac8&Pid_301b&Rev_0100

A quick look upon the Linux USB ID's database at
http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids and I found the culprits of my
disgrace:
0ac8  Z-Star Microelectronics Corp.

But I needed to know the actual chipset #, not just the manufacturer.
I tried to see if there were a software-side method to know this, but
found nothing. So I had no choice but to open my camera. Inside I
found a single big chip (besides the CCD on the other side of the tiny
circuit board, which I couldn't identify because there are no markings
on it):

ZC0310PLUS

Oh well, the joy began...

I found that there's a group of open source developers trying to
reverse-engineer these cameras' chipset and get linux drivers working.
So far, it seems they haven't made much progress. See:

http://zc0302.sourceforge.net/zc0302.php?page=cams

In case you want to see the DOZENs of webcams available with the
bloody ZC0310plus chipset on it, go to this web page (warning:
slowwww)
http://www.wivo.cn/en/sec03-p.asp?Product_type=pccamera

...they come in all sizes, colors and shapes, but the internals are
apparently the same.

What is ironic is that in the chinese manufacturer's web page the
company description at:
http://www.globalsources.com/si/6008801722037/shuoying.co
says:

" Our 35 R&D designers roll out more than 20 new products every year.
We also provide full support for your customization needs. Delivery
lead time of OEM-ready products is 15 days"

Certainly their operation looks succesfull in the sense that they are
are able to flood the world marketplace with inexpensive usb cameras,
all using
the same  "ZC0310plus" chipset manufactured by  "Z-Star
Microelectronics".

http://www.wivo.cn/en/sec03-p.asp?Product_type=pccamera

But these "35 R&D engineers" are NOT supporting linux, despite
the chinese government interest in the OS. Maybe they need to hear
about the "China Linux Standards Group", launched this spring by the
Chinese government to promote Linux in China?.

Novell joins China Linux Group
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/36437.html

...or about the "Red Flag" linux distro?
http://www.redflag-linux.com/eindex.html&e=747

I encourage everyone with one of these little cheap webcams to write a
polite petitioin for official linux support to:

sa...@zsmc.com <- the chipset manufacturer
shuoyingsa...@globalsources.com <- one popular builder of ZC0310 based
webcams

Here's the sourceforge.net project currently trying to develop linux
drivers:
http://zc0302.sourceforge.net/zc0302.php?page=cams

============================

This webcam chipset has also been listed on the Linux Incompatibility
List:

http://leenooks.com/38

Maybe we ought to include some 'Also Known As' listings for it?