Terrible resolution on integrated webcam on Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition 9310
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
linux-signed-oem-5.10 (Ubuntu) |
New
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
This seems to be a known issue, but I couldn't find any launchpad bug corresponding to it. Apologies if I missed it, or if there is a better place for reporting a bug like this.
When I try to use the webcam on my newly purchased Dell XPS-13-9310 Developer Edition, using Cheese (or any other app) on Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS (fossa-bulbasaur X55), as it came out of the box, I only get a very pixelated low quality 640x480 resolution instead of the hardware's 1280×720 capability as advertised here:
From what I gather, no linux driver exist that can use the full resolution of this webcam.
I hope that it is somehow possible to get a proper driver from Dell / Realtek. If not, I hope that Realtek can provide documentation for the interface so that a proper driver can be written. I'm tempted to try to make that my first contribution of a driver, but in all likelihood I won't have the time or motivation to learn all that's needed and actually write it.
Until a driver is available, I would appreciate if Dell would clarify on their website that their 9310 Developer Edition can only use the full advertised resolution in Windows. (I would not have bought this laptop if I had known about this limitation, as I frequently use Google Meet / Zoom and the current quality is not acceptable to me).
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: linux-image-
ProcVersionSign
Uname: Linux 5.10.0-1045-oem x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckR
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sun Oct 3 15:40:31 2021
DistributionCha
# This is the distribution channel descriptor for the OEM CDs
# For more information see http://
canonical-
InstallationDate: Installed on 2021-09-22 (11 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04 "Focal" - Build amd64 LIVE Binary 20200502-05:58
ProcEnviron:
TERM=xterm-
PATH=(custom, no user)
XDG_RUNTIME_
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: linux-signed-
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
Hello!
Sorry for the very late reply...
First of all, there have been a few Linux kernel updates in Ubuntu 20.04 since you opened this issue. Please upgrade your system and check if you have the latest available version of the kernel installed; in a terminal, you can run these commands:
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
uname -r
You should get something like "5.13.0- 30-generic" .
If the problem still persists, install the Video4Linux utility package and check what formats and resolutions are available for the webcam; again, in a terminal:
sudo apt install v4l-utils
v4l2-ctl -D --list-formats-ext
You should get something like:
=============
Driver Info:
Driver name : uvcvideo
Card type : Video Capture 5
Bus info : usb-0000:00:14.0-3
Driver version : 5.13.19
Capabilities : 0x84a00001
(...)
[1]: 'MJPG' (Motion-JPEG, compressed)
Size: Discrete 640x480
(...)
=============
Please attach the output of the v4l2-ctl command to this issue so we can investigate.
Thanks!