em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Ivan]

I recently purchased ($20 special deal from newegg; the price has gone 
back up) the following USB stick that captures composite video and 
S-video (no TV tuner):

KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800)

It seemed likely to be supported by the em28xx driver, and I'm pleased 
to report that, in fact, it is!

I actually thought for a while that it might not be supported, because 
it wasn't obvious that I needed to set the appropriate V4L settings, 
which weren't defaulted to the ones I need (NTSC, composite video 
input), or even which program I should start testing with. So it looks 
like I should make sure that the documentation on linuxtv.org gets improved.

My first successful test occurred with MPlayer:

mplayer tv:// -tv device=/dev/video1:input=1:normid=0

(my webcam is /dev/video0, so the USB stick gets /dev/video1)

I'm wondering about firmware, though, because I notice that the Windows 
drivers include a firmware file (merlinFW.rom, 16382 bytes, md5sum 
647d818c6fc82f385ebfbbd4fb2def6d), and the video looks slightly cleaner 
in Windows-- this might be accomplished with a software filter, but I 
thought it might be possible that it's being done by firmware.

Does the em28xx driver load a firmware?

Also, any firmware that gets loaded only persists until the device is 
unplugged, right? And so my prior successful test on Windows has nothing 
to do with my later success on Linux... just want to be sure about that. 
I also tried testing with Windows in Virtualbox, but had no luck-- does 
anyone know if this should be possible? (I can provide more info about 
my virtualbox testing if anyone's interested.)

Finally, lsusb output:

Bus 002 Device 004: ID eb1a:2860 eMPIA Technology, Inc.
(let me know if you want the verbose output)

And dmesg output:

usb 2-1.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
usb 2-1.2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
em28xx: New device @ 480 Mbps (eb1a:2860, interface 0, class 0)
em28xx #0: chip ID is em2860
em28xx #0: board has no eeprom
em28xx #0: Identified as Unknown EM2750/28xx video grabber (card=1)
em28xx #0: found i2c device @ 0x4a [saa7113h]
em28xx #0: Your board has no unique USB ID.
em28xx #0: A hint were successfully done, based on i2c devicelist hash.
em28xx #0: This method is not 100% failproof.
em28xx #0: If the board were missdetected, please email this log to:
em28xx #0: 	V4L Mailing List  <linux-media@vger.kernel.org>
em28xx #0: Board detected as EM2860/SAA711X Reference Design
em28xx #0: Registering snapshot button...
input: em28xx snapshot button as 
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.2/input/input10
saa7115 8-0025: saa7113 found (1f7113d0e100000) @ 0x4a (em28xx #0)
em28xx #0: Config register raw data: 0x00
em28xx #0: v4l2 driver version 0.1.2
em28xx #0: V4L2 video device registered as /dev/video1
em28xx #0: V4L2 VBI device registered as /dev/vbi0
usbcore: registered new interface driver em28xx
em28xx driver loaded

I guess the part about the snapshot button means that I can use the push 
button on the USB stick to trigger stuff if I want (yay!), but I have no 
idea how to make that actually happen.

I'll be happy to provide more info if needed. I really appreciate the 
great work that's been done on the V4L drivers!

Ivan

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 9:56 PM, Ivan <ivan.q.public@gmail.com> wrote:
> I recently purchased ($20 special deal from newegg; the price has gone back
> up) the following USB stick that captures composite video and S-video (no TV
> tuner):
>
> KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800)
>
> It seemed likely to be supported by the em28xx driver, and I'm pleased to
> report that, in fact, it is!

Yup, it's supported.

> Does the em28xx driver load a firmware?

No firmware is involved at all for this device.  The Merlin ROM you
are seeing is for other devices that use the same underlying driver.

> Also, any firmware that gets loaded only persists until the device is
> unplugged, right? And so my prior successful test on Windows has nothing to
> do with my later success on Linux... just want to be sure about that. I also
> tried testing with Windows in Virtualbox, but had no luck-- does anyone know
> if this should be possible? (I can provide more info about my virtualbox
> testing if anyone's interested.)

Again, no firmware involved, and there is no transient state from
Windows to Linux.  Do a cold boot into Linux and you will see the
device works fine.

VirtualBox performs poorly with devices of this nature because the USB
emulation isn't really designed for high-speed realtime delivery of
video (and an uncompressed analog stream is about 20MB/sec).

> I guess the part about the snapshot button means that I can use the push
> button on the USB stick to trigger stuff if I want (yay!), but I have no
> idea how to make that actually happen.

If your device actually has a physical button on it then yes it will
work.  The driver will generate a "KEY_CAMERA" input event via
inputdev (similar to a keyboard event).  Read up on inputdev to see
how to write a userland application which can see it.

Cheers,

Devin

-- 
Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs
http://www.kernellabs.com

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Ivan]

 > KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800)

Minor correction, for people who might be searching on the exact model 
number:

KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800D)

>> It seemed likely to be supported by the em28xx driver, and I'm pleased to
>> report that, in fact, it is!
>
> Yup, it's supported.

Ok, I just wanted to submit a detailed report because I didn't see my 
exact hardware in any of (what I suppose are) the official lists:

http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/video4linux/CARDLIST.em28xx

http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Em28xx_devices#Validated_boards

It's also kinda nice to see that my previous email is already in the top 
ten google results for *linux kworld dvd maker*.

> No firmware is involved at all for this device.  The Merlin ROM you
> are seeing is for other devices that use the same underlying driver.

Ah, that makes sense.

> If your device actually has a physical button on it then yes it will
> work.  The driver will generate a "KEY_CAMERA" input event via
> inputdev (similar to a keyboard event).  Read up on inputdev to see
> how to write a userland application which can see it.

Thanks for those pointers.

Now, regarding the difference in image quality between the Linux and 
Windows drivers, I took some snapshots. Linux is first, then Windows:

http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/3762966/img/3762966.png

http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/3762977/img/3762977.png

I would have thought that the digitized video coming from the card would 
be essentially the same in both cases, but the vertical stripes and the 
difference in width don't seem to be merely a matter of postprocessing. 
Does the driver have a greater level of control than I suspected over 
the digitization process in the card? (The difference in sharpness, on 
the other hand, I would guess to be postprocessing.)

So I'm mainly wondering whether the vertical stripes can be eliminated 
by controlling the card differently, or if we have no control over that 
and have to deal with it by postprocessing.

Ivan

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 1:44 PM, Ivan <ivan.q.public@gmail.com> wrote:
> Now, regarding the difference in image quality between the Linux and Windows
> drivers, I took some snapshots. Linux is first, then Windows:
>
> http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/3762966/img/3762966.png
>
> http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/3762977/img/3762977.png
>
> I would have thought that the digitized video coming from the card would be
> essentially the same in both cases, but the vertical stripes and the
> difference in width don't seem to be merely a matter of postprocessing. Does
> the driver have a greater level of control than I suspected over the
> digitization process in the card? (The difference in sharpness, on the other
> hand, I would guess to be postprocessing.)
>
> So I'm mainly wondering whether the vertical stripes can be eliminated by
> controlling the card differently, or if we have no control over that and
> have to deal with it by postprocessing.

The vertical stripes were a problem with the anti-alias filter
configuration, which I fixed a few months ago (and probably just
hasn't made it into your distribution).  Just install the current
v4l-dvb code and it should go away:

http://linuxtv.org/repo

Devin

-- 
Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs
http://www.kernellabs.com

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Ivan]

On 07/08/2010 01:52 PM, Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> The vertical stripes were a problem with the anti-alias filter
> configuration, which I fixed a few months ago (and probably just
> hasn't made it into your distribution).  Just install the current
> v4l-dvb code and it should go away:
>
> http://linuxtv.org/repo

Yep, that gets rid of the vertical stripes but adds in a lovely 
horizontal shift:

http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/3763906/img/3763906.png

Also, vertical lines look slightly more ragged than they did before, to 
my eye at least.

I'm also encountering this old compilation problem:

http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-media@vger.kernel.org/msg06865.html

I worked around it by disabling firedtv in v4l/.config. (I'm running 
2.6.32-23-generic on Ubuntu Lucid.)

Ivan

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 3:52 PM, Ivan <ivan.q.public@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 07/08/2010 01:52 PM, Devin Heitmueller wrote:
>>
>> The vertical stripes were a problem with the anti-alias filter
>> configuration, which I fixed a few months ago (and probably just
>> hasn't made it into your distribution).  Just install the current
>> v4l-dvb code and it should go away:
>>
>> http://linuxtv.org/repo
>
> Yep, that gets rid of the vertical stripes but adds in a lovely horizontal
> shift:
>
> http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/3763906/img/3763906.png
>
> Also, vertical lines look slightly more ragged than they did before, to my
> eye at least.
>
> I'm also encountering this old compilation problem:
>
> http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-media@vger.kernel.org/msg06865.html
>
> I worked around it by disabling firedtv in v4l/.config. (I'm running
> 2.6.32-23-generic on Ubuntu Lucid.)
>
> Ivan
>

The "jagged vertical lines" is probably this issue, which was fixed in
git but the fix hasn't hit the hg repository yet:

http://git.linuxtv.org/v4l-dvb.git?a=commitdiff;h=9db74cf24c038292d353d746cec11f6da368ef4c

The "horizontal shift" issue is interesting.  Does that happen every
time?  And did you unplug/replug the device?  Try to reboot?

Regarding the compilation issue, yeah it's annoying.  Perhaps someday
the Ubuntu people will fix their kernel packaging process.

Devin

-- 
Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs
http://www.kernellabs.com

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Ivan]

On 07/08/2010 04:02 PM, Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 3:52 PM, Ivan<ivan.q.public@gmail.com>  wrote:
>> Yep, that gets rid of the vertical stripes but adds in a lovely horizontal
>> shift:
>>
>> http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/3763906/img/3763906.png
>
> The "horizontal shift" issue is interesting.  Does that happen every
> time?  And did you unplug/replug the device?  Try to reboot?

Reboot? What is this, Windoze? :^D

But yeah, it's consistent across unplugs/replugs/reboots.

Ivan

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Ivan]

On 07/08/2010 04:35 PM, Ivan wrote:
> On 07/08/2010 04:02 PM, Devin Heitmueller wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 3:52 PM, Ivan<ivan.q.public@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Yep, that gets rid of the vertical stripes but adds in a lovely
>>> horizontal
>>> shift:
>>>
>>> http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/3763906/img/3763906.png
>>
>> The "horizontal shift" issue is interesting. Does that happen every
>> time? And did you unplug/replug the device? Try to reboot?
>
> Reboot? What is this, Windoze? :^D
>
> But yeah, it's consistent across unplugs/replugs/reboots.

Ok, the horizontal shift disappears if I switch to 720x480 instead of 
640x480.

Does the card always output 720x480 (in NTSC mode anyway), then, and any 
scaling is done by V4L?

I also have a question about dropped frames. After running mplayer or 
mencoder, I see a line like:

v4l2: 1199 frames successfully processed, -3 frames dropped.

I can only guess that the negative number means that V4L received frames 
at a slightly faster rate than the expected 30000/1001 fps. In my case, 
it would seem that my SNES is producing something more like 30.05 fps, 
and so V4L reports a "negative" dropped frame every 12.5 seconds or so.

It would also seem that V4L doesn't actually discard any frames, but 
still passes them on to mplayer/mencoder, because mencoder shows an 
encoding fps of 30.04 (and it will skip a frame every 12.5 seconds or so 
unless you pass it -noskip).

Am I right about all this?

Ivan

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 5:33 PM, Ivan <ivan.q.public@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok, the horizontal shift disappears if I switch to 720x480 instead of
> 640x480.
>
> Does the card always output 720x480 (in NTSC mode anyway), then, and any
> scaling is done by V4L?

That card does have an onboard scaler, although it's not clear to me
why it isn't working.  Exactly what command line did you use?

> I also have a question about dropped frames. After running mplayer or
> mencoder, I see a line like:
>
> v4l2: 1199 frames successfully processed, -3 frames dropped.
>
> I can only guess that the negative number means that V4L received frames at
> a slightly faster rate than the expected 30000/1001 fps. In my case, it
> would seem that my SNES is producing something more like 30.05 fps, and so
> V4L reports a "negative" dropped frame every 12.5 seconds or so.

Yeah, I don't know.  You would have to ask the mplayer/mencoder people.

> It would also seem that V4L doesn't actually discard any frames, but still
> passes them on to mplayer/mencoder, because mencoder shows an encoding fps
> of 30.04 (and it will skip a frame every 12.5 seconds or so unless you pass
> it -noskip).
>
> Am I right about all this?

Again, this would be an mplayer/mencoder thing.

Devin

-- 
Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs
http://www.kernellabs.com

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Ivan]

On 07/08/2010 05:49 PM, Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> That card does have an onboard scaler, although it's not clear to me
> why it isn't working.  Exactly what command line did you use?

At first, I was always using

mplayer tv:// -tv device=/dev/video1:input=1:norm=NTSC

which defaults to a resolution of 640x480. This output looked correct 
(except for vertical stripes) in kernel 2.6.32-23-generic, but was 
horizontally shifted after I updated to the current mercurial sources.

Then I noticed that

mplayer tv:// -tv device=/dev/video1:input=1:norm=NTSC:width=720

gives a correct picture with current hg source.

>> v4l2: 1199 frames successfully processed, -3 frames dropped.
 >> ...
>
> Yeah, I don't know.  You would have to ask the mplayer/mencoder people.

Ah, so those statistics are generated by mplayer, then, not by v4l.

>> It would also seem that V4L doesn't actually discard any frames...
 >> ...blah blah blah about mencoder...
>
> Again, this would be an mplayer/mencoder thing.

I guess I'm just trying to confirm that v4l doesn't try to enforce a 
strict NTSC framerate, but just passes all frames on even if they appear 
at a slightly different framerate.

Ivan

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Mauro Carvalho Chehab]

Em 08-07-2010 19:10, Ivan escreveu:
> On 07/08/2010 05:49 PM, Devin Heitmueller wrote:
>> That card does have an onboard scaler, although it's not clear to me
>> why it isn't working.  Exactly what command line did you use?
> 
> At first, I was always using
> 
> mplayer tv:// -tv device=/dev/video1:input=1:norm=NTSC
> 
> which defaults to a resolution of 640x480. This output looked correct (except for vertical stripes) in kernel 2.6.32-23-generic, but was horizontally shifted after I updated to the current mercurial sources.

I never saw the em28xx scaler generating such vertical stripes. This could be a mplayer or a video adapter driver problem.
Are you using a proprietary video driver? You may try to use ffmeg or mencoder to generate a mpeg file at 640x480 and then
try to play it on another player (preferably on another machine), to see if this problem disappears.
> 
> Then I noticed that
> 
> mplayer tv:// -tv device=/dev/video1:input=1:norm=NTSC:width=720
> 
> gives a correct picture with current hg source.
> 
>>> v4l2: 1199 frames successfully processed, -3 frames dropped.

This is not a V4L issue.

A negative number of dropping frames makes no sense. It is probably a mplayer bug.
I would try to get a newer version of mplayer and double check.

If your video adapter is not fast enough, or if some post-processing logic at mplayer
are enabled and you don't have enough processing speed at both CPU and GPU, mplayer may
complain about frames dropped. It may also be related to audio driver, if you're enabling 
alsa at .mplayer/config.

When you have frames dropped, it may help to replace the video and audio output (-vo and -ao)
to use one of the several different mplayer output drivers. On my own tests, I generally use
sdl, gl or gl2 drivers for output, instead of x11, as they provide a better performance with
the video adapters I have here.
To get a list of available drivers, you may use:
	$ mplayer -vo help


>>> ...
>>
>> Yeah, I don't know.  You would have to ask the mplayer/mencoder people.
> 
> Ah, so those statistics are generated by mplayer, then, not by v4l.
> 
>>> It would also seem that V4L doesn't actually discard any frames...
>>> ...blah blah blah about mencoder...
>>
>> Again, this would be an mplayer/mencoder thing.
> 
> I guess I'm just trying to confirm that v4l doesn't try to enforce a strict NTSC framerate, but just passes all frames on even if they appear at a slightly different framerate.

V4L doesn't enforce a framerate. It will just send frames to userspace as they're being available
by the hardware and provided that the application is fast enough to get frames at the hardware speed.

em28xx hardware outputs NTSC frames at about 30 fps.

> 
> Ivan
> -- 
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-media" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Ivan]

On 07/09/2010 08:47 AM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
> I never saw the em28xx scaler generating such vertical stripes. This
> could be a mplayer or a video adapter driver problem. Are you using a
> proprietary video driver? You may try to use ffmeg or mencoder to
> generate a mpeg file at 640x480 and then try to play it on another
> player (preferably on another machine), to see if this problem
> disappears.

Huh? Does there even *exist* a proprietary linux driver for my card? And 
because you never saw stripes with em28xx, they must not exist? :^P

You might want to reread the thread-- we already figured the stripes out.

>>>> v4l2: 1199 frames successfully processed, -3 frames dropped.
>
> This is not a V4L issue.

I'm aware of that by now.

> A negative number of dropping frames makes no sense. It is probably a
> mplayer bug. I would try to get a newer version of mplayer and double
> check.

Newer than latest svn? :^D

If you look at the mplayer code that calculates the supposed number of 
frames dropped (it's in stream/tvi_v4l2.c), it would seem that it's just 
an indicator of how close the stream came to the nominal framerate 
(30000/1001 in my case).

In other words, if mplayer sees an actual framerate of less than 29.97 
coming from v4l, it assumes (perhaps incorrectly) that this is because 
some frames were dropped. If you do the same calculation when the actual 
framerate is greater than 29.97, you get a negative number of dropped 
frames. It looks weird, but it makes a kind of sense if you know what it 
really means.

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Mauro Carvalho Chehab]

Em 09-07-2010 14:19, Ivan escreveu:
> On 07/09/2010 08:47 AM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
>> I never saw the em28xx scaler generating such vertical stripes. This
>> could be a mplayer or a video adapter driver problem. Are you using a
>> proprietary video driver? You may try to use ffmeg or mencoder to
>> generate a mpeg file at 640x480 and then try to play it on another
>> player (preferably on another machine), to see if this problem
>> disappears.
> 
> Huh? Does there even *exist* a proprietary linux driver for my card? And because you never saw stripes with em28xx, they must not exist? :^P

Well, it depends. What are your video adapter card? ATI? Nvidia?

> You might want to reread the thread-- we already figured the stripes out.
> 
>>>>> v4l2: 1199 frames successfully processed, -3 frames dropped.
>>
>> This is not a V4L issue.
> 
> I'm aware of that by now.
> 
>> A negative number of dropping frames makes no sense. It is probably a
>> mplayer bug. I would try to get a newer version of mplayer and double
>> check.
> 
> Newer than latest svn? :^D

Well, then try a stable version ;)

> If you look at the mplayer code that calculates the supposed number of frames dropped (it's in stream/tvi_v4l2.c), it would seem that it's just an indicator of how close the stream came to the nominal framerate (30000/1001 in my case).
> 
> In other words, if mplayer sees an actual framerate of less than 29.97 coming from v4l, it assumes (perhaps incorrectly) that this is because some frames were dropped. If you do the same calculation when the actual framerate is greater than 29.97, you get a negative number of dropped frames. It looks weird, but it makes a kind of sense if you know what it really means.

Such logic is broken. In the case of webcams, the framerate is generally less than 29.97 fps. For example, em2750 webcams,
supported by em28xx driver, have a framerate of about 5 fps, due to sensor limits.

> -- 
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-media" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 2:03 PM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab
<mchehab@redhat.com> wrote:
> Em 09-07-2010 14:19, Ivan escreveu:
>> On 07/09/2010 08:47 AM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
>>> I never saw the em28xx scaler generating such vertical stripes. This
>>> could be a mplayer or a video adapter driver problem. Are you using a
>>> proprietary video driver? You may try to use ffmeg or mencoder to
>>> generate a mpeg file at 640x480 and then try to play it on another
>>> player (preferably on another machine), to see if this problem
>>> disappears.
>>
>> Huh? Does there even *exist* a proprietary linux driver for my card? And because you never saw stripes with em28xx, they must not exist? :^P
>
> Well, it depends. What are your video adapter card? ATI? Nvidia?

Mauro,

His issue with the "vertical stripes" has been fixed when he updated
to the latest v4l-dvb code.  It's the issue I fixed a couple of months
ago with the saa7113 chroma gain behavior when there is an overdriven
signal.  The problem he's having now with the latest is the picture
appears to be shifted.  I have to wonder if perhaps I screwed
something up when I did the VBI support, in that it may not work
properly when the scaler is in use.

I will have to do some testing.

Devin

-- 
Devin J. Heitmueller - Kernel Labs
http://www.kernellabs.com

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Ivan]

On 07/09/2010 02:12 PM, Devin Heitmueller wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 2:03 PM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
>> Well, it depends. What are your video adapter card? ATI? Nvidia?

Sorry Mauro, I misread your earlier comment. I thought you were talking 
about the capture device, not my graphics card. My video driver is 
indeed proprietary (Nvidia) and has terrible tearing issues, but at 
least it doesn't do anything as bad as introduce vertical stripes with 
periodicity 4.3. :^D

> The problem he's having now with the latest is the picture appears to
> be shifted. I have to wonder if perhaps I screwed something up when I
> did the VBI support, in that it may not work properly when the scaler
> is in use.
>
> I will have to do some testing.

By the way, if you can't find other hardware that exhibits the same 
problem, let me know what I can do to help.

I tried other picture resolutions and found that the shifting only 
happens when the picture height is the full 480. If you fix the height 
at 480 and let the width vary, the picture is shifted over by 1/4 of the 
width (or 3/4, depending how you look at it), except when the width is 
very close to 720. At width 718 the shift is more like 1/3, and then at 
width 720 the picture isn't shifted at all. Here are some tarred up 
snapshots if you want to take a look:

http://ifile.it/hpui0j4/em28xx-height480.tar

Ivan

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Mauro Carvalho Chehab]

Em 09-07-2010 15:12, Devin Heitmueller escreveu:
> On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 2:03 PM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab
> <mchehab@redhat.com> wrote:
>> Em 09-07-2010 14:19, Ivan escreveu:
>>> On 07/09/2010 08:47 AM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
>>>> I never saw the em28xx scaler generating such vertical stripes. This
>>>> could be a mplayer or a video adapter driver problem. Are you using a
>>>> proprietary video driver? You may try to use ffmeg or mencoder to
>>>> generate a mpeg file at 640x480 and then try to play it on another
>>>> player (preferably on another machine), to see if this problem
>>>> disappears.
>>>
>>> Huh? Does there even *exist* a proprietary linux driver for my card? And because you never saw stripes with em28xx, they must not exist? :^P
>>
>> Well, it depends. What are your video adapter card? ATI? Nvidia?
> 
> Mauro,
> 
> His issue with the "vertical stripes" has been fixed when he updated
> to the latest v4l-dvb code.  It's the issue I fixed a couple of months
> ago with the saa7113 chroma gain behavior when there is an overdriven
> signal.  The problem he's having now with the latest is the picture
> appears to be shifted.  I have to wonder if perhaps I screwed
> something up when I did the VBI support, in that it may not work
> properly when the scaler is in use.
> 
> I will have to do some testing.

I meant that vertical risk that appeared when scaling is on. I never saw em28xx
scaler doing something like that. It maybe some bug at mplayer or at the nvidia
proprietary driver. We know that this driver has serious issues with their Xv
support, and that it do some evil things when allocating kernel memory.

Cheers,
Mauro.

Re: em28xx: success report for KWORLD DVD Maker USB 2.0 (VS-USB2800) [eb1a:2860]

[Ivan]

On 07/09/2010 04:57 PM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
> I meant that vertical risk that appeared when scaling is on. I never saw em28xx
> scaler doing something like that. It maybe some bug at mplayer or at the nvidia
> proprietary driver. We know that this driver has serious issues with their Xv
> support, and that it do some evil things when allocating kernel memory.

Sorry, what? You still want to argue that your vague suggestions trump 
the direct experiences of Devin and myself? That particular bug has 
already been identified and squashed (and I don't think it had much to 
do with scaling, but Devin could tell you for sure).