Arduino and camera/webcam

use the serial output

It doesn't output serial data - it outputs raw video - you could solder an RCA connector on it and connect it directly to your TV.

There are camera modules that output "serial" data - sparkfun has a few. Typically they were designed for use in mobile phones.

As grumpy_mike points out though, the arduino doesn't have enough bandwidth or storage space to capture/process/do anything with it. You need something like an FPGA board. Search sparkfun's forums for some examples - it's a fairly advanced project.