[SOLVED] Dazzle 100 101 Analog-Digital Conversion

Hardware Compatibility
1

I was reading SeZo’s post in msg75239 re. Dazzle DVC 100

I tried to follow it and am getting video (VHS via Dazzle) but the quality is poor and no audio.

Video: V4lC is Video1

Audio: DVC 100 USB Audio (STAC92xx Analog)

Input: Camera 1

Note: I’m in USA so am using NTSC vs PAL.

Help, please?

Thanks!

2

Hi Handygeek

I know this is not much help , but I tried to do the same thing using an Easycap usb video capture device to convert analogue (VHS) with the help of Mark and SeZo on this forum but in spite of their best efforts we just couldn’t make it happen, as I remember I got good video capture but couldn’t get audio, eventually I had to throw the towel in, there just didn’t seem to be the software available in Linux for this sort of thing at least not at that time, but maybe things have changed since then, so I’ll be watching this thread with some interest

Good luck

Graeme

3

That’s why I acquired the same hardware he used so that his success may be duplicated.

I understand that extrapolating to different hardware creates new challenges.

Hopefully he, or someone who has successfully duplicated his success, can walk me through the necessary tweaks to get mine working.

4

I have not looked at this for a very long time, so it might not work anymore.
It would be handy if you could list the steps you have taken.

I tried to follow it and am getting video (VHS via Dazzle) but the quality is poor and no audio
At what stage you getting the poor video? You could start by getting the following info: 
dmesg | grep video

and

v4l2-ctl --list-inputs

and

v4l2-ctl --get-fmt-video

and

arecord -l

and

v4l2-ctl -C mute

You may want to check the video quality using the QT V4L2 test utility

[EDIT]
Tested the capturing last night with a few seconds of recording.
Both audio and video recorded OK.

5

I sure appreciate any assistance. It is bizarre that there isn’t an affordable & supported Linux solution out of the box.

6
uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device HP Truevision HD (05c8:0348)
It appears that device is not the same capture device as the one I use (Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 100) Could you post the output from: 
v4l2-ctl --all
card 2: DVC100 [DVC100], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
You could try using this device for audio in VLC such:

plughw:DVC100

and see if you get any audio.

What happens if you click the record button in V4L2 Test Bench?
Do you get good quality picture?

7

I replied to this but that reply seems to have been purloined by Internet gremlins …

bash-4.1# v4l2-ctl --all
Driver Info (not using libv4l2):
	Driver name   : uvcvideo
	Card type     : HP Truevision HD
	Bus info      : usb-0000:00:12.2-3
	Driver version: 3.8.7
	Capabilities  : 0x84000001
		Video Capture
		Streaming
Format Video Capture:
	Width/Height  : 640/480
	Pixel Format  : 'YUYV'
	Field         : None
	Bytes per Line: 1280
	Size Image    : 614400
	Colorspace    : SRGB
Crop Capability Video Capture:
	Bounds      : Left 0, Top 0, Width 640, Height 480
	Default     : Left 0, Top 0, Width 640, Height 480
	Pixel Aspect: 1/1
Video input : 0 (Camera 1: ok)
Streaming Parameters Video Capture:
	Capabilities     : timeperframe
	Frames per second: 30.000 (30/1)
	Read buffers     : 0
Priority: 2
<root> ~
card 2: DVC100 [DVC100], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
You could try using this device for audio in VLC such:

plughw:DVC100 and see if you get any audio.
[/quote]
I get a “command not found” error.

What happens if you click the record button in V4L2 Test Bench? Do you get good quality picture?

No video at all.

In VLC the video is pixelated and black & white but is viewable - no audio.

There is a pop-up errs saying the driver can’t handle video acceleration for 720x115 pixels so it’s disabled.

8

OK, in VLC try these settings:

Media->Stream->Capture Device:

Capture mode = Video for Linux 2
Video device name = /dev/video1
Audio device name = plughw:DVC100
Video standard = NTSC
    ->Show more options:
       MRL = 

v4l2:///dev/video1

       Edit Options = 

:v4l2-standard=NTSC :input-slave=alsa://plughw:DVC100 :v4l2-input=0 :v4l2-width=640 :v4l2-height=480 :v4l2-fps=30 :no-v4l2-audio-mute :live-caching=300

Then click Play to test it.

9

PROGRESS!

Video is nice clear color.

Audio still nada.

NOTE: In VLC the Audio device name options were hw:1,0 and hw:2,0 – so I manually entered “plughw:DVC100”

Does that indicate that VLC is not picking up the audio device or perhaps there’s a different place I need to change an audio setting?

I am very grateful for your assistance!

10

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11876059/cheerleader_2.gif
“Go SeZo”
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11876059/cheerleader_2.gif

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11876059/cheerleader_5.gif

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11876059/cheerleader_5.gif

“You da man … if SeZo can’t sort it no one can”

Our resident video capture guru :slight_smile:
(that stuff’s beyond me)

Too much ??

I have a funny feeling he’ll shoot me for this.

–

11

@Mark
Now that is emarrassing. :-[
You give mee too much credit, just because I managed to figure it out on my setup that makes me no expert.

@HandyGeek

Check if the audio is muted:

v4l2-ctl -C mute

Unmute it if it is:

v4l2-ctl -c mute=0

Try to get the audio using arecord:

arecord -vv -D plughw:DVC100 -fdat foo.wav

Press Ctrl-C to quit the recording.

Then play it back:

aplay -vv foo.wav
12

@ SeZo … I see you’re as comfortable with compliments as I am, but tough you’re stuck with it … it was just me having a childish moment, but I’ve watched you sort this kinda issue for a few people now so I refuse to take it back :wink:

And just because my childish moment hasn’t run its course yet … take this
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11876059/raspberry-smiley.gif

13

It read “mute: 1”

Unmute it if it is: 
v4l2-ctl -c mute=0

Done.

Try to get the audio using arecord: 
arecord -vv -D plughw:DVC100 -fdat foo.wav

Press Ctrl-C to quit the recording.

The file was blank (it never moved off 00% during recording
the first try) so I tried again and the % value varied between
about 4 & 10%.

Note: I can’t monitor the VHS tape player audio so it may have
been a blank spot or something.

Then play it back: 
aplay -vv foo.wav

Worked fine!

Now I will try VLC again …

Thanks!

14

VLC works!

It kept changing the Stream settings so I saved this:

:v4l2-standard=NTSC :input-slave=alsa://plughw:DVC100 ::v4l2-input=0 :v4l2-width=-640 :v4l2-height=-480 :v4l2-fps=30 :no-v4l2-audio-mute :live-caching=300
15

Now, that is a relief. :slight_smile:
I take it that this can be marked as solved?
For the future, I am afraid you will have to do this manually at every recording session.
So save that line somewhere safe. The un-muting of the audio will also have to be done each time.

16

If I can get a few uninterrupted minutes here this afternoon I will test the recording & playback of the converted stream.

Presuming that all goes well I will report back & then we will be 100% solved!

Sure appreciate the assist & that others may find and follow your instructions here.

17

OK … we can go with SOLVED! 8)

I saved the custom line of settings to a little text file on the desktop.

:v4l2-standard=NTSC :input-slave=alsa://plughw:DVC100 ::v4l2-input=0 :v4l2-width=-640 :v4l2-height=-480 :v4l2-fps=30 :no-v4l2-audio-mute :live-caching=300

If there isn’t a place in VLC where that long line of settings may be saved there should be.

I’m finding it necessary to use Console to toggle off “mute” every time as something keeps resetting that.

bash-4.1# v4l2-ctl -c mute=0

I’m guessing that somewhere in VLC mute can be set to default “on”, or is it not VLC that is changing that?

Also, changed the default Save location so it’s not in Root eating up user space (a Puppy Linux thing).

Once again I sure appreciate the assist - this is a very valuable new tool!

18

Ooops!

Just made a recording then went to playback using xine and although the audio level was a little low it played fine.

When I tried in VLC it complained about a broken index, rebuilt it, then played fine - video was better than in xine and audio level was up where it belonged.

Any thoughts re. the index matter, please?

I may as well invest the time to get this last detail in order - even though VLC does the repair - it’s one extra step it would be good to avoid, if possible.

Thanks again.

19

Hmm. I have not had that problem. It could be down to the encoder you using.
Try setting (if you using AVI):
Tools → Preferences → (Show Settings - All) → Input/Codecs → Demuxers → AVI → Force Index Creation
This might or might not help you but worth the try.

20

I’ll give that a try and report back.

Also, I converted and recorded a VHS source that is 12 minutes long and it’s 11G.

Is there a way to compress it without doing harm or are AVI files always huge?