Hello...
I would like to congratulate the skype team for their continuing work. The latest beta version 2.0.0.43 shows some unfortunate regressions though. What I have:
Camera: Logitech Quickcam Communicate STX (new version)
Device ID: (046d:08d7)
Skype : 2.0.0.43
Driver: gspca (1.00.20) compiled and installed from source (using "gspca_build")
Graphics card: proprietary nVidia version 100.14.19
OS: Kubuntu 7.10

Few minutes into a call, the video (more often than not) downscales from 320x240 to 160x120 while freezing in between. And in this process the color concentration is also ruined. Sometimes, stopping and starting the video solves the problem, but it reappears again later in the same call. This problem did not exist with the 2.0.0.27 version.

NOTE THAT: I am not talking about the old version of communicate STX camera (image here). I had the old version previously and it *always* used to scale down to 160x120 50 secs into a call. So, no the one that I am reporting in this post is not that STX webcam!!

Andy, let me know if you need any specific information.
Thanks
PK

Hi -- is it possible to provide a screenshot before/after the effect?

Thanks,
Andy.

Thanks for the response Andy. Kindly find two screen shots attached - one 320x240 is before the video down-scaling, and the second one, 160x120 is after. This time around the down-scaling occurred rather quickly, within a minute I would guess. The screen shots were taken on a XP machine (receiving end). Let me know if you need more info....

Thanks,
PK

Hmm - these don't appear to be the right screenshots, or am I missing something?

Andy.

Sorry I fail to follow your understanding of "right" screen shots. If you can elaborate on why you think they are not "right" then may be I can help and clarify. Anyway, this is how I obtained them - log into skype on Kubuntu as user-A and on Windows as user-B; initiate a call from user-A and accept it as user-B; take the camera and face it towards the monitor; start the video from user-A ("Start my video"); wait for the picture to show up on user-B (windows) and take a snapshot there; keep the video connection on and wait for the "down-scaling" (the camera is still facing the monitor and the physical position of my hand holding the camera hasn't changed, if this is what you had in mind); once the "down-scaling" occurs take another screen shot as user-B; finally post them here....

Am I making sense??

Thanks again,
PK

Ah, sorry. I see what you mean. I just couldn't understand what was in the screenshots themselves or how it was obtained.

Just to confirm what you were saying, the two shots should be identical (alas the second being at lower quality), correct? It shouldn't show a different area of image in each.

Andy.

Hi Andy,
OK, now I see the mistake in my wording, may be "down-scaling" is not the correct term, the image gets cropped too, or zoomed in.

So, no the content of the two shots are NOT identical. The second one (160x120: "after") is a cropped version of the first one (320x240: "before").

Let me put it this way: the camera freezes first, then upon unfreezing, it sort-of-"zoomes-in" and the resulting image is only of 160x120 resolution. In other words if my full head-to-waist-portrait is visible before freezing then I can see only the neck and upper chest after unfreezing. [a mock picture of the situation is attached]

Apologies for the misleading wording. Thanks for looking into this.
Thanks,
PK

Hi everybody,

I have exactly the same problem. But like a few months ago it still worked perfectly. By comparing zc3xx.h from the sources for the gspca driver I found out that in older versions the part about the 160x120 resolution in the function set_zc3xxVGA didn't exist. They must have added this recently. I just removed this part and it seems to work again (I guess Skype is then not using 160x120 anymore but 176x144??). I tested it today by calling another Skype instance on the same computer and there was no cropping anymore.
I hope this helps.
Cheers