@Spirantho

Is OS4Depot.net a good place to upload pre-pre-pre-alpha versions like this?

Thats a good place to put your files

@poweramiga2002

Then it shall be done! Watch this (and that!) space!

@Spirantho
Gday hows the program going am looking forward to testing it

@poweramiga2002

Ah yes,... I was about to reply to your PM earlier but was waiting till I had better news.

However:

1) I now have the Bt848 talking to the tuner via I2C - I think.... not sure yet, as I spent all last night trying to get the Bt878 to work! I noticed though that when I put the Bt878 card in as well as the Bt848, the Bt848 signal didn't come out so well.. maybe there was too much noise.
2) I have bits of a picture on the Bt878! I was looking at the PCI subsystem with the ID of 0x0878, "Video Capture Controller" when I wanted 0x0368 "Media Stream controller" (or something). However, it's scattered all over the place. I'm pretty sure it's because the Bt878 doesn't have a frequency crystal on board like the Bt848 does, so it's not getting a nice frequency yet.. However, I've found out how to get a nice 28MHz frequency from the Bt878's onboard PLL so we may be in business.

Of course I can't find out until I get home again in 6 hours! But then I have the entire weekend.....

Incidentally, should I keep posting updates to this thread? I don't want it to keep other threads off the main page, but I do want to update people. :)

@Spirantho

I belieive that quite a few ppl are eagerly awaiting your program as we have had tv capture cards in our A1,s for over a year or so and havent been able to use them properly et
so keep us all informed as much as you want to and

Okey doke, I'll keep on posting updates until people complain. :)

I was thinking, BTW, what's the procedure for getting stuff like this into AmigaOS 4 release version? Assuming an end-of-year release date for the final AmigaOS I should be able to get something acceptable running by then... would be kind of cool to see AmigaOS 4 shipping with a bt848.library and TV application!

@Spirantho

About posting updates here:

Yes please!

Bt878 driver:

Maybe it is too early to talk yet but is there a chance to have a driver which supports the onboard video capture features many TV cards have?

General:
Many thanks for your efforts - I too have a Bt878 based TV card and am looking forward to testing your driver once it is ready for release

Cheers,

Seppo

_________________
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others." (Groucho Marx)

@Spirantho

Just contact Hyperion. I'm sure they would be very interested.

/Björn

GrumpyOldMan wrote:
Quote:

Bt878 driver: Maybe it is too early to talk yet but is there a chance to have a driver which supports the onboard video capture features many TV cards have?

Of course... about as much chance as someone sending me a card to write the driver for. :)

Seriously, I can't afford a WinTV PVR card right now and don't really need one... however, I would like to be able to record... so if I were to accidentally receive a card in the post for a little while I may be able to write a driver. :) Problem is where to get such a card...
It also relies on there being a datasheet available for it so I could code the driver, but apparently Hauppauge have good technical bods for this sort of thing.

@GrumpyOldMan

What it could really do with is being plugged into VHI Studio really (VHI Studio)

Mark

_________________
IceStar Media Ltd.

@Mark

Good idea... and it just so happens I have a fully registered version of that very package....

@Spirantho

If you can get some form of video capturing/editing (through VHI-Studio is fine by me) so I can create DVDs or at least VideoCDs from old tapes etc, I would be very interested and will probably go out and buy a TV tuner/capture card.

As such I am monitoring the progress of this project closely

_________________
"Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer" - AJS on Hyperion
Avatar is Tabitha by Eric W Schwartz

@Chris_Y

Video Capturing isn't a problem. Heck, it'd take me about oo.. 1 minute? to write the code to capture video. I have to capture the video anyway to Blt it to the RastPort, you see - no Overlay in the PreRelease!

The problem is in the compressors to make it useful! RGBA32 takes up quite a lot of room!

I confess, though, I did notice the mpeg2 encoder recently uploaded to OS4depot... I'm wondering if I can harness that in somehow.... but if you just want raw RGBA32 then that's no trouble at all!

@Spirantho

Quote:

I confess, though, I did notice the mpeg2 encoder recently uploaded to OS4depot... I'm wondering if I can harness that in somehow....

It's open source so you probably copy the relevant bits of code for compression with little effort. I'm assuming it compresses from raw video, I've not investigated that archive yet.

_________________
"Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer" - AJS on Hyperion
Avatar is Tabitha by Eric W Schwartz

@Chris_Y

Yup, same here.

The problem then is that by using that I'm limiting my options somewhat to the GPL, I think... Which isn't really a problem, given that I have no intention whatsoever of charging for any of this, but nonetheless it just means I have to be careful!

@Spirantho

Dont a lot of the tuners provide hardware compression to Mpeg2?? (I know for certain some of the Hauppage ones do)

Mark

_________________
IceStar Media Ltd.

Quote:

Mark wrote: @Spirantho Dont a lot of the tuners provide hardware compression to Mpeg2?? (I know for certain some of the Hauppage ones do)

Yup, see the post above. :) And strictly speaking it's not the tuner that does the compression, it's the card itself (there's a lot more to the card than just a tuner[1]). Yeah, I'm being picky, but you see I don't actually have the tuner working yet so I have to differentiate - I can only do composite in (so far!).

Basically I can't really do a thing about it unless I can get hold of such a card (the WinTV PVR is an example) and I can't afford one at the moment.

[1]For those who are interested, there's actually a complete specialised RISC processor on these cards in the Bt848/Bt878 - you have to write a RISC program in the Amiga memory which is executed by the processor on the TV card. Sounds horrible but it's very versatile because of it.

@Spirantho

Will somebody pleeeassse buy this bloke a TV Card !!!

Keep up the good work!

Daz

_________________
* Note: No bears were harmed in the creation of Welshguy's Avatar.
They were just threatened and told to dance at Gun-point

@Spirantho

Quote:

The problem then is that by using that I'm limiting my options somewhat to the GPL, I think... Which isn't really a problem, given that I have no intention whatsoever of charging for any of this, but nonetheless it just means I have to be careful!

You could always compile the relevant bits into a standalone .library, and ensure that complies with the GPL. Then you don't need to worry about the main app.

Actually, an mpeg.library that encodes and decodes MPEG video would probably be universally useful anyway.

Chris

_________________
"Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer" - AJS on Hyperion
Avatar is Tabitha by Eric W Schwartz

@Chris_Y

Quote:

You could always compile the relevant bits into a standalone .library, and ensure that complies with the GPL. Then you don't need to worry about the main app. Actually, an mpeg.library that encodes and decodes MPEG video would probably be universally useful anyway.

There you go then.. that can be your project for the weekend....
I want a library on my desk Monday morning 9 o'clock. :)