Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] New MiniDV driver

[Georgi Georgiev <chutz gg3 net>]

maillog: 04/04/2005-06:21:56(+0200): Julien PUYDT types
> Georgi Georgiev a écrit :
> 
> >A new implementation of a DV1394 plugin (cleanly installable along with
> >the current plugins) is available for download from
> >http://www.gg3.net/~chutz/dvplugins/
> >
> >The major differences between the new DV and the current AVC plugins
> >are:
> >- does not depend on libavc1394
> >- does not depend on libraw1394
> > 
> >
> How does that work? Do you access the hardware directly?
> Would it have been harder to make them better?

It needs the dv1394 kernel module. This module provides a character
device for each... I am guessing firewire card... that dumps the raw DV
data flowing on the bus. So, you basically can "cat /dev/dv1394/0 >
dvfile.dv" and then play the dumped file directly with mplayer. This new
DV plugin simply expects to read data from a device. In fact, you can
even use a previously dumped DV file on your harddrive:

mkfifo symlinked.dv
perl -e 'undef $/; while(1) {
	# 150000 for PAL
	read STDIN, $d, 120000; print $d;
	# 1/25 for PAL
	select (undef, undef, undef, 1.0/30) }' < coolmovie.dv > symlinked.dv

(The only problem is that it would freeze when the file's done, but the
idea is there).

> >- does not report the pretty name of your camera
> >
> Shouldn't be too hard to implement, depending on how you did it.

It would be nice if the dv1394 module was giving this information
somewhere, but it is also possible to simply figure out the channel from
the minor of the character device and reuse the code in the AVC plugin.

Has anyone actually used the current AVC plugin with more than one
camera?

> >- no crashes on my 2.6 kernel (AVC was freezing on me after a few
> >seconds)
> >
> I had no crashes here

Cool! So it *was* my setup! Could be anything, though. Anyway, the new
version is smoother. I could actually try to thread the AVC code now,
and avoid the ugly framedrops.

> >Any reports/comments/suggestions from brave souls are much
> >appreciated.
> >
> Not today ; and perhaps not even this week :-/

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