I have a Logitech C910 USB 2.0 USB camera which supports up to 1080p video recording. I am using the camera on a laptop with a Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2410M CPU @ 2.30GHz CPU. Ubuntu 11.10 recognises the device and allows me to capture both photos and video.
What does not work is high-resolution video recording: I haven't had much luck with anything above VGA resolution. Cheese appears to be hard-coded to use OGG which puts way too much strain on the CPU. guvcview crashes whichever way I try it.
Is it possible to record smooth, 25fps video at 1280x720px+ resolutions on Linux?
Try guvcview:
http://guvcview.sourceforge.net/
You could try using guvcviewer, which is available directly in the Ubuntu Software Center. Here is its official website with documentation, etc.