IS-DV software works - a 640x480 resolution sleight of hand

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:45 am

Here is a snapshot:

http://camerahacking.mine.nu/phils/demanufacturing/pv2/www/brite_eye/image04.jpg

and my sleight of hand:
http://camerahacking.mine.nu/phils/demanufacturing/pv2/www/brite_eye/video02.avi

Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 204

I uninstalled my IS-DV setup. So is the idea that you unlock it first and then start up IS-DV, after which life is good?

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:14 am

After unlock you need to control panel switch drivers from libusb to dv5700, answer yes to reboot leave camcorder plugged in wait, start IS-DV. I think it will be possible to change to vga mode. Sniffs should allow BillW to add functions to Ops.

My son is on computer now - I am using pda phone (painful).

Joined: 01 Jul 2005 Posts: 1538 Location: is everything

Wow - you can get live video from the CVS camcorder? If you can do that, then it was worth the $31 already!

It would be very interesting to have some USB surveillance cameras that cheap - perhaps a ring of IR LED's to illuminate dark areas? The best part is that the board is very small - and the power supply is connected via a connector which can be removed. You could mount the entire "camera" in a small enclosure.

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:30 am

Anyone know how to mod DV5700 inf to include libusb drivers like binaryweaver first did for cameras to prevent need for switching?

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:39 am

Curses - beat to the punch! I was going to look into this tomorrow! Smile

I plan to try to sniff, as you surmised eye. This would allow us to expand morcheeba's USB chart a whole lot, I suspect. The same approach helped a lot with the pv2 anyway.

A suggestion - try just using the libusb filter driver and the DV5700 device driver. (the config that sailpix and radarman use with the hard-of-hearing pv2) They've reported that libusb 0.1.10.1 doesn't work with the pv2 in that config, but you might get lucky with the Saturn.

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:29 am

And now for 640x480 VGA mode; but first to keep from busting binary's seat belt due to site expansion - realize that it was done with slider set at 7 fps (instead of max of 30fps). Gonna need those xd card mods.

http://camerahacking.mine.nu/phils/demanufacturing/pv2/www/brite_eye/video02.avi

I had to play above 5 times before my hand moved - don't know why, but I could cry too (along with binaryweaver - great job on audio binary).

Only 3 seconds at 7ps and 2.5 MB.

Joined: 05 Jun 2005 Posts: 119 Location: Mountains of NC

Brite, I'm surprised to see that you haven't already been tweaking the focus range on your camcorder, so that you could create a moving, winking, rolling, crying, "brite_eye".

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:56 pm

He's working on a new persona - Mr Hand. Laughing

Here comes Mr Hand... ooooh nooooo

Joined: 09 Jun 2005 Posts: 66

brite_eye wrote:

After unlock you need to control panel switch drivers from libusb to dv5700, answer yes to reboot leave camcorder plugged in wait, start IS-DV.

can anyone come up with a single HOWTO or Word doc and put it in the FAQ/LINK forum please?

Thanks for all your hard work on this project.

Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 9:24 pm

Yeah, bandwidth is getting bad. Downloading brite_eyes clip a few moments ago, I was getting an average of about 10KB/sec. Yikes.

With full VGA and full FPS, would that reduce our recording time from 20 minutes to 5 minutes?

Joined: 01 Jul 2005 Posts: 1538 Location: is everything

The 20minutes may not be hard and fast. I read a review from a non-techie (who amazingly used the camcorder as CVS intended!) who claimed that he got an extra 5 minutes. He figures it was probably because he was trying to record lightning, and the scene didn't change much between frames.

I did an experiment last night where I left my camcorder outside in the dark recording nature sounds. (I live next to a wildlife refuge) The video is almost completely black, with the occasional streak in it. This should have compressed nicely, but I still got only 20 minutes total footage out of the deal.

Not sure - the guy who reported the extra five minutes was also using a CVS supplied camera, but it was a preproduction unit for press review. He could have been smoking something as well - we'll never know Smile

Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 1:03 am

Maybe they put a "governor" on the mass market camcorders for consistency. Similar to the PV2s (You can get 30 pics squeezed into one, but by factory default they only allow you 25). Once the firmware is understood more, we may find that 25 minutes is possible under certain circumstances.

Joined: 04 Aug 2005 Posts: 247

Does the dv5700 driver come with the IS-DV software from the Aiptek web site?

Also, i'm wondering how the video went from camcorder storage to an avi.
Does the IS-DV software record directly from the camera input in 640x480 pixel format?
Or does it trigger settings in the camcorder, telling it to record in 640x480 instead?
Or are these videos recorded at the same time as the 320x240 ones accessable via libusb?
Or does IS-DV blow up the existing 320x240 images to 640x480 sizes (effectively being somewhat redundant)?

I don't have a camcorder to play with (yet), although I discovered tonight that my local CVS has 3 for sale.

Thanks for any answers

Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 12:04 pm

Yes DV5700 drivers come with IS-DV download. Check /windows/inf before and after install - I changed 3 oemxx.inf files to specify vid 167b pid 0101. I also changed setup.ini to specify Product=Saturn.

The software allows a selection of 3 sizes 640x480, 320x240, 160x120. There is also a slider for FPS up to a max of 30fps. The ov7660 imager is only slightly larger than 640x480.

It would help if someone can sniff/trace various activities using IS-DV software and DV5700 driver. I've also been trying other aiptek drivers without any success.

Joined: 04 Aug 2005 Posts: 247

Through your instructions i've managed to get the device recognized as DV 5700(Video) and the IS-DV software recognizes the device. However, I'm unable to record video properly: the preview doesn't seem to work and all video files are captured with 0 frames. Any ideas? (it's pcb version b1, btw)

Since windows recognizes it as a video capture device, it means it can theoretically function as a webcam or a security camera (see zoneminder.com for a linux example). It also means people could use any video capturing software for windows with this (like virtualdub). True, it's a battery-powered webcam, but if it was connected to a laptop you could record video until the batteries run out (unless you fashioned a makeshift AC adaptor to it).

I don't know how much webcams cost, but $30 seems a good value. Add to that the capability of recording 20 minutes of video at any given place (that's at 320x240 unless I misunderstand things) and play it back anywhere, and it becomes an unbelievable deal.

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2005 11:11 am

While connected to USB, it's actually powered by USB. You can see for yourself by removing the batteries.

Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2005 12:28 pm

ygfperson, good to see you back - so your on summer break from RPI. Maybe you can capture some video of cold fusion when you go back.

You first need to unlock camcorder with Ops, then reboot leaving camcorder plugged in. I usually just reboot to another XP instance, but have also removed libusb device driver leaving just libusb filter - which allows dv5700 driver to work if libusb has not been invoked (requires reboot after unlock also). Please report back and provide sniffs (link to sniffer somewhere in camerahacking forum).

Joined: 04 Aug 2005 Posts: 247

yep, summer break for 2 more weeks

After some fiddling around with drivers and unlocking it works. From what I can tell, video capture is limited to 18 frames/sec at 640x480 (320x240 and 160x120 didn't work for me). The quality is alright (I'll post a video once I have space cleared up).

The brightness and quality settings didn't appear to affect what was captured from the camera, or what I recorded on the camera afterwards. Maybe they're meant for the actual DV5700? It would be nice to see a firmware patch that could change the settings of the camera's on-board xvid encoding.

I guess a good first start would be to look through maushammer's documentation and see if there's anything there related to direct video capture. I've got no experience in usb hacking personally but I'll poke around and see if I can turn something up

Joined: 04 Aug 2005 Posts: 247

i'm gonna put my findings into another thread in the discussions forum

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 5:30 am

Not sure why but the direct download using IS-DV software for 640x480 seems to look a little better. Is it due to steady USB power, not using divx, losing frames ...

Old connected to USB:
http://camerahacking.mine.nu/phils/demanufacturing/pv2/www/brite_eye/video02.avi

New with mod to 640x480 30fps (not plugged into usb):
http://camerahacking.mine.nu/phils/demanufacturing/pv2/www/brite_eye/hand.avi

Or could it be that the B3 doesn't have a OV7660. I took the first 640x480 hand using IS-DV software on a B2. I later modified that for macro work. Both my B3s just can't seem to match the earlier quality of the B2. Too late now to try B3s with IS-DV software. I wonder if the comments about original 100s having even better quality are true and why?

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 11:48 am

I don't think the USP.BIN patch will interfere with any dynamic settings in IS-DV.

The 256M flash in the 100's vs. the 128M flash in the 200's is one factor in the quality.

Overly compressed Xvid movies exhibit artifacts in 2 ways. First, you get a loss of detail, which looks like blurring (assuming it's a loss of high frequency data). Second, you get blockiness, especially during fast scenes.

The 200's exhibit classic signs of both of these artifacts. It's harder to see on the little screen, a bit easier to see on the computer monitor, and glaringly obvious when you play it back on a TV. (even without reencoding)

Being able to double the bandwidth of the movies, with 256M of storage, would do wonders for any encoding artifacts.

[edited - duh, meant to say that 200's exhibit compression artifacts]

Joined: 02 Sep 2005 Posts: 13

I haven't found this information anywhere yet - is the video coming out of the camera VBR (variable bit recording)? The individual case about recording a mostly black frame makes me suspect that, along with the blockiness artifacts during fast and/or rapidly changing scenes...

-- OK, I just looked at the properties for two of my video clips, both recorded at the same resolution and frames per second, and one reported 87kbps and one 94kbps. Not a huge difference, but does indicate VBR instead of a constant bitrate (the audio for both is constant at 32kbps.

This is all with the xvid codec... interested in trying the mod listed here to see if there's much difference!

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:32 pm

The stats for the XviD encoding are in the FAQ here: http://camerahacks.10.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=319

It's definitely VBR.

Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:35 pm

IIRC, the IS-DV software did not use xvid or any compression. I think I had to reduce fps to prevent frame dropping.

I wonder if unplugged camera not using IS-DV can be modified to turn off xvid.

I would rather record 5 minutes of high quality video than 20 minutes of blur.