"Visopsys (VISual OPerating SYStem) is an alternative operating system for PC-compatible computers, developed almost exclusively by one person, Andy McLaughlin, since its inception in 1997. Andy is a 30-something programmer from Canada, who, via Boston and San Jose ended up in London, UK, where he spends much of his spare time developing Visopsys. We had the great fortune to catch up with Andy via email and ask him questions about Visopsys, why he started the project in the first place, and where is it going in the future."
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Member since:2011-01-28
Yes, I say "if" because clearly some new webcams are not supported by windows 7 out of the box. I'm looking now at newegg and I can't tell which ones are and which are not, they don't list their usb classes or identification numbers. To be honest, I don't mind installing drivers the old-school way, it was never really a criteria for me.
The only device type where not having built in drivers really hurts is network cards - since there's no way to go online and download new drivers.
Member since:2005-07-06
But total world domination of UVC is not what I had in mind when writing "Webcams are already more or less covered, by USB video class" - for there to be no outliers, you'd have to force everybody to use UVC, and how do you propose doing that? (other than... MS becoming much more aggressive - and not only about the logo, but outright banning all non-compliant devices from Windows; I can bet you'd grumble much more about such scenario :p ).
So yes, webcams following their USB class are out there and quite numerous, no need for "if" - salesmen not advertising it, and consumers seemingly not caring much, is another issue.
Because it's good to have built-in drivers, or even such device class. Makes hardware more likely usable, down the line (that decade+ old QuickCam Express that I mentioned, still recognized & working flawlessly; no such luck with one similarly old and much nicer - but also rarer - Philips webcam; plus, OS-included drivers of chipsets and such often tended to be more trouble-free, in my experience)
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Member since:
2005-07-06
"if"? They're out there, for better part of a decade ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_video_device_class#Revision_Histor... & when I was shopping for a webcam 5 years ago or so, there were certainly some USB video class models available; few on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_USB_video_class_devices or http://www.ideasonboard.org/uvc/#devices list are at least that old)
I guess some noname models might still use oldish innards, not modified for a long time ...as usual with hardware, you check if it fulfils your criteria before buying (but, if you care about such "total" plug'n'play in a webcam, how did you miss the existence of USB video class?), and/or get something very popular - hence widely supported (that example I gave, when the default Windows drivers worked better than manufacturer-provided - it wasn't even a USB video class webcam; it was about pre-UVC, but as standard as they come, classic QuickCam Express)