This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org: --- Title : Get webcam resolution and info on Ubuntu and fix HD Author : Remy van Elst Date : 23-08-2020 URL : https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Get_webcam_resolution_and_info_on_Ubuntu_and_fix_HD.html Format : Markdown/HTML --- With all the video calling nowdays due to working from home I decided to get a webcam. Since I mostly work at a workstation, I have no microphone or camera built in. A friend gave me a spare webcam, a generic non-brand. It says "HD Camera" on the box, but by default it records in 640x480. Using a few tools on Ubuntu you can figure out what resolutions are supported for your device. It turned out to be Cheese, the webcam capture program I used, not supporting the `mjpeg` format, just the `yuyv` RAW format. Using another webcam program named [Webcamoid][2] solved it, that program was able to use `mjpeg`.

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Here's a picture of Cheese showing the possible resolutions, none of which are even near HD: ![cheese resolution][1] ### lsusb Via the device itself, without installing external software, you should be able to find out what resolutions are supported. First get the correct Bus and device ID: lsusb Output: [...] Bus 003 Device 006: ID 1b3f:2247 Generalplus Technology Inc Along with a bunch of `Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub`, but this is the device I want to query. Bus 003, device 006. Query that device and grep for `Width|Height`: lsusb -s 003:006 -v | grep -E "Width|Height" Output: wWidth 1920 wHeight 1080 wWidth 1280 [...] This should give you a general idea. For more detailed information, you can use tools from `video4linux`. ### video4linux `v4l`, or, video4linux is a long time project regarding all things video, on linux, as the name might suggest. I remember using it with Mandrake back in the day to get a camera working, and it's still going strong as a project. Install the required packages to get started: apt install v4l-utils Query the camera directly, in my case it's `/dev/video0`: v4l2-ctl --list-formats-ext -d /dev/video0 Output: ioctl: VIDIOC_ENUM_FMT Index : 0 Type : Video Capture Pixel Format: 'MJPG' (compressed) Name : Motion-JPEG Size: Discrete 1920x1080 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Size: Discrete 1280x720 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Size: Discrete 800x480 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Size: Discrete 640x480 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Size: Discrete 640x360 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Size: Discrete 320x240 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Size: Discrete 176x144 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Size: Discrete 800x600 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Size: Discrete 1920x1080 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Index : 1 Type : Video Capture Pixel Format: 'YUYV' Name : YUYV 4:2:2 Size: Discrete 640x480 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Size: Discrete 640x360 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Size: Discrete 320x240 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Size: Discrete 176x144 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Size: Discrete 640x480 Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps) Or, using `ffmpeg` for more compact output: ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -list_formats all -i /dev/video0 Output: Compressed: mjpeg : Motion-JPEG : 1920x1080 1280x720 800x480 640x480 640x360 320x240 176x144 800x600 1920x1080 Raw : yuyv422 : YUYV 4:2:2 : 640x480 640x360 320x240 176x144 640x480 ### Solving the resolution issue with Cheese I didn't find any options to use a different format or resolution with Cheese. I tried `camorama` but that also has no configurable resolution. Then I tried `guvcview` but that crashed my KDE desktop and at last I tried [Webcamoid][2]. That did have options for resolution and encoding, as you can see in the below image: ![webcamoid][3] [1]: /s/inc/img/cheese_resolution.png [2]: https://webcamoid.github.io/ [3]: /s/inc/img/webcamoid.png --- License: All the text on this website is free as in freedom unless stated otherwise. This means you can use it in any way you want, you can copy it, change it the way you like and republish it, as long as you release the (modified) content under the same license to give others the same freedoms you've got and place my name and a link to this site with the article as source. This site uses Google Analytics for statistics and Google Adwords for advertisements. You are tracked and Google knows everything about you. Use an adblocker like ublock-origin if you don't want it. All the code on this website is licensed under the GNU GPL v3 license unless already licensed under a license which does not allows this form of licensing or if another license is stated on that page / in that software: This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see . Just to be clear, the information on this website is for meant for educational purposes and you use it at your own risk. I do not take responsibility if you screw something up. Use common sense, do not 'rm -rf /' as root for example. If you have any questions then do not hesitate to contact me. See https://raymii.org/s/static/About.html for details.