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
 27Unless EASYCAP_DEBUG is defined during compilation it will not be possible
 28to select a debug level at the time of module installation.
 29
 30
 31KNOWN RUNTIME ISSUES
 32--------------------
 33
 34(1) Intentionally, this driver will not stream material which is unambiguously
 35identified by the hardware as copy-protected.  Normal video output will be
 36present for about a minute but will then freeze when this situation arises.
 37
 38(2) The controls for luminance, contrast, saturation, hue and volume may not
 39always work properly.
 40
 41(3) Reduced-resolution S-Video seems to suffer from moire artefacts.
 42
 43
 44INPUT NUMBERING
 45---------------
 46
 47For the EasyCAP with S-VIDEO input cable the driver regards a request for
 48inputs numbered 0 or 1 as referring to CVBS and a request for input
 49numbered 5 as referring to S-VIDEO.
 50
 51For the EasyCAP with four CVBS inputs the driver expects to be asked for
 52any one of inputs numbered 1,2,3,4.  If input 0 is asked for, it is
 53interpreted as input 1.
 54
 55
 56MODULE PARAMETERS
 57-----------------
 58
 59Three module parameters are defined:
 60
 61debug      the easycap module is configured at diagnostic level n (0 to 9)
 62gain       audio gain level n (0 to 31, default is 16)
 63bars       whether to display testcard bars when incoming video signal is lost
 64           0 => no, 1 => yes (default)
 65
 66
 67SUPPORTED TV STANDARDS AND RESOLUTIONS
 68--------------------------------------
 69
 70The following TV standards are natively supported by the hardware and are
 71usable as (for example) the "norm=" parameter in the mplayer command:
 72
 73    PAL_BGHIN,    NTSC_N_443,
 74    PAL_Nc,       NTSC_N,
 75    SECAM,        NTSC_M,        NTSC_M_JP,
 76    PAL_60,       NTSC_443,
 77    PAL_M.
 78
 79In addition, the driver offers "custom" pseudo-standards with a framerate
 80which is 20% of the usual framerate.  These pseudo-standards are named:
 81
 82    PAL_BGHIN_SLOW,    NTSC_N_443_SLOW,
 83    PAL_Nc_SLOW,       NTSC_N_SLOW,
 84    SECAM_SLOW,        NTSC_M_SLOW,        NTSC_M_JP_SLOW,
 85    PAL_60_SLOW,       NTSC_443_SLOW,
 86    PAL_M_SLOW.
 87
 88
 89The available picture sizes are:
 90
 91     at 25 frames per second:   720x576, 704x576, 640x480, 360x288, 320x240;
 92     at 30 frames per second:   720x480, 640x480, 360x240, 320x240.
 93
 94
 95WHAT'S TESTED AND WHAT'S NOT
 96----------------------------
 97
 98This driver is known to work with mplayer, mencoder, tvtime, zoneminder,
 99xawtv, gstreamer and sufficiently recent versions of vlc.  An interface
100to ffmpeg is implemented, but serious audio-video synchronization problems
101remain.
102
103The driver is designed to support all the TV standards accepted by the
104hardware, but as yet it has actually been tested on only a few of these.
105
106I have been unable to test and calibrate the S-video input myself because I
107do not possess any equipment with S-video output.
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
123MODPROBE CONFIGURATION
124----------------------
125
126The easycap module is in competition with the module snd-usb-audio for the
127EasyCAP's audio channel, and its installation can be aided by providing a
128file in directory /etc/modprobe.d with content:
129
130options easycap  gain=16 bars=1
131install easycap /sbin/rmmod snd-usb-audio; /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install easycap
132
133
134ACKNOWLEGEMENTS AND REFERENCES
135------------------------------
136This driver makes use of information contained in the Syntek Semicon DC-1125
137Driver, presently maintained at http://sourceforge.net/projects/syntekdriver/
138by Nicolas Vivien.  Particularly useful has been a patch to the latter driver
139provided by Ivor Hewitt in January 2009.  The NTSC implementation is taken
140from the work of Ben Trask.
141