Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 08:03:13 +0100 (MET) From: Luigi Rizzo <luigi@labinfo.iet.unipi.it> To: multimedia@freebsd.org Subject: FW: Cool videocapture card now available! (fwd) Message-ID: <199610110703.IAA07989@labinfo.iet.unipi.it>
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Some 10 days ago found this message on a newsgroup. They have an ISA board capable to do both video and full-duplex audio. While not the best in terms of efficiency (you have to INSW/OUTSW data between the board and main memory), the availability of both audio and video on the same baord looks appealing for videoconf applications. I have exchanged a couople of emails with Olivier Garbe <olivier_garbe@winnov.com> (tech ?) Robert Scoble <RobertScob@winnov.com> (mgmt ?) about their willingness of releasing programming info to build a FreeBSD driver, but haven't received further replies. YThey did not sound completely negative,though, so maybe some more requests from someone on the right continent might help. Amancio, Jordan ? Luigi Forwarded message: > From olivier_garbe@winnov.com Thu Oct 3 00:04:42 1996 > Message-Id: <01BBB07F.4CFCED40@zeus.winnov.com> > From: Olivier Garbe <olivier_garbe@winnov.com> > To: "'luigi@iet.unipi.it'" <luigi@iet.unipi.it> > Cc: Robert Scoble > </O=WINNOV/OU=WINNOV/CN=RECIPIENTS/CN=RobertScob@winnov.com>, > Frank Guerrero </O=WINNOV/OU=WINNOV/CN=RECIPIENTS/CN=FrankGuerr@winnov.com>, > Junien Labrousse </O=WINNOV/OU=WINNOV/CN=RECIPIENTS/CN=JunienLabr@winnov.com>, > Kevin Supinger </O=WINNOV/OU=WINNOV/CN=RECIPIENTS/CN=KevinS@winnov.com>, > Harry Graham </O=WINNOV/OU=WINNOV/CN=RECIPIENTS/CN=HarryGraha@winnov.com> > Subject: FW: Cool videocapture card now available! > Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 16:31:16 -0700 > Mime-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable > X-Status: > > Luigi, > > I will attempt to answer your questions in your E-mail. I have = > interspersed my answers within your message. > Olivier > > ---------- > From: Luigi Rizzo > Sent: Saturday, September 28, 1996 4:03 AM > To: Robert Scoble > Subject: Re: Cool videocapture card now available! > > Hi, > > In article <000093fe+00000661@msn.com>, you write: > |> Winnov's new Videum AV video/audio capture card is now available from = > > |> http://www.winnov.com. > > looking at the features of your card, it looks like an interesting > device, because of the integration of audio and video on the same > board. > > >From the specs I'd say that at least the video part is based on a > Philips SAA7191, same as the Matrox Meteor, Omnimedia and other > frame grabbers. The only (but significant, for some applications) > limitation with respect to these cards is the use of the ISA bus, > which limits a lot the ability to grab live video (you declare AVI > 320x240 @30fps which is about 2.6MB/s, close to the max speed of > the ISA bus, whereas the same 7191 on the PCI bus can easily give > you 640x480 @30fps with RGB15 or RGB32, I have done it many times). > > As a matter of fact, you will find that our board has better capture = > capability than most PCI capture cards, unless you buy the higher end = > Motion JPEG based cards. The reason for our performance is quite = > simple: PCI gives you very high bandwidth to system memory.... not to = > the disk!! The disk is the real limiting factor when one wants to = > capture video at 30fps for more than a second, this is why Videum has = > an on-board compression capability (approx. 4:1), providing up to = > 1.1MB/sec bandwidth for 352x240 @ 30fps video. This bandwidth is = > acceptable for most Pentium based PC that have a standard high capacity = > drive (>500MB) (all drives currently on the market have the necessary = > performance, no AV drive is required). > > I suppose that when you captured 640x480 @30fps with RGB15, you = > displayed it on screen, or captured it to memory, but certainly not to a = > standard hard-drive!! > > Hence, I encourage you to look into the production of a PCI board > with similar features. > > Since I would use the board under FreeBSD (and linux people would > have the same requirement) I would like to know if there is any > chance to get programming specs about the board, or if there is > any chance to make it work using standard drivers for the audio > (Microsoft Sound System ?) and video (Meteors/SAA7191 ?) ports. > > Basically, what we need to know is: > > - how does the board save frames to main memory ? Does it use shared > memory, on board DMA or what ? > Frames are stored in an on-board frame buffer accessible through I/O. = > No DMA since Pentium is faster doing I/O than ISA doing DMA. > > - how to send I2C commands to the 7191 controller ? Is there a > parallel-to-I2C converter on board, or you need to do bit-banging > under software control ? > The latter, the whole I2C is in software. > > - what the audio port looks like ? > Same as video, the audio is stored in the frame buffer and = > accessible/writeable through I/O. > > |> 6) Records AVI files at 30 frames per second at 352x240 at 24-bit.=20 > > I think this information is misleading. AVI means that color > components (or color differences) are decimated to give an average > of 9 bits/pixel (8 Y samples, 1 U sample, 8 Y samples, 1 V sample, ...). > > The information is somewhat misleading: we record AVI files at 30fps in = > a compressed YUV format. After decompression the video is formatted in = > a YUV 4:2:2 fashion (8-bitY 8-bitU 8-bitY 8-bitV) which provides 16-bit = > per Pixel. The format you are talking about is YVU9, and is specific to = > Intel's codec, not to AVI. AVI just specifies that Audio and Video are = > Interleaved, the format is specified by the codec used to encode the AVI = > file, and could be whatever you want (RGB, YUV, JPEG, ...). > > I would be grateful if you can inform me about the availability of > programming info for this board. In case you are interested in > supporting the board under FreeBSD, you might also send an announcement > to the following mailing list: > > hackers@freebsd.org > > Luigi, > > Could you let me know what you want to do with such documentation? We = > have to assess here the amount of support you would need. > Thanks, > Olivier > Regards > Luigi Rizzo > --=20 > ==================================================================== Luigi Rizzo Dip. di Ingegneria dell'Informazione email: luigi@iet.unipi.it Universita' di Pisa tel: +39-50-568533 via Diotisalvi 2, 56126 PISA (Italy) fax: +39-50-568522 http://www.iet.unipi.it/~luigi/ ====================================================================
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