QA department is driving me mad

Question

We're developing an audio/video chat application and QA dept. reported a bug: an indicator on a web-cam is ON even if no video required. After a short investigation I found out that the web cam turns on because of audio capture system initialization. They are asking to do something with it because "users won't like it - I'm not broadcasting any video, why is it ON?"

AFAIK I can do nothing with it. I think it's up to web-cam driver developers - whether to turn on the lamp if video is required or simply mic is turned on, isn't it?

Please, share your opinion. Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

You are right, it is up to the camera manufacturer how the LED is controlled. Some can turn off LED indication and some can't.

The LED often indicates that the camera is active, meaning, capturing either sound, video or both. As a user I would definitely like to know if my camera is active or not, regardless of what it is capturing.

You should have different camera models and brands to test with. Do they all behave the same? It seems like you have to convince QA:

1. This behaviour is up to the camera manufacturer
   (testing with different models and manufacturer may prove this).

2. The user should see that the camera is active, even if it is only sound.