Access to additional video inputs on Sweetspot capture card (1 Viewer)

[KevL]

I am not writing a driver, that is way beyond my capabilities!
My programming abilities are self taught on a need to know basis in basic languages like Javascript, ASP and VBA. I've never used C# or MS Visual Studio before but all the hard work as already been done.

A WDM driver already exists for the Sweetspot (it's on the CD that came with the card). Media Portal is happy to use this driver to view the Sweetspot. All I have been doing is altering the existing code so that I can choose the more unusual inputs that don't appear in MPs standard configuration.

I wonder if a cleaner and more versatile way to do this is not by adding to the capturecard definition file a section which lists the inputs available on an input card.

At the moment I get the impression that MP assumes there are 2Composite and 1 svhs input on any card.

This would allow any type of card to be better handled and the MP menus could then more cleanly handle the result.

Anyone got any ideas about how this might be done?

Kev

 

[The Crow]

Hi,

I've now added the Sweetspot RGB input as an option in the Channel setup pages. This seemed the logical place to put it at the moment. I was going to update the autotune feature for the capture cards to include all the availible external inputs, this would require altering the way MP handles external inputs, but then I realised someone is already rewriting the way TV is handeled in MP for better support for other capture cards so I will leave this and hope Sweetspot support will be included in that update.

I will post my changes in the Patch forum but I am not sure they will be included in MP if TV is being rewritten.

My remaining issues are no deinterlacing and no post processing at the moment. I think I will have a quick look at this my self but that my be fixed in the up coming update also.

Martin - I'll have to look at the source this evening to give you a reference to what I changed to make it work.
But the first thing to do is get the WDM driver that comes with the card working in Windows.
I used Windows Movie Maker to test the driver, if you can "Capture from video device" then you are in good shape.
Then add the capture card in MP and add "CVBS/SVHS" this should give you access to the first two composite inputs and the first S-Video input.

Sorry I can't be more specific but I am not in front of MP at the moment.

Good luck

 

[Contour]

Hi,
Martin - I'll have to look at the source this evening to give you a reference to what I changed to make it work.
But the first thing to do is get the WDM driver that comes with the card working in Windows.
I used Windows Movie Maker to test the driver, if you can "Capture from video device" then you are in good shape.
Then add the capture card in MP and add "CVBS/SVHS" this should give you access to the first two composite inputs and the first S-Video input.

Hi again Paul,

I tried the WDM-driver and got it working last weekend. Ive also checked my Media Portal logs and it finds the Sweetspot-card and the inputs.

I also got the latest version of the Media Portal source to compile (although not on my HTPC since I havent got either Visual Studio.NET or SharpDevelop on it). I had a look at the source and i think i found the right place to put the changes but i would still be interested in how you implemented it.

So, the patch or some instructions on how you implemented the changes would be greatly appreciated

Best regards
/Martin

 

[The Crow]

Martin,

If you want a quick and easy way of enabling access to the RGB input (or any other) you can edit the source file:

Core\DShowNET\DsUtils.cs

On lines 250 and 442 you will see:-

if(useSVHS && PhysicalTypeIn == PhysicalConnectorType.Video_SVideo)

Change both these to:-

if(useSVHS && PhysicalTypeIn == PhysicalConnectorType.Video_RGB)

Recompile the project.

Now when you select the SVHS input it will actually route the RGB input instead.
This is obviously a quick bodge, if you want to do it neatly that involves much more code editing to add RGB as an additional input source.

Not knowing the source code I just searched for "SVHS" and every where it occurred I added an extra option or duplicated lines of code to refer to RGB instead of SVHS. I then tried to compile which failed and I went though the error messages correcting the bits of code that were at fault.

I don't know C# and never used Visual Studio before but I didn't find it too difficult to achieve this.

 

[Anonymous]

A quick update..

we have contacted the MP guys today offering assistance to get 'out of the box' support for the SweetSpot card, this will therefore allow RGB quality capture (and SDI capture) , which will give MP a real quality advantage over Windows MCE for external set top box solutions.

best regards

 

[KevL]

excellent news.

Will the proposed out of the box support allow the Xcard's mpeg decoder to be hooked into the sweetspot PDI input for DVD playback?


Kev

 

[dman_lfc]

Frodo has added RGB input for the next release.

MediaPortal requires software decoders so the Xcard option won't work unless they have DirectShow decoder filters which are exposed.

DMAN

 

[The Crow]

Frodo has added RGB input for the next release.

That's great news.

A big thank you to Frodo, it saves me having to compile my own version every time there is a new release.