Video acquisition problem

Hi everyone,

This message because we are trying ton install a telepresence system between Geneva and Montreal for a show called GOD IS A DJ.

As our first experience on a Linux system, we have installed Scenic 0.6.3 on our Ubuntu 11.04 and did all the installation commands in the terminal, as written in the installation guide.

We have bought a video capture card Hauppauge BT878, with 3 composite in and 1 S-video in.
The module to run the card is bttv, we configured it and it seems to work properly.

Our problem is the following:

The capture signal is perfect in acquisition programs like TVTIME or KINO but is horizontally doubled and stretched in streaming programs like SCENIC, MILHOUSE, GST-LAUNCH and CHEESE.
The input we use is a composite PAL, 4:3, native 640x480.

Would you have any idea in which direction we have to search to solve this signal distortion problem?

Here you can fin our lspci report:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82X38/X48 Express DRAM Controller (rev 01)

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82X38/X48 Express Host-Primary PCI Express Bridge (rev 01)

00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)

00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)

00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 02)

00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)

00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 02)

00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 02)

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)

00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)

00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)

00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 92)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801IR (ICH9R) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)

00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801IR/IO/IH (ICH9R/DO/DH) 4 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)

00:1f.5 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) 2 port SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV770 [Radeon HD 4870]

01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc HD48x0 audio

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 12)

03:00.0 SATA controller: JMicron Technology Corp. JMB362/JMB363 Serial ATA Controller (rev 03)

03:00.1 IDE interface: JMicron Technology Corp. JMB362/JMB363 Serial ATA Controller (rev 03)

05:01.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)

05:01.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)

05:03.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Agere Systems FW322/323 (rev 70)

05:04.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8110SC/8169SC Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)


Here you can fin our lsmod report:

Module Size Used by

vivi 19224 0

videobuf_vmalloc 13589 1 vivi

binfmt_misc 17565 1

parport_pc 36959 0

ppdev 17113 0

vesafb 13761 1

snd_hda_codec_hdmi 28103 1

snd_hda_codec_analog 98042 1

firewire_ohci 40370 0

firewire_core 62646 1 firewire_ohci

snd_hda_intel 33211 1

snd_hda_codec 103804 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_analog,snd_hda_intel

snd_hwdep 13604 1 snd_hda_codec

snd_seq_midi 13324 0

snd_rawmidi 30486 1 snd_seq_midi

snd_seq_midi_event 14899 1 snd_seq_midi

snd_seq 61621 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event

snd_bt87x 19128 1

snd_pcm 96625 4 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_bt87x

usbhid 46956 0

snd_seq_device 14462 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq

ir_lirc_codec 12898 0

lirc_dev 19232 1 ir_lirc_codec

ir_sony_decoder 12549 0

ir_jvc_decoder 12546 0

ir_rc6_decoder 12546 0

fglrx 2739144 149

snd_timer 29602 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm

asus_atk0110 17976 0

bttv 128715 0

i2c_algo_bit 13400 1 bttv

snd 67382 15 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_analog,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_rawmidi,snd_bt87x,snd_seq,snd_pcm,snd_seq_device,snd_timer

v4l2_common 17647 2 vivi,bttv

videodev 82052 3 vivi,bttv,v4l2_common

v4l2_compat_ioctl32 17078 1 videodev

videobuf_dma_sg 19307 1 bttv

ir_rc5_decoder 12546 0

x38_edac 13128 0

ir_nec_decoder 12546 0

videobuf_core 26135 4 vivi,videobuf_vmalloc,bttv,videobuf_dma_sg

serio_raw 13166 0

btcx_risc 13640 1 bttv

rc_core 26918 7 ir_lirc_codec,ir_sony_decoder,ir_jvc_decoder,ir_rc6_decoder,bttv,ir_rc5_decoder,ir_nec_decoder

tveeprom 21249 1 bttv

edac_core 53845 2 x38_edac

soundcore 12680 1 snd

snd_page_alloc 18529 3 snd_hda_intel,snd_bt87x,snd_pcm

lp 17825 0

parport 46458 3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp

hid 91020 1 usbhid

floppy 74120 0

ahci 25951 0

r8169 48022 0

crc_itu_t 12707 1 firewire_core

libahci 26642 1 ahci

pata_jmicron 12747 0

sky2 58509 0

 

Anyone has a clue? Please save our lives!

 

Don't know if I'll be much help, as most of what you posted is above my pay-grade, LOL, but I did see something that MAY be worth looking into, or it may be nothing...

You said you're broadcasting from Geneva to Montreal, so I assume that means from Switzerland in Europe to Montreal in North America. You also said your input source was a composite PAL 4:3 640x480 signal. If I'm not mistaken, I believe that PAL is a European standard, while the North American standard is NTSC. I'd look into that first, as it's probably the simplest possible solution, although maybe not the correct one.

Hope that's helpful. If not, I'm sorry, but it's all I've got!

 

Hi James,

Thank for your geographical comment... could have been a trouble, but not in this case...

We seem not to use the well tested version of Ubuntu for Scenic telepresence prog. We'll try to reinstall everything, hope will be THE solution...

Above our paygrade too, actually...

Cheers.

insanë-GVA