Can't setup a virtual device to work with the webcam

[looscrew]

Running 'emulator -webcam-list -avd [avd name]' (for any device, or without the device param) yields the following:
emulator: ERROR: cmd_camera_device_start_capturing: Device 'AndroidEmulatorVC0' is unable to save frame to the clipboard: 0

I'm on Windows 8.1 / Lenovo laptop with Lenovo EasyCamera. The driver is five years old but up-to-date according to the system. The webcam works with other programs. When changing the driver to USB Video Device, the above error message is gone, there is no message at all and a window pops up to select a 'capture source', with the EasyCamera as the only option.

Then running a virtual device and trying to open the camera app, using either of the two drivers results in a 'Can't connect to the camera' error message.

There is a 1GB sd card I setup with mksdcard, and correct readings are confirmed in config.ini and hardware-qemu.ini :
hw.sdCard.path points to the right sd card file path, and hw.sdCard=yes.
Also,
hw.camera.front = webcam0
hw.camera.back = emulated
I tried with 'none' instead of 'emulated', reversing the values for front and back, also setting both to 'webcam0' which I understand should not work anyway.
I also added the line 'hw.camera=yes' that I saw somewhere. Not sure if it has an effect.

There seem to be quite a few posts unanswered/unresolved on stackoverflow and other sites concerning a seemingly similar issue. I followed all the suggestions I came across and so far nothing works. Is there anything more I can do? Other than connecting a physical device which I already did but it's not ideal.

[marctan]

try genymotion