1 2 *********************************************************** 3 * EasyCAP USB 2.0 Video Adapter with Audio, Model DC60 * 4 * and * 5 * EasyCAP002 4-Channel USB 2.0 DVR * 6 *********************************************************** 7 Mike Thomas <rmthomas@sciolus.org> 8 9 10 11SUPPORTED HARDWARE 12------------------ 13 14This driver is intended for use with hardware having USB ID 05e1:0408. 15Two kinds of EasyCAP have this USB ID, namely: 16 17 * EasyCAP USB 2.0 Video Adapter with Audio, Model DC60, 18 having input cables labelled CVBS, S-VIDEO, AUDIO(L), AUDIO(R) 19 20 * EasyCAP002 4-Channel USB 2.0 DVR, having input cables labelled 21 1, 2, 3, 4 and an unlabelled input cable for a microphone. 22 23 24BUILD OPTIONS AND DEPENDENCIES 25------------------------------ 26 27If the parameter EASYCAP_IS_VIDEODEV_CLIENT is undefined during compilation 28the built module is entirely independent of the videodev module, and when 29the EasyCAP is physically plugged into a USB port the special files 30/dev/easycap0 and /dev/easysnd1 are created as video and sound sources 31respectively. 32 33If the parameter EASYCAP_IS_VIDEODEV_CLIENT is defined during compilation 34the built easycap module is configured to register with the videodev module, 35in which case the special files created when the EasyCAP is plugged in are 36/dev/video0 and /dev/easysnd0. Use of the easycap module as a client of 37the videodev module has received very little testing as of June 2010. 38 39 40KNOWN BUILD PROBLEMS 41-------------------- 42 43(1) Recent gcc versions may generate the message: 44 45 warning: the frame size of .... bytes is larger than 1024 bytes 46 47This warning can be suppressed by specifying in the Makefile: 48 49 EXTRA_CFLAGS += -Wframe-larger-than=8192 50 51but it would be preferable to remove the cause of the warning. 52 53 54KNOWN RUNTIME ISSUES 55-------------------- 56 57(1) Randomly (maybe 5 to 10% of occasions) the driver fails to produce any 58output at start-up. Closing mplayer (or whatever the user program is) and 59restarting it restores normal performance without any other remedial action 60being necessary. The reason for this is not known. 61 62(2) Intentionally, this driver will not stream material which is unambiguously 63identified by the hardware as copy-protected. The video output will freeze 64within about a minute when this situation arises. 65 66(3) The controls for luminance, contrast, saturation, hue and volume may not 67always work properly. 68 69(4) Reduced-resolution S-Video seems to suffer from moire artefacts. No 70attempt has yet been made to rememdy this. 71 72 73SUPPORTED TV STANDARDS AND RESOLUTIONS 74-------------------------------------- 75 76The following TV standards are natively supported by the hardware and are 77usable as (for example) the "norm=" parameter in the mplayer command: 78 79 PAL_BGHIN, NTSC_N_443, 80 PAL_Nc, NTSC_N, 81 SECAM, NTSC_M, NTSC_M_JP, 82 PAL_60, NTSC_443, 83 PAL_M. 84 85The available picture sizes are: 86 87 at 25 frames per second: 720x576, 704x576, 640x480, 360x288, 320x240; 88 at 30 frames per second: 720x480, 640x480, 360x240, 320x240; 89 90 91WHAT'S TESTED AND WHAT'S NOT 92---------------------------- 93 94This driver is known to work with mplayer, mencoder, tvtime and sufficiently 95recent versions of vlc. An interface to ffmpeg is implemented, but serious 96audio-video synchronization problems remain. 97 98The driver is designed to support all the TV standards accepted by the 99hardware, but as yet it has actually been tested on only a few of these. 100 101I have been unable to test and calibrate the S-video input myself because I 102do not possess any equipment with S-video output. 103 104This driver does not understand the V4L1 IOCTL commands, so programs such 105as camorama are not compatible. There are reports that the driver does 106work with sufficiently recent (V4L2) versions of zoneminder, but I have not 107attempted to confirm this myself. 108 109 110UDEV RULES 111---------- 112 113In order that the special files /dev/easycap0 and /dev/easysnd1 are created 114with conveniently relaxed permissions when the EasyCAP is plugged in, a file 115is preferably to be provided in directory /etc/udev/rules.d with content: 116 117ACTION!="add|change", GOTO="easycap_rules_end" 118ATTRS{idVendor}=="05e1", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0408", \ 119 MODE="0666", OWNER="root", GROUP="root" 120LABEL="easycap_rules_end" 121 122 123ACKNOWLEGEMENTS AND REFERENCES 124------------------------------ 125This driver makes use of information contained in the Syntek Semicon DC-1125 126Driver, presently maintained at http://sourceforge.net/projects/syntekdriver/ 127by Nicolas Vivien. Particularly useful has been a patch to the latter driver 128provided by Ivor Hewitt in January 2009. The NTSC implementation is taken 129from the work of Ben Trask. 130 131