*********************************************************** * EasyCAP USB 2.0 Video Adapter with Audio, Model DC60 * * and * * EasyCAP002 4-Channel USB 2.0 DVR * *********************************************************** Mike Thomas SUPPORTED HARDWARE ------------------ This driver is intended for use with hardware having USB ID 05e1:0408. Two kinds of EasyCAP have this USB ID, namely: * EasyCAP USB 2.0 Video Adapter with Audio, Model DC60, having input cables labelled CVBS, S-VIDEO, AUDIO(L), AUDIO(R) * EasyCAP002 4-Channel USB 2.0 DVR, having input cables labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and an unlabelled input cable for a microphone. BUILD OPTIONS AND DEPENDENCIES ------------------------------ Unless EASYCAP_DEBUG is defined during compilation it will not be possible to select a debug level at the time of module installation. KNOWN RUNTIME ISSUES -------------------- (1) Intentionally, this driver will not stream material which is unambiguously identified by the hardware as copy-protected. Normal video output will be present for about a minute but will then freeze when this situation arises. (2) The controls for luminance, contrast, saturation, hue and volume may not always work properly. (3) Reduced-resolution S-Video seems to suffer from moire artefacts. INPUT NUMBERING --------------- For the EasyCAP with S-VIDEO input cable the driver regards a request for inputs numbered 0 or 1 as referring to CVBS and a request for input numbered 5 as referring to S-VIDEO. For the EasyCAP with four CVBS inputs the driver expects to be asked for any one of inputs numbered 1,2,3,4. If input 0 is asked for, it is interpreted as input 1. MODULE PARAMETERS ----------------- Three module parameters are defined: debug the easycap module is configured at diagnostic level n (0 to 9) gain audio gain level n (0 to 31, default is 16) bars whether to display testcard bars when incoming video signal is lost 0 => no, 1 => yes (default) SUPPORTED TV STANDARDS AND RESOLUTIONS -------------------------------------- The following TV standards are natively supported by the hardware and are usable as (for example) the "norm=" parameter in the mplayer command: PAL_BGHIN, NTSC_N_443, PAL_Nc, NTSC_N, SECAM, NTSC_M, NTSC_M_JP, PAL_60, NTSC_443, PAL_M. In addition, the driver offers "custom" pseudo-standards with a framerate which is 20% of the usual framerate. These pseudo-standards are named: PAL_BGHIN_SLOW, NTSC_N_443_SLOW, PAL_Nc_SLOW, NTSC_N_SLOW, SECAM_SLOW, NTSC_M_SLOW, NTSC_M_JP_SLOW, PAL_60_SLOW, NTSC_443_SLOW, PAL_M_SLOW. The available picture sizes are: at 25 frames per second: 720x576, 704x576, 640x480, 360x288, 320x240; at 30 frames per second: 720x480, 640x480, 360x240, 320x240. WHAT'S TESTED AND WHAT'S NOT ---------------------------- This driver is known to work with mplayer, mencoder, tvtime, zoneminder, xawtv, gstreamer and sufficiently recent versions of vlc. An interface to ffmpeg is implemented, but serious audio-video synchronization problems remain. The driver is designed to support all the TV standards accepted by the hardware, but as yet it has actually been tested on only a few of these. I have been unable to test and calibrate the S-video input myself because I do not possess any equipment with S-video output. UDEV RULES ---------- In order that the special files /dev/easycap0 and /dev/easysnd1 are created with conveniently relaxed permissions when the EasyCAP is plugged in, a file is preferably to be provided in directory /etc/udev/rules.d with content: ACTION!="add|change", GOTO="easycap_rules_end" ATTRS{idVendor}=="05e1", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0408", \ MODE="0666", OWNER="root", GROUP="root" LABEL="easycap_rules_end" MODPROBE CONFIGURATION ---------------------- The easycap module is in competition with the module snd-usb-audio for the EasyCAP's audio channel, and its installation can be aided by providing a file in directory /etc/modprobe.d with content: options easycap gain=16 bars=1 install easycap /sbin/rmmod snd-usb-audio; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install easycap ACKNOWLEGEMENTS AND REFERENCES ------------------------------ This driver makes use of information contained in the Syntek Semicon DC-1125 Driver, presently maintained at http://sourceforge.net/projects/syntekdriver/ by Nicolas Vivien. Particularly useful has been a patch to the latter driver provided by Ivor Hewitt in January 2009. The NTSC implementation is taken from the work of Ben Trask.