The USB video device class (also USB video class or UVC) is a USB

Universal Serial Bus

USB is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and protocols used in a bus for connection, communication and power supply between computers and electronic devices....

 device class that describes devices capable of streaming video like webcams

Webcam

A webcam is a video camera that feeds its images in real time to a computer or computer network, often via USB, ethernet, or Wi-Fi.Their most popular use is the establishment of video links, permitting computers to act as videophones or videoconference stations. This common use as a video camera...

, digital camcorders

Camcorder

A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage...

, transcoders, analog video converters, television tuners

TV tuner card

A TV tuner card is a kind of television tuner that allows television signals to be received by a computer. Most TV tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to record television programs onto a hard disk much like the Tivo digital video recorder does.-Variants: The interfaces for...

, and still-image cameras

Still camera

A still camera is a type of camera used to take photographs. Traditional cameras capture light onto photographic film. Digital cameras use electronics, usually a charge coupled device to store digital images in computer memory inside the camera...

.

The latest revision of the USB video class specification carries the version number 1.1 and was defined by the USB Implementers Forum

USB Implementers Forum

The USB Implementers Forum is a non-profit organisation to promote and support the Universal Serial Bus. Its main activities are the promotion and marketing of USB, Wireless USB, USB On-The-Go, and the maintenance of the specifications, as well as a compliance program.It was formed in 1995 by the...

 in a set of documents describing both the basic protocol and the different payload formats.

See also the List of USB video class devices

Webcams

Webcams were among the first devices to support the UVC standard and they are currently the most popular UVC devices. It can be expected that in the near future most webcams will be UVC compatible as this is a logo requirement for Windows Vista

Windows Vista

Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...

 ("Certified for Windows Vista").

Revision History

For detailed history on releases, see the revision history section of the published USB UVC documents, available from the USB.org/developers/docs page.

1. Version	Date	Description
   1.0	September 9, 2004	Initial release
   1.0a	December 4, 2003	Add Additional Descriptor Subtypes for "Extension" types. FAQ: Added section 2.21 Interlaced Video
   1.0b	?	Changes to FAQ only: Protocol STALL behavior, Current and Future Payload Header Formats
   1.0c	June 5, 2004	Changes to FAQ only: Added Motion JPEG Characteristics
   1.1	June 1, 2005	Major update including among other things: New Documents specifying for Stream and Frame Based Payloads, Latency optimizations for Stream-based formats, Specification of Absolute and Relative Control relationship, Asynchronous controls behavior, change naming from "VDC" to "UVC", obsolete old formats and add new ones, add a flag to distinguish between dynamic and fixed frame rate devices (RR0043).

Linux

USB video class support for Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

 is provided by the Linux UVC driver, although as of August 2011 support for still-image capture is not yet implemented

Since Linux 2.6.26 the driver is included in kernel source distribution.

Apple Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 ships with a UVC driver included since version 10.4.3, updated in 10.4.9 to work with iChat

IChat

iChat is an instant messaging software application developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its Mac OS X operating system. It has audio, video and screen-sharing capabilities as well as text messaging...

.

FreeBSD

Not implemented yet, there are patches available which make Linux kernel USB mediadrivers work in userspace, by using an asynchronous USB interface. FreeBSD is the first OS to have an entire highspeed USB driver in userland.

NetBSD

NetBSD

NetBSD

NetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,...

 added the uvideo http://netbsd.gw.com/cgi-bin/man-cgi?uvideo++NetBSD-current driver for UVC devices in September, 2008; added in the 5.0 release.

OpenBSD

OpenBSD

OpenBSD

OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995...

 added the uvideo http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=uvideo&sektion=4 driver for UVC devices in April, 2008; it appears in the 4.4 release.

Sony PlayStation 3

The PlayStation 3

PlayStation 3

The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...

 added support for UVC compatible webcams in firmware version 1.54 (only works for video chat, not games.)

Sun Solaris

Solaris includes support for UVC webcams in the form of the usbvc driver for OpenSolaris. The driver ships with Solaris Express build 56 and later.

Microsoft Windows

Windows XP

Windows XP

Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...

 has a class driver

Class driver

In computing, a class driver is a type of hardware device driver that can operate a large number of different devices of a broadly similar type....

 for USB video class devices since Service Pack 2, as does Windows Vista

Windows Vista

Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...

. A post-service pack 2 update that adds more capabilities is also available. Most device manufacturers do, however, provide their own drivers tailored to the capabilities of the product in question.