Possibility to capture PAL-60?

[aix_tom]

Ist it possible to capture a PAL-60 signal with the MediaTV?
( The "NTSC Playback on PAL TV" format that a lot of VCRs support in Europe )
I still have a few NTSC videos I would like to save.

I have tried all the formats mentioned in the driver output.

Code: [Auswählen]

0 = PAL-BG; 1 = PAL-DK; 2 = PAL-I; 3 = PAL-M; 4 = NTSC-M; 5 = Secam-L; 6 = Secam-K;
The PAL-* ones just result in no output or blank green output, NTSC-M results in the picture, but in black and white.

[Sundtek]

What is your capturing tool and command which you tried?

[aix_tom]

I have tried with mplayer and a couple of commands.

This here works fine for viewing normal PAL videos:

Code: [Auswählen]

mplayer -cache 128 -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:input=2:norm=PAL-BG:amode=1:device=/dev/video0  tv://
which results in the output:

Code: [Auswählen]

MPlayer SVN-r29796-4.3.2 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team

Playing tv://.
Cache fill:  0.00% (0 bytes)   
TV file format detected.
Selected driver: v4l2
 name: Video 4 Linux 2 input
 author: Martin Olschewski <olschewski@zpr.uni-koeln.de>
 comment: first try, more to come ;-)
Selected device: Sundtek MediaTV
 Tuner cap: STEREO
 Tuner rxs:
 Capabilites:  video capture  tuner  audio  streaming
 supported norms: 0 = PAL-BG; 1 = PAL-DK; 2 = PAL-I; 3 = PAL-M; 4 = NTSC-M; 5 = Secam-L; 6 = Secam-K;
 inputs: 0 = Television; 1 = Composite; 2 = S-Video;
 Current input: 0
 Current format: YUYV
v4l2: current audio mode is : STEREO
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [raw] RAW Uncompressed Video
Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
VO: [xv] 640x480 => 640x480 Packed YUY2
Selected video codec: [rawyuy2] vfm: raw (RAW YUY2)
==========================================================================
Audio: no sound
Starting playback...
v4l2: 128 frames successfully processed, 3 frames dropped.

If I leave out the norm= parameter and use the example in the forum there is an addional line of "bogus norm parameter", but it also works for PAL videos.

Code: [Auswählen]

$ mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0
MPlayer SVN-r29796-4.3.2 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team

Playing tv://.
TV file format detected.
Selected driver: v4l2
 name: Video 4 Linux 2 input
 author: Martin Olschewski <olschewski@zpr.uni-koeln.de>
 comment: first try, more to come ;-)
Selected device: Sundtek MediaTV
 Tuner cap: STEREO
 Tuner rxs:
 Capabilites:  video capture  tuner  audio  streaming
 supported norms: 0 = PAL-BG; 1 = PAL-DK; 2 = PAL-I; 3 = PAL-M; 4 = NTSC-M; 5 = Secam-L; 6 = Secam-K;
 inputs: 0 = Television; 1 = Composite; 2 = S-Video;
 Current input: 2
 Current format: YUYV
v4l2: current audio mode is : MONO
tv.c: norm_from_string(pal): Bogus norm parameter, setting default.
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [raw] RAW Uncompressed Video
Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
VO: [xv] 640x480 => 640x480 Packed YUY2
Selected video codec: [rawyuy2] vfm: raw (RAW YUY2)
==========================================================================
Audio: no sound
Starting playback...
v4l2: 65 frames successfully processed, 14 frames dropped.
Replacing the norm= parameter with NTSC-M or PAL-M I can then see PAL-60 video, but only in Black and White.
(I tried both the S-Video and the Composite input, both the same)

(Recording videos with mencoder also works for PAL videos.)

What I just found: If I use the PAL-DK/BG/I norms with PAL-60 there is also a select timeout error message from v4l2:

Code: [Auswählen]

$ mplayer -cache 128 -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:input=1:norm=PAL-DK:amode=1:device=/dev/video0  tv://
MPlayer SVN-r29796-4.3.2 (C) 2000-2009 MPlayer Team

Playing tv://.
Cache fill:  0.00% (0 bytes)   
TV file format detected.
Selected driver: v4l2
 name: Video 4 Linux 2 input
 author: Martin Olschewski <olschewski@zpr.uni-koeln.de>
 comment: first try, more to come ;-)
Selected device: Sundtek MediaTV
 Tuner cap: STEREO
 Tuner rxs:
 Capabilites:  video capture  tuner  audio  streaming
 supported norms: 0 = PAL-BG; 1 = PAL-DK; 2 = PAL-I; 3 = PAL-M; 4 = NTSC-M; 5 = Secam-L; 6 = Secam-K;
 inputs: 0 = Television; 1 = Composite; 2 = S-Video;
 Current input: 1
 Current format: YUYV
v4l2: current audio mode is : STEREO
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [raw] RAW Uncompressed Video
Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
VO: [xv] 640x480 => 640x480 Packed YUY2
Selected video codec: [rawyuy2] vfm: raw (RAW YUY2)
==========================================================================
Audio: no sound
Starting playback...
v4l2: select timeout ??% ??,?% 0 0 0%
v4l2: select timeout ??% ??,?% 0 0 0%
v4l2: select timeout ??% ??,?% 0 0 0%
v4l2: select timeout ??% ??,?% 0 0 0%
v4l2: select timeout ??% ??,?% 0 0 0%
v4l2: 0 frames successfully processed, 1 frames dropped.

And an "unhandled videostandard 575" message in the mediasrv.log

OS version :

Code: [Auswählen]

Linux 2.6.32-gentoo-r1 #2 SMP Wed Jan 20 20:31:00 CET 2010 x86_64
AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 810 Processor AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux


[aix_tom]

Oh, and the source machine is an Panasonic NV-HS850 S-VHS VCR

[Sundtek]

norm= is a confusion with the old video4linux (v4l1) protocol, with the new protocol you have to use normid=[number infront of the actual norm]
You are mixing up the v4l1 with the v4l2 syntax

See following line in your mplayer parameter:

Code: [Auswählen]

tv.c: norm_from_string(pal): Bogus norm parameter, setting default.


[aix_tom]

Well, using normid= doesn't change much.

ID 0: green screen and v4l2 select timeout
ID 1: green screen and v4l2 select timeout
ID 2: green screen and v4l2 select timeout
ID 3: black and white picture
ID 4: black and white picture
ID 5: green screen and v4l2 select timeout
ID 6: green screen and v4l2 select timeout

The same result it has been while using norm=

Since PAL-60 is a mix of NTSC and PAL, does the hardware/driver even support it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL#Multisystem_PAL_support_and_.22PAL_60.22

Some em28xx based devices seem to be able to capture it. At least they say so in the "supported norms" info returned by v4l2, for example this one here as normid 13.

http://www.linuxtv.org/pipermail/linux-dvb/2009-June/032234.html

Code: [Auswählen]

   Capabilites: video capture tuner audio read/write streaming
   supported norms: 0 = NTSC; 1 = NTSC-M; 2 = NTSC-M-JP; 3 = NTSC-M-KR;
   4 = NTSC-443; 5 = PAL; 6 = PAL-BG; 7 = PAL-H; 8 = PAL-I; 9 = PAL-DK;
   10 = PAL-M; 11 = PAL-N; 12 = PAL-Nc; 13 = PAL-60; 14 = SECAM;
   15 = SECAM-B; 16 = SECAM-G; 17 = SECAM-H; 18 = SECAM-DK; 19 = SECAM-L;
   20 = SECAM-Lc;
   inputs: 0 = Television; 1 = Composite1; 2 = S-Video;
   Current input: 0
   Current format: YUYV

So the question is, is the hardware not able to do it, or is it perhaps possible some day with an updated driver?

[Sundtek]

The device does support this standard, we recently had some updates which increased the signal strength for PAL-BG and DVB-C this might have affected the other standards, an engineer will check all the possible standards again this week and provide an update for it.