Re: [tlug] Questions about specifications for some cutting edge video recording via laptop

[Henri T Servomaa <r_muffin@example.com>]

10.9.2005 kello 21:00, Henri T Servomaa kirjoitti:
  10.9.2005 kello 11:28, Josh Glover kirjoitti:
>  On 9/10/05, Dave Gutteridge <dave@example.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Ah... this is very helpful. What do you mean when you say "control
>>> protocol"? Is this in reference to a hardware driver, or software 
>>> code...?
>>
>> He means the sequence of bits that are sent across the FireWire link
>> to control the camera. This is basically what a driver does, provides
>> software control of a hardware device by means of a protocol.
>>
>> Any control protocol can be reverse-engineered, if you have the time
>> and technical ability.
>

Replying to self, ;-P

> 1. Connecting 3 DV streams on one bus is probably un-possible with 
> firewire.
> I seem to recall an Apple article...
> ..yep...here:
>  http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2004/qa1365.html

That article only actually talks about a limitation with quicktime for 
DV, d'oh!

> 2. The actual DV control protocol (to control the DV camera or any DV 
> device)
> should be a standard. Sorry to say I'm not knowledgeable about the 
> linux
> iee1394 api's or DV libraries.
> Doing that research is probably your first task before deciding on the 
> platform
> (As a sidenote, Apple has this in Quicktime, and you can make your 
> custom camera
> control/video recording app in Cocoa fairly easily... but only for one 
> DV stream at a time..)

The control protocol goes by the name AVC. A quick search turned this 
for linux. It's rather old
but might be a start.
  http://graphics.cs.uni-sb.de/~repplix/l1394_home/


Good luck ;-)

--
Henri T Servomaa
  ..yes me Finn but me Ragga Muffin..