Pinnacle and Dazzle
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From: Andy Furniss on 23 Apr 2010 13:30 Davey wrote: > Actually, I'm just for now using the TV-out bypassing the tape, so as long > as the player is turned on, I have A-V output. When I first started testing I found that sometimes I got an error if the player was stopped even though it was outputting a blue screen with a counter on it. It never happened if I started the playback before starting mplayer/mencoder. >> in another terminal and see how much spare Cpu you have (id) > Thanks. The last time that I ran the Dazzle, it went on for a good long > time, only stopping when I did something else on the PC, which suggests the > CPU got overloaded. If it works ok on the basis of "that's all it will do > at one time", I can live with that. > > If I (we!) can get this to the point where it plays locally just fine, then > the next stage will be to get it to stream either to an .iso file, or to a > USB DVD-writer. I am prepared to accept that a second busy USB connection > might be too much to handle, so I have been trying to find how to stream > the signals to a .iso file, but I got lost in the mplayer man document, my > eyes glazed over! Again, any hints welcome. This bit can be tricky - you have raw video which is arriving at 20M bytes/sec, which is likely to be too fast to dump to disk - possibly too fast for usb if the controller is shared. This rate can be reduced a bit to 15.5 MB/s and I suppose there is a small chance your device has some hardware assistance (but I doubt it). Windows software set to high quality does on the fly 6mbit fixed mpeg2 encoding - personally I didn't like the quality and spent ages messing around to make things better - it is possible, but before going into the detail it will be best to get it working and know how much Cpu you have spare.
From: Davey on 23 Apr 2010 14:30 On Fri, 23 Apr 2010 18:30:48 +0100, Andy Furniss wrote: > Davey wrote: > >> Actually, I'm just for now using the TV-out bypassing the tape, so as long >> as the player is turned on, I have A-V output. > > When I first started testing I found that sometimes I got an error if > the player was stopped even though it was outputting a blue screen with > a counter on it. It never happened if I started the playback before > starting mplayer/mencoder. > When mine is 'at rest' it is still outputting the TV channel signal, I am watching the TV using the coax output and a TV. This is the same program that is coming out to the Dazzle via the Audio and Video cables, and I can see on the PC. It's now a matter of getting it under better control. > >>> in another terminal and see how much spare Cpu you have (id) >> Thanks. The last time that I ran the Dazzle, it went on for a good long >> time, only stopping when I did something else on the PC, which suggests the >> CPU got overloaded. If it works ok on the basis of "that's all it will do >> at one time", I can live with that. >> >> If I (we!) can get this to the point where it plays locally just fine, then >> the next stage will be to get it to stream either to an .iso file, or to a >> USB DVD-writer. I am prepared to accept that a second busy USB connection >> might be too much to handle, so I have been trying to find how to stream >> the signals to a .iso file, but I got lost in the mplayer man document, my >> eyes glazed over! Again, any hints welcome. > > This bit can be tricky - you have raw video which is arriving at 20M > bytes/sec, which is likely to be too fast to dump to disk - possibly too > fast for usb if the controller is shared. This rate can be reduced a bit > to 15.5 MB/s and I suppose there is a small chance your device has some > hardware assistance (but I doubt it). > > Windows software set to high quality does on the fly 6mbit fixed mpeg2 > encoding - personally I didn't like the quality and spent ages messing > around to make things better - it is possible, but before going into the > detail it will be best to get it working and know how much Cpu you have > spare. That makes sense to me. If it's possible with Windows, then it should be possible with Linux, no? I agree that the quality was not great, but I didn't do it many times, and would have had no clue as to how to change it, it worked as it said it would, which was what mattered; I needed to put some taped programs onto DVD so I could watch them in Mexico. But I don't have the same PC as I did then, either. Maybe my current hardware just isn't up to the minimum requirement. But the main input requirement is USB 2.0, which I have, and a Pentium CPU, which I have. I may be a bit lacking in the graphics and audio card specs., though. Watch this space, but I doubt there will be any action today. Thanks again. -- Davey.
From: Andy Furniss on 21 Apr 2010 06:36 Davey wrote: >>> When I launch Aslsmixer, all I get is a pair of stereo volume slide, one >>> pair Master, the other Capture. I can move the Master ones, but not the >>> Capture ones, which are fixed at about 60%. No sign of a Mute button >>> anywhere, nor DVC100. The only other thing there is an icon that says >>> 'Pulse Audio'. I have tried selecting that instead of alsa, but it didn't >>> do any good. >> >> I wonder if more will show up if you reboot while the dazzle is connected. >> > Could well do. I'll try it next time, every attempt so far has been > connection with the PC already on. Something else to try - run "alsamixer -c 1" and hopefully it will show the controls for the dazzle sound device. > >> It could also be that your version of ubuntu needs some extra >> configuration somewhere. >> > Running 9.04, fully updtaed. Any ideas what else it might be missing? No, but if all else fails asking on or searching Ubuntu forums/wiki may throw something up.
From: Davey on 21 Apr 2010 11:51 On Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:36:30 +0100, Andy Furniss wrote: > Davey wrote: > >>>> When I launch Aslsmixer, all I get is a pair of stereo volume slide, one >>>> pair Master, the other Capture. I can move the Master ones, but not the >>>> Capture ones, which are fixed at about 60%. No sign of a Mute button >>>> anywhere, nor DVC100. The only other thing there is an icon that says >>>> 'Pulse Audio'. I have tried selecting that instead of alsa, but it didn't >>>> do any good. >>> >>> I wonder if more will show up if you reboot while the dazzle is connected. >>> >> Could well do. I'll try it next time, every attempt so far has been >> connection with the PC already on. > > Something else to try - run "alsamixer -c 1" and hopefully it will show > the controls for the dazzle sound device. > Will do, and I'll report back. I now know how to get the full version of the alsamixer on the screen, which is progress in the right direction. >> >>> It could also be that your version of ubuntu needs some extra >>> configuration somewhere. >>> >> Running 9.04, fully updtaed. Any ideas what else it might be missing? > > No, but if all else fails asking on or searching Ubuntu forums/wiki may > throw something up. I think I have visited every reference to Dazzle and Linux and Ubuntu there is! Much of what is there, I don't understand, as I am not proficient in using Linux (yet?). Pinnacle have told me bluntly: "The Dazzle will not work with Ubuntu, both the software and hardware are designed for Windows", but I know that it has been done. It certainly did work with Windows, and beautifully. Most of the forum messages either say that "It worked for me with no problem, watch this video on You-tube", or "After hours and hours of compiling kernels, I still couldn't get the sound to work". And I have tried to run it on a less powerful PC with a virtualbox/XP, but it doesn't recognise that there is a Dazzle out there, it sees a bunch of audio/visual codecs and drivers, but the software needs to know that it is a Dazzle, or it doesn't offer the correct setup options, and I can't seem to find the key to get it to recognise the Dazzle. I suggested to Pinnacle that they might like to start working with Linux as a usable O.S. I don't expect a reply, however. As always, all help gratefully received and appreciated. I have already learned some things, so you have all helped me, even if the ultimate goal is never attained. Thanks. -- Davey.
From: Davey on 24 Apr 2010 17:59
On Thu, 22 Apr 2010 23:40:46 +0100, Andy Furniss wrote: > Davey wrote: > >> Ran it again, and watched. When it quit, this is the message. The A: and V: >> values had gone from 0, as had the 3208/3208 refs. Now to find out what it >> all means, and what to do about it. Again, any help most welcome, I am a >> "Stranger in a Strange Land" here. >> >> "A: 107.6 V: 107.6 A-V: 0.003 ct: 0.086 3208/3208 0% 8% 0.8% 10 0 >> 0.75x >> video buffer full - dropping frame". >> >> This repeated ad infinitum, with increasing values, until I killed it. > > The mplayer output was useful as I now know the video format is yuy2, > which should get hardware acceleration. > > I wish I knew why it isn't working properly, though - so some more > things to try. > > Make sure the video is playing before you start mplayer. > > Try using an extra option called buffersize like - > > mplayer tv:// -tv > driver=v4l2:norm=NTSC:buffersize=64:device=/dev/video0:audiorate=48000:immediatemode=0:forceaudio:adevice=/dev/dsp1 > As long as I don't use too much CPU otherwise, it keeps running. > Try using alsa for sound - > > mplayer tv:// -tv > driver=v4l2:norm=NTSC:device=/dev/video0:audiorate=48000:immediatemode=0:forceaudio:alsa:adevice=hw.1 > This failed with the following mesage: "ALSA lib pcm.c:2205:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM hw1 Error opening audio: No such file or directory ALSA lib pcm.c:2205:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM hw1 Error opening audio: No such file or directory ALSA lib pcm.c:2205:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM hw1 Error opening audio: No such file or directory v4l2: 0 frames successfully processed, 0 frames dropped." > Try using textured video rather than overlay. > > mplayer -vo xv:adaptor=1 tv:// -tv > driver=v4l2:norm=NTSC:buffersize=64:device=/dev/video0:audiorate=48000:immediatemode=0:forceaudio:adevice=/dev/dsp1 > Couldn't get that to work, it didn't like anything after the "xv", and I couldn't find any other way of switching the video mode to textured. > Of course you can mix the extra options eg if alsa sound works > try with buffersize=64 and -vo xv:adaptor=1 as well etc. > > When testing leave running > > top -b | grep Cpu > > in another terminal and see how much spare Cpu you have (id) That worked, and gave me the info I needed. I tried some other stuff, but it either made no difference, or caused crashes! If you have any other ideas, they would be welcome Currently using: mplayer -vo xv tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:norm=NTSC:device=/dev/video0:audiorate=48000:immediatemode=0:forceaudio:adevice=/dev/dsp1:volume=2000 -- Davey. |