My Somikon webcam doesn't get noticed by Cheese, Skype or VLC.
lsusb gives me: Bus 003 Device 003: ID 0ac8:3420 Z-Star Microelectronics Corp. Venus USB2.0 Camera
Cheese just doesn't find it like Skype (no device found). VLC recognizes it as /dev/video0 but when I try to capture it, it throws me an error that he can't open it. When I go to the System Settings and look for Input Devices he shows the microphone of my webcam as microphone Venus USB2.0 Camera and I see the Input if I speak or make noise. So this should work.
The following from here didn't change anything.
unload the driver module: sudo modprobe -r uvcvideo Then reload with the correct parameter: sudo modprobe uvcvideo quirks=16
My goal is to use the Webcam to videochat with Skype.
If it helps, this is my webcam: http://www.pearl.de/a-PX8185-1341.shtml
I use fully updated Ubuntu 14.04.1 with 64bit.