Webcam Color Format Differences

[Bryan Fury]

I can't find ANY official documentation on those options. I have searched around in many ways and i have found different results.

The official webcam setup popup says that:
1) XRGB = best CPU Performance
2) YUV/YUY2/I420 - Worse CPU Performance
3) MJPEG/NV12 - Worst CPU Performance

But it does NOT explain HOW that said performance is affected at all..

But then looking around, some people says other things instead:
1) XRGB = No Image Compression; High bandwidth required
2) YUV/YUY2/I420 - Moderate Image Compression; Only color compressed; Moderate bandwidth required
3) MJPEG/NV12 - High Image Compression; Low bandwidth required

Based on what people says around, to me it seems that since it's used less bandwidth and there is a bigger image compression, MJPEG/NV12 is better for tracking as it seems to use LESS resources (since you are using it ONLY for the tracking, not to show yourself)... but on the program's popup it said that such option is WORST for the CPU...

I am utterly confused.

Can i have, please, a WELL MADE explaination on each color format type on what it does, performance wise?

[Maya-Neko]

It takes time to compress a picture, which is why not compressing something results in a better CPU-usage, since it only gets taken and then saved/send without any steps in between. However, when it's not compressed it obviously takes more bandwidth when sending it somewhere else (like a 10mb picture simply takes more time to be send over the internet or even between your cam and the PC compared to a 1mb picture). Ultimately you shouldn't confuse CPU performance with bandwidth here.

For why it is worse for VTS i can only guess, that it's because the program might need a specific format, thus having a highly compressed image in the wrong format might need to get decompressed first before being converted, causing it to take longer (but as i've said, i'm only guessing here, so correct me, if someone knows more)