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 ...

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Switching the channels/ inputs while capturing

While capturing (with mplayer or any other program) you can change the active input channel with this command in the terminal:

v4l2-ctl -d /dev/video0 -i 1

The -d option of the v4l2-ctl command selects the videodevice, it is not needed if there is only one (/dev/video0) in the system.

The -i option selects/ changes the input channel of your device.

The v4l2-ctl utility is part of the v4l-utils package.

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With the "Qt V4L2 test utility" program (qv4l2) you can test switching the inputs.
In this program there is a drop down menu where you can select the different inputs while capturing.



Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Activate audio for the STK1160 device

The stk1160 module registers a control-only alsa soundcard. This sound card is called 'stk1160-mixer'.
The real sound capture is done through the 'Controlle' soundcard which is also created after plugging in the EasyCAP.
To get a list of the registerd ALSA soundcards, run the following command:
cat /proc/asound/cards
Sample output:
  0 [Intel          ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel
                      HDA Intel at 0xf0580000 irq 44
 1 [stk1160mixer   ]: stk1160 - stk1160-mixer
                      stk1160 ac97 codec mixer control
 2 [Controlle      ]: USB-Audio - USB 2.0 Video Capture Controlle
Syntek Semiconductor USB 2.0 Video Capture Controlle at usb-0000:00:1d.7-1.1, h

Activate audio

To enable sound capture you have to open alsamixer when the EasyCAP is plugged in and select the 'Line' item on the capture menu for the stk1160-mixer device:
1. start alsamixer
2. select stk1160-mixer sound card (with F6)
3. select capture controls (with F4)
4. select "Line" output (with space key) 
You can do this on the commandline as well with this line:
amixer -c stk1160mixer sset Line unmute cap 

Note! In the viewing- or capturing program you must then select the 'Controlle' soundcard or its number to hear sound!