Ps3 Eyetoy Camera

[Lise Henton]

TheEyeToy is a color webcam for use with the PlayStation 2. Supported games use computer vision and gesture recognition to process images taken by the EyeToy. This allows players to interact with the games using motion, color detection, and also sound, through its built-in microphone. It was released in 2003 and in total, it has 28 games.

The camera was manufactured by Logitech, although newer EyeToys were manufactured by Namtai. The camera is mainly used for playing EyeToy games developed by Sony and other companies. It is not intended for use as a normal PC camera, although some programmers have written unofficial drivers for it.[3] The EyeToy is compatible with the PlayStation 3 and can be used for video chatting.[4] As of November 6, 2008, the EyeToy has sold 10.5 million units worldwide.[5]

The EyeToy was conceived by Richard Marks in 1999, after witnessing a demonstration of the PlayStation 2 at the 1999 Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California.[6] Marks' idea was to enable natural user interface and mixed reality video game applications using an inexpensive webcam, using the computational power of the PlayStation 2 to implement computer vision and gesture recognition technologies. He joined Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) that year, and worked on the technology as Special Projects Manager for Research and Development.[7][8]

Marks' work drew the attention of Phil Harrison, then Vice President of Third Party Relations and Research and Development at SCEA. Soon after being promoted to Senior Vice President of Product Development at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) in 2000, Harrison brought Marks to the division's headquarters in London to demonstrate the technology to a number of developers. At the demonstration, Marks was joined with Ron Festejo of Psygnosis[8] (which would later merge to become London Studio) to begin developing a software title using the technology, which would later become EyeToy: Play. Originally called the iToy (short for "interactive toy") by the London branch, the webcam was later renamed to the EyeToy by Harrison. It was first demonstrated to the public at the PlayStation Experience event in August 2002 with four minigames.[7]

Already planned for release in Europe, the EyeToy was picked by SCE's Japanese and American branches after the successful showing at the PlayStation Experience. In 2003, EyeToy was released in a bundle with EyeToy: Play: in Europe on July 4, and in North America on November 4. By the end of the year, the EyeToy sold over 2 million units in Europe and 400,000 units in the United States.[7] On February 11, 2004, the EyeToy was released in Japan.

The camera is mounted on a pivot, allowing for positioning. Focusing the camera is performed by rotating a ring around the lens. It comes with two LED lights on the front. A blue light turns on when the PS2 is on, indicating that it is ready to be used, while the red light flashes when there is insufficient light in the room. It also contains a built-in microphone.

The original logo and product design for the camera was designed by Sony employee Oliver Wright. A second, newer model of the EyeToy was also made, but sports a smaller size and silver casing.[9] Apart from smaller electronics, no internal improvements had been made to the new model, and its functionality stayed the same as the old EyeToy.[10]

Since the EyeToy is essentially a webcam inside a casing designed to match the PlayStation 2 and it uses a USB 1.1 protocol and USB plug, it is possible to make it work on other systems relatively easily. Drivers have been created to make it work with many computer operating systems, however, Linux[11] is the only OS that has drivers installed yet no official drivers have been offered by Namtai, Logitech, or Sony for Microsoft Windows, macOS, or Linux. The type of driver required depends on the model of the EyeToy camera. There are three different models:

EyeToy: Cameo is a system for allowing players to include their own images as avatars in other games. Games that support the feature include a head scanning program that can be used to generate a 3D model of the player's head. Once stored on a memory card, this file is then available in games that support the Cameo feature. EyeToy: Cameo licenses the head creation technology Digimask.

My next test was to use an open-source tool for talking to the EyeToy. I tested Motion and it connected right away with the camera. Motion is a very powerful motion detection tool with tons of configuration options. The features that I was interested in were available:

Motion can be started manually from the command line, but the installer adds an init.d-service so that motion is started as daemon process when the Raspberry Pi boots. I had to add r+w permissions on three files to make the service work though:

motion.config has so many options that it can be hard to get started. Here are the settings that I use (the settings that are different from the default configuration), if anyone reading this wants to use the same setup that I have:

To give you the full information I wish to attach multiple eyetoys to the system and record from all of them. (Security software like motion and zoneminder, I couldn't get installed correctly on my system- so I haven't tried those yet).

edit - I tried the same camera on a Windows system and the frame rate is much better in VLC compared to the Ubuntu system. Mind you with default settings in Windows VLC, the resolution isn't great. However, in Skype for example the resolution is amazing and the framerate is good. It seems there must be some settings I am missing somewhere because it doesn't appear to be a hardware problem...

In terms of security cameras, these might be okay (you might want lower resolution) but I'd consider something better at entry points. I could easily imagine people in 320240 stills being unrecognisable and thus material being inadmissable. Here's a decent guide of what you should be aiming for.

I've since bought a second hand Eyetoy and the picture quality on 14.04 is fine. The lens and sensor are awful examples of cheap hardware but the quality isn't nearly as bad as your example. Even in an otherwise pitch-black drawer (with just the red video light), it isn't grainy. Sound is good too.

But the framerate is an issue. Through avconv I'm only getting 7 frames per second. Capturing in VLC only gets 7.5FPS. This side of things does look like a driver issue. It also looks like a regression in V4L2 because there are Ubuntu-recorded videos on Eyetoys that aren't that slow.

Need help with your computer or device? Want to learn new tech skills? You're in the right place!

Geeks to Go is a friendly community of tech experts who can solve any problem you have. Just create a free account and post your question. Our volunteers will reply quickly and guide you through the steps. Don't let tech troubles stop you. Join Geeks to Go now and get the support you need!

The camera is mainly used for playing EyeToy games developed by Sony and other companies. It is not intended for use as a normal PC camera, although some people have developed unofficial drivers for it. As of November 6, 2008, the EyeToy has sold 10.5 million units worldwide.

-EyeToy USB Camera (The one I used was an early model and was manufactured by Logitech, later EyeToys were manufactured by Namtai. I have not tested the driver with a Namtai made EyeToy but I am pretty sure it will work.)

Before we can begin discussing the program, we need to install the EyeToy drivers, since there is no official PS2 EyeToy driver for Windows. I followed this guide and got it working on Windows 10: -eyetoy-on-windows-8-64-bit-working/

From the Device Manager, find the EyeToy, right click and select Update Driver. Select let me pick from list -> have disk -> locate the unzipped driver folder and select HLCLASSIC.inf. Click continue when prompted about the unsigned driver. Once finished, re-enable driver signing enforcement like so:

The next version of Sony's Eyetoy Play, due later this year can be used as a security camera as well as for dancing, karaoke and gameplaying further strengthening the Playstation as a hub for home services and entertainment.

In addition to all the existing EyeToy Play functionality of putting players "within" the game, the new version enables budding detectives to set up their EyeToy Play 2 to become a SpyToy, secretly capture photos or record video of intruders, or they can record their own stealth message that will pop up on the television screen should anyone cross the threshold.

By capturing the movements of a player and combining the live-action with video game graphics, the EyeToy 2's main purpose is to creae a virtual reality environment on a TV screen into which a player can enter. This gives new meaning into "putting the gamer into the game".

Made especially for Playstation 2, the EyeToy: Play 2 is a software/digital camera bundle, and the camera plugs into one of the front USB ports of a PS2 and comes packaged with a variety of party games.

Games generally have the player's image at the centre of the screen and are controlled by the player's movement in front of the camera. With the recent availability in miniaturised, affordable optical technologies such as webcams and mobile phone cameras, the launch of the first EyeToy Play was probably the most innovative development in computer game interaction and control since the advent of the joystick.

The real winning point is its unique approach to video game design that is so instinctive that anyone will be able to play it immediately. It also opens up a world of virtual possibilities and gaming concepts that haven't even been dreamed up.

3a8082e126