Experiences with the easycap DC60 audio and video capture adapter on Linux

This Blog is dedicated to all owners of the STK1160 chip based EasyCAP (or identical) devices, who want to use it under Linux.

Activating audio for the STK1160 device: read the this post

German speaking users: read my article on ubuntuusers.de

The EasyCAP DC60 and its clones are cheap little USB analogue capturing devices which can be used for viewing and recording video under Linux from different sources like VHS tape recorders, satellitereceivers, camcorders ...

Friday, March 29, 2013

Features of the stk1160 driver in the kernel

Updated August 6 2014

The stk1160 driver in the kernel (3.7 and upward) supports:
  • video capturing
    • PAL at 25 fps at 720x576
    • NTFS at 30 fps at 720x480
    • S-Video from input Nr. 4
    • the CVBS + S-Video model and 
    • the four CVBS model (all four channels) 
  • audio capturing
    • must be enabled in the mixer settings (read more on this post)
    • audio capturing only from the CVBS + S-Video model with built in AC'97 chip (3 chip Easycap; 48000Hz model) is supported
Good to know
  • The Easycap works even if it is connected to an USB 2.0 hub.
  • Use a powered hub if you get a crampy picture.
    Some performance issues are caused by too low power provided by some small boards (like Raspberry PI).
  • Some USB 3.0 hosts may have bandwith limitation, then it can cause problems with stk1160.

Supported features
  • Two (or more) stk1160 devices working side by side on one system
    (If this is not possible, it's not a driver issue, but rather about USB bandwidth)
  • Switching channels/ inputs while capturing (with the v4l2-ctl tool - read more on this post.).
Not supported: (but supported by the legacy easycapdriver)
  • Famescaling
    Only full PAL or NTFS frames can be captured
    (this is important e.g. for settings in Zoneminder)
  • audio capturing from the 8000Hz Easycap
    The stk1160 driver doesn't support audio on
    the four CVBS model and on
    the the CVBS + S-Video model where the AC'97 chip is missing.
    (Adding support for the 8 bit ADC in the stk1160 chip is planned in the future.)
Known issues
  • Some  stk1160 based Easycaps don't work on the stk1160 driver but on the legacy easycap driver. (will be solved in kernel 3.12 !)
    Read more on this post:
  • Easycap device issues on the Raspberry Pi
    Read more on this post:

3 comments:

  1. Hi Andrew.

    I have 2 easycaps, one of each type ( 4rca and s-video ). In a laptop with ubuntu 13.04 the 4 channels easycap works but the other not (the s-video) only the audio input seems to work. Of course not at the same time.

    I tried with both drivers stk1160 and easycap.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Update:
      Other thing, i have other laptop with ubuntu 10.04 and the driver easycap0.9 and works the 2 models of easycap. The only problem was the bar=1 option in the config of the driver and the easycap CVBS + S-Video work.

      Delete
    2. Hi Edward, your problem sounds like the "stk1160 regression problem"
      Read this post on my blog:
      http://easycap.blogspot.co.at/2013/03/the-stk1160-regression-problem.html

      Can you send me over the easycap.log file (one for each plugged in device) which is created by the following command, so I can look if I find some reason for your problem, or I'll send it over to Ezequiel Garcia.

      run this command in the terminal and send it to me as email attachment (adress is in my profile)

      uname -a > easycap.log; cat /proc/asound/cards >> easycap.log; usb-devices >> easycap.log; lsmod >> easycap.log; dmesg >> easycap.log;

      Delete

Please be patient, your comment will be published as soon as I'm checking my mailbox next time.
So, I will notice your comment for sure. Andrew