Capture from device: PAL / PAL60

[kaefert]

Hi there!

I would like to use VLC to caputure a video signal from an USB Videograbber (Bestek Model 8701, usb-id: eb1a:2863).

I am using Linux Mint Debian Edition and the vlc version that came with it from its repos: "VLC media player 2.0.0 Twoflower"

Now when starting the captureing from the device vlc lets you choose a video standard.

If I select PAL for my signal, I get good colors, but the picture is cut in half and the top half is displayed on the bottom, with an aditional green bar below it.

If I select PAL60 the colors are all wrong but I get the picture in the format that I guess it should be, not cut not scrambled, just the way I would like to see it (except the colors)

Can I somehow tell vlc to give me the colors from PAL and the picture structure from PAL60?


Another Problem I have is the audio. I can only select one of two audio sources (hw:0,0 or hw:1,0) where the first one echos the internal mic of my notebook and second one gives me silence. But what I would like is the audio from the video grabber.


Below is the list of v4l2 options that are generated by vlc, thats the best solution I was able to generate until now:

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:v4l2-standard=PAL_60 :input-slave=alsa://hw:1,0 :v4l2-chroma= :v4l2-input=0 :v4l2-audio-input=-1 :v4l2-width=788 :v4l2-height=576 :v4l2-aspect-ratio=4\:3 :v4l2-fps=0 :v4l2-use-libv4l2 :v4l2-tuner=0 :v4l2-tuner-frequency=-1 :v4l2-tuner-audio-mode=-1 :v4l2-controls-reset :v4l2-brightness=-1 :v4l2-brightness-auto=-1 :v4l2-contrast=-1 :v4l2-saturation=-1 :v4l2-hue=-1 :v4l2-hue-auto=1 :v4l2-white-balance-temperature=-1 :v4l2-auto-white-balance=1 :v4l2-red-balance=-1 :v4l2-blue-balance=-1 :v4l2-gamma=-1 :v4l2-autogain=1 :v4l2-gain=-1 :v4l2-sharpness=-1 :v4l2-chroma-gain=-1 :v4l2-chroma-gain-auto=-1 :v4l2-power-line-frequency=-1 :v4l2-backlight-compensation=-1 :v4l2-band-stop-filter=-1 :no-v4l2-hflip :no-v4l2-vflip :v4l2-rotate=-1 :v4l2-color-killer=-1 :v4l2-color-effect=-1 :v4l2-audio-volume=-1 :v4l2-audio-balance=-1 :no-v4l2-audio-mute :v4l2-audio-bass=-1 :v4l2-audio-treble=-1 :no-v4l2-audio-loudness :v4l2-set-ctrls= :live-caching=10

This is the output of dmesg when connecting the usb-videograbber:

[ 1056.660216] usb 2-2: new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci_hcd
[ 1056.792981] usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=eb1a, idProduct=2863
[ 1056.792991] usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0
[ 1056.983473] IR NEC protocol handler initialized
[ 1057.005577] IR RC5(x) protocol handler initialized
[ 1057.021031] em28xx: New device @ 480 Mbps (eb1a:2863, interface 0, class 0)
[ 1057.021035] em28xx: Audio Vendor Class interface 0 found
[ 1057.021361] em28xx #0: chip ID is em2860
[ 1057.028500] IR RC6 protocol handler initialized
[ 1057.044449] IR JVC protocol handler initialized
[ 1057.046012] IR Sony protocol handler initialized
[ 1057.047592] IR MCE Keyboard/mouse protocol handler initialized
[ 1057.052784] lirc_dev: IR Remote Control driver registered, major 249
[ 1057.053362] IR LIRC bridge handler initialized
[ 1057.116890] em28xx #0: board has no eeprom
[ 1057.212905] em28xx #0: found i2c device @ 0xb8 [tvp5150a]
[ 1057.226267] em28xx #0: Your board has no unique USB ID.
[ 1057.226276] em28xx #0: A hint were successfully done, based on i2c devicelist hash.
[ 1057.226282] em28xx #0: This method is not 100% failproof.
[ 1057.226288] em28xx #0: If the board were missdetected, please email this log to:
[ 1057.226294] em28xx #0: V4L Mailing List <linux-media@vger.kernel.org>
[ 1057.226300] em28xx #0: Board detected as EM2860/TVP5150 Reference Design
[ 1057.304247] em28xx #0: Identified as EM2860/TVP5150 Reference Design (card=29)
[ 1057.331973] tvp5150 3-005c: chip found @ 0xb8 (em28xx #0)
[ 1057.448791] tvp5150 3-005c: tvp5150am1 detected.
[ 1057.508792] em28xx #0: Config register raw data: 0x10
[ 1057.532452] em28xx #0: AC97 vendor ID = 0x83847650
[ 1057.544306] em28xx #0: AC97 features = 0x6a90
[ 1057.544313] em28xx #0: Sigmatel audio processor detected(stac 9750)
[ 1060.188381] em28xx #0: v4l2 driver version 0.1.3
[ 1061.196906] em28xx #0: V4L2 video device registered as video1
[ 1061.196914] em28xx #0: V4L2 VBI device registered as vbi0
[ 1061.196982] usbcore: registered new interface driver em28xx
[ 1061.196987] em28xx driver loaded
[ 1061.204477] em28xx-audio.c: probing for em28xx Audio Vendor Class
[ 1061.204485] em28xx-audio.c: Copyright (C) 2006 Markus Rechberger
[ 1061.204490] em28xx-audio.c: Copyright (C) 2007-2011 Mauro Carvalho Chehab
[ 1061.206465] Em28xx: Initialized (Em28xx Audio Extension) extension
[ 1066.682734] em28xx #0: submit of audio urb failed

About the audio: I now found that with "pavucontrol" I can see an audio input device called "video grabber analog stereo" but I did not manage to use it, audacity hangs when switching its recording stream to this video grabber and in vlc I have no idea how to try to use this.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

PAL is a set of standards, not all coding colors the same way. Thus your question on getting the same color coding as "PAL" does not really make sense. However, PAL-M is probably the only PAL standard with 525 lines at 60 Hz.

You need to select the correct ALSA card to get audio. Unfortunately, there is no way to render from PulseAudio and V4L simultaneously with the current VLC user interface.

[kaefert]

Thanks for your response. To clarify what I want, I uploaded pictures of what I get here: http://kaefert.is-a-geek.org/videograbb ... -eb1a2863/
I want the color that I get when I call vlc like that:

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cvlc v4l2:///dev/video1 :v4l2-standard=PAL :v4l2-width=788 :v4l2-height=576 :v4l2-fps=29.97 :v4l2-aspect-ratio=4\:3

And I want the picture not cut in two and without a green bar on the bottom like what I get when calling vlc like that:

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cvlc v4l2:///dev/video1 :v4l2-standard=PAL_60 :v4l2-width=788 :v4l2-height=576 :v4l2-fps=29.97 :v4l2-aspect-ratio=4\:3 :v4l2-use-libv4l2 :v4l2-controls-reset :v4l2-brightness-auto=1 :v4l2-hue-auto=1 :v4l2-auto-white-balance=1 :v4l2-autogain=1

You mentioned PAL M --> this gives me a picture that has the correct structure, just like "PAL 60", but without any color, so just grayscale

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cvlc v4l2:///dev/video1 :v4l2-standard=PAL_M :v4l2-width=788 :v4l2-height=576 :v4l2-fps=29.97 :v4l2-aspect-ratio=4\:3

about the sound. I found that the hw:1,0 device is the correct one, since audacity prints this string in its dropdown boxes somewhere: "Em28xx Audio: Empia 28xx Capture (hw:1,0)" But when choosing this I only get silence.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

If it won't playback in VLC nor Audacity, either the driver is broken or the ("video") standard is wrong.

[kaefert]

Okey, so I tried all the video formats that vlc suggests, here are my results:

PAL & "PAL B/G" & "PAL D/K" & "PAL/SECAM B" & "PAL/SECAM G/H" & "PAL/SECAM D/K" & "PAL B" & "PAL B1" & "PAL G" & "PAL H" & "PAL I" & "PAL D" & "PAL D1" & "PAL K" --> correct color but wrong format (top is on the buttom with missing part from between and green(or black) bar on the bottom)

NTSC & PAL_M & "NTCS M" & "NTCS M Japan" & "NTCS M Southkorea" --> no color (grayscale) but correct picture format

"PAL/NTSC M/N" --> simular to NTSC but with black bar at bottom and picture is scaled to fit above it

SECAM & SECAM D/K & "525 lines/60Hz" & "625 lines/50Hz" & "PAL N" & "PAL N Argentinien" --> no color and wrong format

"SECAM B" & "SECAM D" & "SECAM G" & "SECAM H" & "SECAM K" & "SECAM K1" & "SECAM L" & "SECAM L/C" --> grayscale with violet lines and wrong format

ATSC & "ATSC 8-VSB" & "ATSC 16-VSB" --> doesn't play at all - prints errors like this in console: v4l2 demux error: cannot set standard 0x1000000: Invalid argument

PAL_60 & "NTCS 443" --> correct picture format and colors, but the red color seems to be missing

audio can not be heard in any of those video formats with the audio device hw1,0 selected