Attention: Answers.ros.org is deprecated as of August the 11th, 2023. Please visit robotics.stackexchange.com to ask a new question. This site will remain online in read-only mode during the transition and into the foreseeable future. Selected questions and answers have been migrated, and redirects have been put in place to direct users to the corresponding questions on Robotics Stack Exchange. Additional details are available here.
usb_cam driver does not buffer anything internally. Possible reasons for your lag are:
Pandaboard and computer running e.g. image_view are not time synchronized
Pandaboard can not serialize msgs fast enough
Wireless connection does not offer enough bandwidth (we are experimenting with the arm processor on the tobi board and we do not get more than 300K of a bandwidth)