Portsdown Webcams

Introduction

Webcams have proved difficult to support on the Portsdown as manufacturers spend a lot of effort in developing Windows drivers (for their major market), but very little effort in developing Linux drivers as it does not bring them much revenue.

The recommended WebCam is the Logitech C920, but this has 3 versions with identical external hardware, but with different elctronics and drivers. Only the oldest version is supported by the Portsdown 2020, but all 3 versions are supported by the Portsdown 4.

Logitech C920

The Logitech C920 has 3 versions:

• The original version, marketed from first introduction until early 2019, included a hardware H264 encoder, and is supported for DATV transmissions by both the Portsdown 2020 and the Portsdown 4. This version responds the the Linux lsusb command with

Bus 001 Device 00x: ID 046d:082d Logitech, Inc. HD Pro Webcam C920

• The second version used electronics manufactured by Orbicom and is only supported by the Portsdown 4. It was marketed from 2019 through to the end of 2020. It does not include a hardware H264 encoder, and responds to the lsusb command with:

Bus 001 Device 00x: ID 046d:0892 Logitech, Inc. OrbiCam

• The latest version does not include a hardware H264 encoder and is only supported by the Portsdown 4. It responds to the lsusb command with:

Bus 001 Device 00x: ID 046d:08e5 Logitech, Inc.