External cameras available for capture?

Processing Libraries
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I am planning to purchase a new camera soon (possibly the Sony DSC-RX mark IV, for example). How can I tell ahead of time if Processing will recognize it when I attach it over USB to the computer?

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I think Processing uses the computers camera. If you wish, you could record video on your own camera, upload it to the computer, and imported to Processing.

Don’t take my word for it though…

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I can use a USB webcam fine. You can see all available cameras using Capture.list();

I’m just wondering which kinds of cameras when tethered over USB can be seen by Processing as well. This is important for various projects I’m working on.

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I’m not familiar with the internals of the Processing Video library, but I believe that the compatibility would be determined by the GStreamer 1.x framework it is built on…?

you might look for such a compatibility list / spec.

I believe that @neilcsmith is an expert in this area and might know more.

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@mortap isn’t that mainly a stills camera? If the driver and OS support use as a webcam then it should work fine with GStreamer (and therefore probably with Processing Video). But there’s a good chance the camera doesn’t support this over USB, and you’ll need to also use a HDMI input device that does. I’m doing a client project using one of those at the moment, which has been tested with gst1-java-core (library behind Processing Video). They’re not cheap!

Possible useful link I found searching for that camera (not quite the same model?) - https://medium.com/@AlexPettitt/live-streaming-with-the-sony-rx100-v-3ebd1f9598

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Thanks! That is helpful.

I’d think many of the newer cameras that are “mainly stills cameras” are more than adequate for good video. (And the one I was looking at does have HDMI output, I didn’t think of that at the time and was just considering USB.)

And I’m not set on a specific model of camera; just wondering about in general finding a way to take advantage of the features in the “mainly stills cameras” (such as more manual adjustments on the camera, zoom, macro, and higher resolution than the FaceTime camera or typical external webcam) for video capture in Processing.