| Frequently Asked Questions: |
| =========================== |
| subject: unified zoran driver (zr360x7, zoran, buz, dc10(+), dc30(+), lml33) |
| website: http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net/driver-zoran/ |
| |
| 1. What cards are supported |
| 1.1 What the TV decoder can do an what not |
| 1.2 What the TV encoder can do an what not |
| 2. How do I get this damn thing to work |
| 3. What mainboard should I use (or why doesn't my card work) |
| 4. Programming interface |
| 5. Applications |
| 6. Concerning buffer sizes, quality, output size etc. |
| 7. It hangs/crashes/fails/whatevers! Help! |
| 8. Maintainers/Contacting |
| 9. License |
| |
| =========================== |
| |
| 1. What cards are supported |
| |
| Iomega Buz, Linux Media Labs LML33/LML33R10, Pinnacle/Miro |
| DC10/DC10+/DC30/DC30+ and related boards (available under various names). |
| |
| Iomega Buz: |
| * Zoran zr36067 PCI controller |
| * Zoran zr36060 MJPEG codec |
| * Philips saa7111 TV decoder |
| * Philips saa7185 TV encoder |
| Drivers to use: videodev, i2c-core, i2c-algo-bit, |
| videocodec, saa7111, saa7185, zr36060, zr36067 |
| Inputs/outputs: Composite and S-video |
| Norms: PAL, SECAM (720x576 @ 25 fps), NTSC (720x480 @ 29.97 fps) |
| Card number: 7 |
| |
| AverMedia 6 Eyes AVS6EYES: |
| * Zoran zr36067 PCI controller |
| * Zoran zr36060 MJPEG codec |
| * Samsung ks0127 TV decoder |
| * Conexant bt866 TV encoder |
| Drivers to use: videodev, i2c-core, i2c-algo-bit, |
| videocodec, ks0127, bt866, zr36060, zr36067 |
| Inputs/outputs: Six physical inputs. 1-6 are composite, |
| 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 doubles as S-video, |
| 1-3 triples as component. |
| One composite output. |
| Norms: PAL, SECAM (720x576 @ 25 fps), NTSC (720x480 @ 29.97 fps) |
| Card number: 8 |
| Not autodetected, card=8 is necessary. |
| |
| Linux Media Labs LML33: |
| * Zoran zr36067 PCI controller |
| * Zoran zr36060 MJPEG codec |
| * Brooktree bt819 TV decoder |
| * Brooktree bt856 TV encoder |
| Drivers to use: videodev, i2c-core, i2c-algo-bit, |
| videocodec, bt819, bt856, zr36060, zr36067 |
| Inputs/outputs: Composite and S-video |
| Norms: PAL (720x576 @ 25 fps), NTSC (720x480 @ 29.97 fps) |
| Card number: 5 |
| |
| Linux Media Labs LML33R10: |
| * Zoran zr36067 PCI controller |
| * Zoran zr36060 MJPEG codec |
| * Philips saa7114 TV decoder |
| * Analog Devices adv7170 TV encoder |
| Drivers to use: videodev, i2c-core, i2c-algo-bit, |
| videocodec, saa7114, adv7170, zr36060, zr36067 |
| Inputs/outputs: Composite and S-video |
| Norms: PAL (720x576 @ 25 fps), NTSC (720x480 @ 29.97 fps) |
| Card number: 6 |
| |
| Pinnacle/Miro DC10(new): |
| * Zoran zr36057 PCI controller |
| * Zoran zr36060 MJPEG codec |
| * Philips saa7110a TV decoder |
| * Analog Devices adv7176 TV encoder |
| Drivers to use: videodev, i2c-core, i2c-algo-bit, |
| videocodec, saa7110, adv7175, zr36060, zr36067 |
| Inputs/outputs: Composite, S-video and Internal |
| Norms: PAL, SECAM (768x576 @ 25 fps), NTSC (640x480 @ 29.97 fps) |
| Card number: 1 |
| |
| Pinnacle/Miro DC10+: |
| * Zoran zr36067 PCI controller |
| * Zoran zr36060 MJPEG codec |
| * Philips saa7110a TV decoder |
| * Analog Devices adv7176 TV encoder |
| Drivers to use: videodev, i2c-core, i2c-algo-bit, |
| videocodec, sa7110, adv7175, zr36060, zr36067 |
| Inputs/outputs: Composite, S-video and Internal |
| Norms: PAL, SECAM (768x576 @ 25 fps), NTSC (640x480 @ 29.97 fps) |
| Card number: 2 |
| |
| Pinnacle/Miro DC10(old): * |
| * Zoran zr36057 PCI controller |
| * Zoran zr36050 MJPEG codec |
| * Zoran zr36016 Video Front End or Fuji md0211 Video Front End (clone?) |
| * Micronas vpx3220a TV decoder |
| * mse3000 TV encoder or Analog Devices adv7176 TV encoder * |
| Drivers to use: videodev, i2c-core, i2c-algo-bit, |
| videocodec, vpx3220, mse3000/adv7175, zr36050, zr36016, zr36067 |
| Inputs/outputs: Composite, S-video and Internal |
| Norms: PAL, SECAM (768x576 @ 25 fps), NTSC (640x480 @ 29.97 fps) |
| Card number: 0 |
| |
| Pinnacle/Miro DC30: * |
| * Zoran zr36057 PCI controller |
| * Zoran zr36050 MJPEG codec |
| * Zoran zr36016 Video Front End |
| * Micronas vpx3225d/vpx3220a/vpx3216b TV decoder |
| * Analog Devices adv7176 TV encoder |
| Drivers to use: videodev, i2c-core, i2c-algo-bit, |
| videocodec, vpx3220/vpx3224, adv7175, zr36050, zr36016, zr36067 |
| Inputs/outputs: Composite, S-video and Internal |
| Norms: PAL, SECAM (768x576 @ 25 fps), NTSC (640x480 @ 29.97 fps) |
| Card number: 3 |
| |
| Pinnacle/Miro DC30+: * |
| * Zoran zr36067 PCI controller |
| * Zoran zr36050 MJPEG codec |
| * Zoran zr36016 Video Front End |
| * Micronas vpx3225d/vpx3220a/vpx3216b TV decoder |
| * Analog Devices adv7176 TV encoder |
| Drivers to use: videodev, i2c-core, i2c-algo-bit, |
| videocodec, vpx3220/vpx3224, adv7175, zr36050, zr36015, zr36067 |
| Inputs/outputs: Composite, S-video and Internal |
| Norms: PAL, SECAM (768x576 @ 25 fps), NTSC (640x480 @ 29.97 fps) |
| Card number: 4 |
| |
| Note: No module for the mse3000 is available yet |
| Note: No module for the vpx3224 is available yet |
| Note: use encoder=X or decoder=X for non-default i2c chips |
| |
| =========================== |
| |
| 1.1 What the TV decoder can do an what not |
| |
| The best know TV standards are NTSC/PAL/SECAM. but for decoding a frame that |
| information is not enough. There are several formats of the TV standards. |
| And not every TV decoder is able to handle every format. Also the every |
| combination is supported by the driver. There are currently 11 different |
| tv broadcast formats all aver the world. |
| |
| The CCIR defines parameters needed for broadcasting the signal. |
| The CCIR has defined different standards: A,B,D,E,F,G,D,H,I,K,K1,L,M,N,... |
| The CCIR says not much about the colorsystem used !!! |
| And talking about a colorsystem says not to much about how it is broadcast. |
| |
| The CCIR standards A,E,F are not used any more. |
| |
| When you speak about NTSC, you usually mean the standard: CCIR - M using |
| the NTSC colorsystem which is used in the USA, Japan, Mexico, Canada |
| and a few others. |
| |
| When you talk about PAL, you usually mean: CCIR - B/G using the PAL |
| colorsystem which is used in many Countries. |
| |
| When you talk about SECAM, you mean: CCIR - L using the SECAM Colorsystem |
| which is used in France, and a few others. |
| |
| There the other version of SECAM, CCIR - D/K is used in Bulgaria, China, |
| Slovakai, Hungary, Korea (Rep.), Poland, Rumania and a others. |
| |
| The CCIR - H uses the PAL colorsystem (sometimes SECAM) and is used in |
| Egypt, Libya, Sri Lanka, Syrain Arab. Rep. |
| |
| The CCIR - I uses the PAL colorsystem, and is used in Great Britain, Hong Kong, |
| Ireland, Nigeria, South Africa. |
| |
| The CCIR - N uses the PAL colorsystem and PAL frame size but the NTSC framerate, |
| and is used in Argentinia, Uruguay, an a few others |
| |
| We do not talk about how the audio is broadcast ! |
| |
| A rather good sites about the TV standards are: |
| http://www.sony.jp/support/ |
| http://info.electronicwerkstatt.de/bereiche/fernsehtechnik/frequenzen_und_normen/Fernsehnormen/ |
| and http://www.cabl.com/restaurant/channel.html |
| |
| Other weird things around: NTSC 4.43 is a modificated NTSC, which is mainly |
| used in PAL VCR's that are able to play back NTSC. PAL 60 seems to be the same |
| as NTSC 4.43 . The Datasheets also talk about NTSC 44, It seems as if it would |
| be the same as NTSC 4.43. |
| NTSC Combs seems to be a decoder mode where the decoder uses a comb filter |
| to split coma and luma instead of a Delay line. |
| |
| But I did not defiantly find out what NTSC Comb is. |
| |
| Philips saa7111 TV decoder |
| was introduced in 1997, is used in the BUZ and |
| can handle: PAL B/G/H/I, PAL N, PAL M, NTSC M, NTSC N, NTSC 4.43 and SECAM |
| |
| Philips saa7110a TV decoder |
| was introduced in 1995, is used in the Pinnacle/Miro DC10(new), DC10+ and |
| can handle: PAL B/G, NTSC M and SECAM |
| |
| Philips saa7114 TV decoder |
| was introduced in 2000, is used in the LML33R10 and |
| can handle: PAL B/G/D/H/I/N, PAL N, PAL M, NTSC M, NTSC 4.43 and SECAM |
| |
| Brooktree bt819 TV decoder |
| was introduced in 1996, and is used in the LML33 and |
| can handle: PAL B/D/G/H/I, NTSC M |
| |
| Micronas vpx3220a TV decoder |
| was introduced in 1996, is used in the DC30 and DC30+ and |
| can handle: PAL B/G/H/I, PAL N, PAL M, NTSC M, NTSC 44, PAL 60, SECAM,NTSC Comb |
| |
| Samsung ks0127 TV decoder |
| is used in the AVS6EYES card and |
| can handle: NTSC-M/N/44, PAL-M/N/B/G/H/I/D/K/L and SECAM |
| |
| =========================== |
| |
| 1.2 What the TV encoder can do an what not |
| |
| The TV encoder are doing the "same" as the decoder, but in the oder direction. |
| You feed them digital data and the generate a Composite or SVHS signal. |
| For information about the colorsystems and TV norm take a look in the |
| TV decoder section. |
| |
| Philips saa7185 TV Encoder |
| was introduced in 1996, is used in the BUZ |
| can generate: PAL B/G, NTSC M |
| |
| Brooktree bt856 TV Encoder |
| was introduced in 1994, is used in the LML33 |
| can generate: PAL B/D/G/H/I/N, PAL M, NTSC M, PAL-N (Argentina) |
| |
| Analog Devices adv7170 TV Encoder |
| was introduced in 2000, is used in the LML300R10 |
| can generate: PAL B/D/G/H/I/N, PAL M, NTSC M, PAL 60 |
| |
| Analog Devices adv7175 TV Encoder |
| was introduced in 1996, is used in the DC10, DC10+, DC10 old, DC30, DC30+ |
| can generate: PAL B/D/G/H/I/N, PAL M, NTSC M |
| |
| ITT mse3000 TV encoder |
| was introduced in 1991, is used in the DC10 old |
| can generate: PAL , NTSC , SECAM |
| |
| Conexant bt866 TV encoder |
| is used in AVS6EYES, and |
| can generate: NTSC/PAL, PALM, PALN |
| |
| The adv717x, should be able to produce PAL N. But you find nothing PAL N |
| specific in the registers. Seem that you have to reuse a other standard |
| to generate PAL N, maybe it would work if you use the PAL M settings. |
| |
| ========================== |
| |
| 2. How do I get this damn thing to work |
| |
| Load zr36067.o. If it can't autodetect your card, use the card=X insmod |
| option with X being the card number as given in the previous section. |
| To have more than one card, use card=X1[,X2[,X3,[X4[..]]]] |
| |
| To automate this, add the following to your /etc/modprobe.conf: |
| |
| options zr36067 card=X1[,X2[,X3[,X4[..]]]] |
| alias char-major-81-0 zr36067 |
| |
| One thing to keep in mind is that this doesn't load zr36067.o itself yet. It |
| just automates loading. If you start using xawtv, the device won't load on |
| some systems, since you're trying to load modules as a user, which is not |
| allowed ("permission denied"). A quick workaround is to add 'Load "v4l"' to |
| XF86Config-4 when you use X by default, or to run 'v4l-conf -c <device>' in |
| one of your startup scripts (normally rc.local) if you don't use X. Both |
| make sure that the modules are loaded on startup, under the root account. |
| |
| =========================== |
| |
| 3. What mainboard should I use (or why doesn't my card work) |
| |
| <insert lousy disclaimer here>. In short: good=SiS/Intel, bad=VIA. |
| |
| Experience tells us that people with a Buz, on average, have more problems |
| than users with a DC10+/LML33. Also, it tells us that people owning a VIA- |
| based mainboard (ktXXX, MVP3) have more problems than users with a mainboard |
| based on a different chipset. Here's some notes from Andrew Stevens: |
| -- |
| Here's my experience of using LML33 and Buz on various motherboards: |
| |
| VIA MVP3 |
| Forget it. Pointless. Doesn't work. |
| Intel 430FX (Pentium 200) |
| LML33 perfect, Buz tolerable (3 or 4 frames dropped per movie) |
| Intel 440BX (early stepping) |
| LML33 tolerable. Buz starting to get annoying (6-10 frames/hour) |
| Intel 440BX (late stepping) |
| Buz tolerable, LML3 almost perfect (occasional single frame drops) |
| SiS735 |
| LML33 perfect, Buz tolerable. |
| VIA KT133(*) |
| LML33 starting to get annoying, Buz poor enough that I have up. |
| |
| Both 440BX boards were dual CPU versions. |
| -- |
| Bernhard Praschinger later added: |
| -- |
| AMD 751 |
| Buz perfect-tolerable |
| AMD 760 |
| Buz perfect-tolerable |
| -- |
| In general, people on the user mailinglist won't give you much of a chance |
| if you have a VIA-based motherboard. They may be cheap, but sometimes, you'd |
| rather want to spend some more money on better boards. In general, VIA |
| mainboard's IDE/PCI performance will also suck badly compared to others. |
| You'll noticed the DC10+/DC30+ aren't mentioned anywhere in the overview. |
| Basically, you can assume that if the Buz works, the LML33 will work too. If |
| the LML33 works, the DC10+/DC30+ will work too. They're most tolerant to |
| different mainboard chipsets from all of the supported cards. |
| |
| If you experience timeouts during capture, buy a better mainboard or lower |
| the quality/buffersize during capture (see 'Concerning buffer sizes, quality, |
| output size etc.'). If it hangs, there's little we can do as of now. Check |
| your IRQs and make sure the card has its own interrupts. |
| |
| =========================== |
| |
| 4. Programming interface |
| |
| This driver conforms to video4linux2. Support for V4L1 and for the custom |
| zoran ioctls has been removed in kernel 2.6.38. |
| |
| For programming example, please, look at lavrec.c and lavplay.c code in |
| the MJPEG-tools (http://mjpeg.sf.net/). |
| |
| Additional notes for software developers: |
| |
| The driver returns maxwidth and maxheight parameters according to |
| the current TV standard (norm). Therefore, the software which |
| communicates with the driver and "asks" for these parameters should |
| first set the correct norm. Well, it seems logically correct: TV |
| standard is "more constant" for current country than geometry |
| settings of a variety of TV capture cards which may work in ITU or |
| square pixel format. |
| |
| =========================== |
| |
| 5. Applications |
| |
| Applications known to work with this driver: |
| |
| TV viewing: |
| * xawtv |
| * kwintv |
| * probably any TV application that supports video4linux or video4linux2. |
| |
| MJPEG capture/playback: |
| * mjpegtools/lavtools (or Linux Video Studio) |
| * gstreamer |
| * mplayer |
| |
| General raw capture: |
| * xawtv |
| * gstreamer |
| * probably any application that supports video4linux or video4linux2 |
| |
| Video editing: |
| * Cinelerra |
| * MainActor |
| * mjpegtools (or Linux Video Studio) |
| |
| =========================== |
| |
| 6. Concerning buffer sizes, quality, output size etc. |
| |
| The zr36060 can do 1:2 JPEG compression. This is really the theoretical |
| maximum that the chipset can reach. The driver can, however, limit compression |
| to a maximum (size) of 1:4. The reason for this is that some cards (e.g. Buz) |
| can't handle 1:2 compression without stopping capture after only a few minutes. |
| With 1:4, it'll mostly work. If you have a Buz, use 'low_bitrate=1' to go into |
| 1:4 max. compression mode. |
| |
| 100% JPEG quality is thus 1:2 compression in practice. So for a full PAL frame |
| (size 720x576). The JPEG fields are stored in YUY2 format, so the size of the |
| fields are 720x288x16/2 bits/field (2 fields/frame) = 207360 bytes/field x 2 = |
| 414720 bytes/frame (add some more bytes for headers and DHT (huffman)/DQT |
| (quantization) tables, and you'll get to something like 512kB per frame for |
| 1:2 compression. For 1:4 compression, you'd have frames of half this size. |
| |
| Some additional explanation by Martin Samuelsson, which also explains the |
| importance of buffer sizes: |
| -- |
| > Hmm, I do not think it is really that way. With the current (downloaded |
| > at 18:00 Monday) driver I get that output sizes for 10 sec: |
| > -q 50 -b 128 : 24.283.332 Bytes |
| > -q 50 -b 256 : 48.442.368 |
| > -q 25 -b 128 : 24.655.992 |
| > -q 25 -b 256 : 25.859.820 |
| |
| I woke up, and can't go to sleep again. I'll kill some time explaining why |
| this doesn't look strange to me. |
| |
| Let's do some math using a width of 704 pixels. I'm not sure whether the Buz |
| actually use that number or not, but that's not too important right now. |
| |
| 704x288 pixels, one field, is 202752 pixels. Divided by 64 pixels per block; |
| 3168 blocks per field. Each pixel consist of two bytes; 128 bytes per block; |
| 1024 bits per block. 100% in the new driver mean 1:2 compression; the maximum |
| output becomes 512 bits per block. Actually 510, but 512 is simpler to use |
| for calculations. |
| |
| Let's say that we specify d1q50. We thus want 256 bits per block; times 3168 |
| becomes 811008 bits; 101376 bytes per field. We're talking raw bits and bytes |
| here, so we don't need to do any fancy corrections for bits-per-pixel or such |
| things. 101376 bytes per field. |
| |
| d1 video contains two fields per frame. Those sum up to 202752 bytes per |
| frame, and one of those frames goes into each buffer. |
| |
| But wait a second! -b128 gives 128kB buffers! It's not possible to cram |
| 202752 bytes of JPEG data into 128kB! |
| |
| This is what the driver notice and automatically compensate for in your |
| examples. Let's do some math using this information: |
| |
| 128kB is 131072 bytes. In this buffer, we want to store two fields, which |
| leaves 65536 bytes for each field. Using 3168 blocks per field, we get |
| 20.68686868... available bytes per block; 165 bits. We can't allow the |
| request for 256 bits per block when there's only 165 bits available! The -q50 |
| option is silently overridden, and the -b128 option takes precedence, leaving |
| us with the equivalence of -q32. |
| |
| This gives us a data rate of 165 bits per block, which, times 3168, sums up |
| to 65340 bytes per field, out of the allowed 65536. The current driver has |
| another level of rate limiting; it won't accept -q values that fill more than |
| 6/8 of the specified buffers. (I'm not sure why. "Playing it safe" seem to be |
| a safe bet. Personally, I think I would have lowered requested-bits-per-block |
| by one, or something like that.) We can't use 165 bits per block, but have to |
| lower it again, to 6/8 of the available buffer space: We end up with 124 bits |
| per block, the equivalence of -q24. With 128kB buffers, you can't use greater |
| than -q24 at -d1. (And PAL, and 704 pixels width...) |
| |
| The third example is limited to -q24 through the same process. The second |
| example, using very similar calculations, is limited to -q48. The only |
| example that actually grab at the specified -q value is the last one, which |
| is clearly visible, looking at the file size. |
| -- |
| |
| Conclusion: the quality of the resulting movie depends on buffer size, quality, |
| whether or not you use 'low_bitrate=1' as insmod option for the zr36060.c |
| module to do 1:4 instead of 1:2 compression, etc. |
| |
| If you experience timeouts, lowering the quality/buffersize or using |
| 'low_bitrate=1 as insmod option for zr36060.o might actually help, as is |
| proven by the Buz. |
| |
| =========================== |
| |
| 7. It hangs/crashes/fails/whatevers! Help! |
| |
| Make sure that the card has its own interrupts (see /proc/interrupts), check |
| the output of dmesg at high verbosity (load zr36067.o with debug=2, |
| load all other modules with debug=1). Check that your mainboard is favorable |
| (see question 2) and if not, test the card in another computer. Also see the |
| notes given in question 3 and try lowering quality/buffersize/capturesize |
| if recording fails after a period of time. |
| |
| If all this doesn't help, give a clear description of the problem including |
| detailed hardware information (memory+brand, mainboard+chipset+brand, which |
| MJPEG card, processor, other PCI cards that might be of interest), give the |
| system PnP information (/proc/interrupts, /proc/dma, /proc/devices), and give |
| the kernel version, driver version, glibc version, gcc version and any other |
| information that might possibly be of interest. Also provide the dmesg output |
| at high verbosity. See 'Contacting' on how to contact the developers. |
| |
| =========================== |
| |
| 8. Maintainers/Contacting |
| |
| The driver is currently maintained by Laurent Pinchart and Ronald Bultje |
| (<laurent.pinchart@skynet.be> and <rbultje@ronald.bitfreak.net>). For bug |
| reports or questions, please contact the mailinglist instead of the developers |
| individually. For user questions (i.e. bug reports or how-to questions), send |
| an email to <mjpeg-users@lists.sf.net>, for developers (i.e. if you want to |
| help programming), send an email to <mjpeg-developer@lists.sf.net>. See |
| http://www.sf.net/projects/mjpeg/ for subscription information. |
| |
| For bug reports, be sure to include all the information as described in |
| the section 'It hangs/crashes/fails/whatevers! Help!'. Please make sure |
| you're using the latest version (http://mjpeg.sf.net/driver-zoran/). |
| |
| Previous maintainers/developers of this driver include Serguei Miridonov |
| <mirsev@cicese.mx>, Wolfgang Scherr <scherr@net4you.net>, Dave Perks |
| <dperks@ibm.net> and Rainer Johanni <Rainer@Johanni.de>. |
| |
| =========================== |
| |
| 9. License |
| |
| This driver is distributed under the terms of the General Public License. |
| |
| This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify |
| it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by |
| the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or |
| (at your option) any later version. |
| |
| This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, |
| but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of |
| MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the |
| GNU General Public License for more details. |
| |
| You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License |
| along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software |
| Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. |
| |
| See http://www.gnu.org/ for more information. |