Need help with a USB capture card

[Just17]

Did you install the alsa modules I mentioned above? .....  Alsa being the sound server ....

Alright, I'm able to get some picture from the card, but only when the card is mounted at /dev/video0 (all the other times, it was mounted at /dev/video2).

Is that a limitation of the software you are trying?
Using VLC you can specify the devices actual location ... video0, video1, video2 etc ....  it all depends on what else has been plugged in ...

Good to know that basically it is working.

[jfdesign]

i have that usb capture device, and it's working here with tvtime, kmplayer, kdenlive, vlc and others.

[jfdesign@jfwork1 ~]$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 004: ID eb1a:2861 eMPIA Technology, Inc.

maybe i'm not helping, but as long as i can remember, i did nothing to make it work, just plug it in and fire up tvtime, then i can use it normally, the video and audio.
i'm using this usb capture from kernel-2.6.27 till now 2.6.38 without problems, then asking your kernel is not mandatory.
before 2.6.32 i have to modrobe em28xx card=19 just like just18 suggestion, but after that i never modprobing manually.

here is the lsmod :
[jfdesign@jfwork1 ~]$ lsmod | grep em
em28xx                 76973  0
v4l2_common             5399  3 tuner,saa7115,em28xx
videodev               56533  4 tuner,saa7115,em28xx,v4l2_common
videobuf_vmalloc        3679  1 em28xx
videobuf_core          13546  2 em28xx,videobuf_vmalloc
rc_core                13095  9 rc_gadmei_rm008z,ir_lirc_codec,ir_sony_decoder,ir_jvc_decoder,em28xx,ir_rc6_decoder,ir_rc5_decoder,ir_nec_decoder
tveeprom               10625  1 em28xx
i2c_core               16500  10 tuner_simple,tea5767,tuner,saa7115,em28xx,v4l2_common,videodev,tveeprom,i2c_i801,nvidia

[Just17]

jfdesign,
                good to know that someone has this exact device, and it is working 

[jfdesign]

okay 

[Just17]

okay 

Meant to ask you ...  what source do you most often use for video input?

[jfdesign]

hi just18,

i'm using composite input from that usb capture card, fed from my cabletv receiver.
the usb capture has 3 mode input, tvtuner, svideo and composite video.

[Just17]

I set up the device I mentioned in a previous post today.
Initially got it working for video only.
Using VLC, and its log messages I found that I couold get the sound using a "hw:" location for the sound.

So yes it works.

I also found that Kmplayer is the best of the bunch I tried for GUI info and settings.

Next on the list is to try to get sound working there.

It also gives a choice of which input to use ....  composite,v4l

There is also a terminal output to see what is happening. Nice!

I set up a DVD player as the input and played a film for testing.

regards.

[Venomous Woe]

Alright, so here's where I'm at now.

I've determined that PulseAudio is not the cause, because after disabling it, I still couldn't get sound to work.

I've tried to get the device on both VLC and KMPlayer. VLC just gives a blank screen and KMPlayer gives a messed-up green screen. No sound on either. Picture on TVTime or XawTV was flawless. However, the device is mounted on /dev/video1, meaning that neither piece of software can access the device.

So...what now?

[Just17]

/dev/video<number> is issued in sequence to the devices as they are plugged in/discovered.

So if you have a webcam it may get video0, which means the next device gets video1

Just arrange the order in which the devices are inserted to ensure they get the number you want

[Venomous Woe]

There's only one problem with that approach. I'm running this on a netbook with a built-in webcam. So in most circumstances, it's going to get /dev/video0.

[jfdesign]

There's only one problem with that approach. I'm running this on a netbook with a built-in webcam. So in most circumstances, it's going to get /dev/video0.

most netbook had some hardware switch such as Fn+F10 or something like that.
if i want to make my usb capture card had /dev/video0, i turn off the webcam with that Fn key, reboot.

[Venomous Woe]

No need, as it turns out. It's possible to force TVTime to use a device other than /dev/video0 using command line. Now that's fixed. But I still have no sound. Loading the em28xx_alsa module does nothing. Hmmm....

EDIT: I was looking through my mixer settings, and found that no playback device appears to exist for the card. Troubling.

[Just17]

No need, as it turns out. It's possible to force TVTime to use a device other than /dev/video0 using command line. Now that's fixed. But I still have no sound. Loading the em28xx_alsa module does nothing. Hmmm....

EDIT: I was looking through my mixer settings, and found that no playback device appears to exist for the card. Troubling.

Same situation here .....  the card does not appear.

The only one I have been able to get sound on is VLC .....  by specifying the hardware device in the audio settings.

I tried disabling Pulse but that did not help.

When using Pulse Audio I was able to see the device input, with the sound affecting the level displayed.
Yet it was not available to connect to .....  weird .....

EDIT:
          I have used 'gnome-sound-recorder' to record from the device .....  using input "Capture". So the sound stream is there .....  but for some reason is not made available .....  more investigations needed .....

  I can also record the audio using
arecord -vv -c 2 -D hw:0,0 -f S16_LE test.wav
where the hw:0,0 is the location of the audio. This can change on a new insertion, or depending on other devices attached.

[Just17]

My present hardware record devices ....

Code: [Select]

$ arecord -l
**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Em28xxAudio [Em28xx Audio], device 0: Em28xx Audio [Empia 28xx Capture]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 0: ALC883 Analog [ALC883 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 2: ALC883 Analog [ALC883 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

That is from where I determined the   hw:0,0    I used in VLC.

[Just17]

OK .......  VLC is the winner here!

I got sound and video once I thought to select PAL for my area rather than Default .....  whatever that may have been.

Only thing I notice is a green line under the video ....  not in the film part, but outside.
Can probably be got rid of by sizing properly ....  but not a problem as all is working now.