How to Use Webcam with Kinect?

Question

I am trying to use webcam in my Kinect Project. The problem i am facing is that when i plug both camera and kinect together, webcam stops working, it gives me a black screen, Even it stops working in Skype as well. If i remove Kinect device, Webcam works successfully.

How can i use both webcam and Kinect together?

Regards Aftab

Answer 1

Quote from MSDN:

Since a Kinect requires at least 50% of the USB bandwidth available, make sure that the Kinect does not share the USB controller with any other devices.

When you enable the infrared and rgb stream, the kinect will use about 21MB/s of your usb bandwidth. Due to definition a USB 2.0 host offers a max Bandwidth of 36 to 40MB/s.

Try to plug your camera into other usb ports and hope for the best.

Answer 2

In addition to kallocain's answer you should consider using a powered USB hub or separate USB expansion board.

Ideally you want to have a kinect sensor connected to a single usb root hub because of the high bandwidth needed.

Most computers that offer 2 usb ports, have the ports connected to the same root hub internally. If your computer has multiple ports, find the documentation of the motherboard and check which ports are connected to which usb roots and make sure you connect your kinect to a separate hub from your camera.