Bitten by the bytes[32]

I discovered that you have to right click in the area labeled filter to pop up a menu that allows you to do color correction and add other odd filters. If that is not the most unintuitive thing I have seen, it at least ranks, since there is no help about it. This is a screen snap of "camorama", but I played with the title and some other elements while digging through the code.

I have been playing with video, gstreamer, cheese, camorama and other v4l diagnostics and devices. I think that I may be competent, which is scary. I have been wading knee deep in Linux and source for a few years now and I think I have enough information to be dangerous.

I looked into the heart of the kernel darkness and I see many things.

struct video_capability
{
 char name[32];
 int type;
 int channels; /* Num channels */
 int audios; /* Num audio devices */
 int maxwidth; /* Supported width */
 int maxheight; /* And height */
 int minwidth; /* Supported width */
 int minheight; /* And height */
};

This is from "videodev.h". It seems to me that many things are compiled against this and expect it to be that way. The odd thing is that the name of my video device is longer than that. I am guessing ( or hoping) that they are wise in putting that name there, however , that is to be seen. I suppose I have to go one step beyond and see who populates that structure in the .ko and who expects it to be that way. What really surprises me is that other programs get the full name and this is a riddle within an enigma. I implies a different handling and I guess I will be to the USB trace level soon.

It seems that I have enough information now to look at code and say where people have goofed. It also seems that I could easily write dozens of new device drivers every day. Many people cry about lack of spec from manufacturers, but my past is in the PC compatible business and I never let a lack of information stop me. There are many weirding ways that I have learned.

When considering lack of spec, it seems the biggest problem is that whoever designed life forgot to publish even a readme or man file. I have tried "man life" and I get this:

No manual entry for life