Can someone please help me out with how exactly to start from scratch for using OpenCV for hand gesture recognition? We're basically creating a media player that can function with hand gestures (simple functions such as play, pause, volume up/down etc).
I've installed OpenCV and also EmguCV after visiting one of the links mentioned in the questions, but I need to know how exactly do I get webcam on to detect my hand and gestures.
I don't think OpenCV has an all-in-one function that will "just do hand recognition" for you. This thread will give you some more information.
If you're serious about building a hand tracking system out of OpenCV library calls, then this documentation (and especially cvConvexityDefects) might be a good place to start.