@Cap

The problem with RF input is that there's no standard decoder. The linux driver for Bt8x8 actually have a table of possible decoders and use that, using a PROM on some cards. There's a fair amount of black magic involved.

If your TV card is a Win/TV card like mine then you may have some luck and I can put RF support in (I've already written it for my test program which is on OS4Depot).

What card do you have? I can see if I can get something up.

In the meantime please let me know how you get on with composite input, and preferably get a Freeview box with SCART or composite. :) I didn't think any Freeview boxes didn't have at least SCART!

@agafaster

Did you try V0.8 or V0.10?

It doesn't use the tuner at the moment, that'll come in due course, but not yet. Worrying about the composite in at the moment!

TV cards work the same on PCs as they do on Amigas, but there are all sorts of caveats you need to watch out for, and obviously the technical docs are rather complicated. The actual program uses the Linux driver source as a basis for parameters but the actual program framework is completely different - much of it is also based on the technical references. However, that does mean that if the Windows drivers do something special I don't know about it, as I only have the Linux sources available.

As for USB TV cards, there's no technical documentation out there in the public domain. Even the Linux drivers are actually written by snooping the USB bus to see what the Windows driver does and emulating that!

Hi everybody,

I've put a new version of AmiTV (v0.10) onto my website, at:

http://www.retroreview.com/iang/AmiTV_0.10.lha

PLEASE try it and read the readme! At the moment I'm not sure the cx2388x works as my Bt878 card is in the A1 right now.

@Cap

What exactly do you mean that you get the same results? What input are you using if your Freeview box doesn't have composite out? You won't get anything on RF yet.. but you can use SCART if you use a SCART->Composite adaptor....

@agafaster

Quote:

It will be... there's no interrupts on it.

The main problems are:

1) Intuition will corrupt the display. Click the mouse anywhere and watch the window go psychedelic. You'll also notice sporadic lines of colour in the window, due to this. If you hold down the right mouse button, Intuition stops responding and the window becomes clear. So if you want to watch a movie, you may want to tape the right mouse button down. :)
2) I can't get a picture much bigger than 1/2 PAL size (Which is what the program is at the moment). When I do I get spurious pixels all over the place as the card - in some columns only - DMAs only every other pixel, resulting in a grid of uncoloured pixels. I have no idea why this is!
3) Interrupts I haven't tried for a while but I'm pretty sure they still lock up the system when they're enabled. This is fine when you're using overlay, but not when you're not (i.e. video capture). On the Cx2388x they don't lock anything up because they never trigger!

If I can solve those problems then maybe we can get a reasonable usable release!

As always, any help would be greatfully received, more than happy to send the source to anyone who wants it.

Incidentally, the cx2388x library in that archive may not work as I've not brought it in line with the changes I made to get the Bt8x8 library working. Also if anyone can PLEASE try the program in a Pegasos II I'd be grateful. I don't think you can get the Bt8x8 chipset on 3.3V PCI cards so no Sam can run it...? Cx2388x cards will work though (if the driver does).

OK, after a couple of hours "tweaking", I've got something resembling a usable program.

It's at:

http://www.retroreview.com/iang/AmiTV_0.8.lha

Run it by typing "AmiTV" - make sure the bt8x8.library is accessibly (PROGDIR: or LIBS:).
Use the ESCape key to quit.
Use up/down arrows to change signals. If you still don't get anything try quitting and running again.

Good luck! Be sure to let me know what happens!

@caver99

OK, I'll see what I can do.

You'll need an overlay-capable graphics card, but I'm not aware of any that aren't these days. Other than that it should work!

@caver99

I use AmiTV. :) Of course my version is very slightly newer than the version you have.

I don't have sound working on the Bt878 yet, but if you just want a picture in a window from a composite source I can see if I can knock up a working version for you. I mostly look at the Cx2388x chipset these days as it's more reliable and generally better, but I keep the Bt8x8 version more or less up to date. Are you looking for NTSC or PAL picture?

I can't do anything if you want to use the RF tuner, though - I got that working in my test harness but not in the proper version.

Incidentally, the version on OS4depot does actually basically work. Just make sure you're using a composite video source, and that you've tried different inputs (up and down arrows change input). You may also need several attempts to get a picture in that version.

The A1 is very much an ATX case. When you see it you'll see what we mean. :) Mine's in a midi tower.

The PCI supports 5V and 3.3V at 33MHz. It supports 66MHz too but only if you don't use the AGP slot, which is where your Radeon should go.

I have no experience with the Catweasel in the A1 but I remedy that shortly. It should work just fine though.

@Fernecho

Not directly. But that'll change in due course, I'm sure, as Blu-Ray becomes more standard in computers.

@caver99

The version on OS4Depot is a very old one.... even just a test program I think. There's a whole can of worms as to why there's no working TV card driver.

However, it's not all bad news. What card is yours? Is it based on the Bt848, Bt878 or CX2388x chipset? Because if it is, it can work.

Part of the problem is that the Bt8x8 chipsets crash OS4 at odd times for no apparent reason when I have interrupts enabled. I think it fires off too many interrupts at once and it confuses the hardware.
The problem with the Cx2388x chipset is that I can't get interrupts to work at all. Luckily you don't need interrupts though.

I have a program which will display perfectly if you have a small window, but on large windows you get signal drop-out - lines of colour on the screen. I think this may be to do with the dodgy PCI implementation on the A1. I wrote in a thread about this, including the program, for people to test on their SAM but no-one got back to me so I figured that interest was minimal.

There's also the problem that even if I get everything working just fine it'll be obsolete this or next year anyway when all the TV stations go digital only, and I can't find any technical docs on the DVB decoder on my card, so can't do anything with that either.

@QuikSanz

Yup. I have it in my A4000 - it allows me to have a DL DVD+RW writer on the internal IDE! Cost 99p on eBay.

I tried it on my A1's Sil0680 card - didn't like that. Also on my A1XE onboard (unfixed) IDE - worked better on that.

It seems a little temperamental, but well worth the ?4 including postage it cost!

Well, there are kind of USB audio drivers...

I use USB audio under 4.0 on my A4000 / Deneb USB, using Poseidon as my USB stack. So there are drivers which work under 4.x, but unfortunately the only drivers that support the USB Audio don't support the USB chipsets on the Amiga One/SAM 440, and the USB chipsets are only supported by the 4.x USB stack which doesn't support USB audio.

In other words, USB audio is out for anything other than a classic - on anything else you can have the USB driver and no audio driver, or the audio driver and no USB driver, but not both.

@ZeroG

Good job your memory is better than mine. :)

@DJBase

That's it! I just renamed another .a.main file I think. :)

@DJBase

Yup, I'm using it just fine.

It didn't copy a necessary file for some reason so I had to copy it from the 3.9 installation. I think it was usbaudio.class or something like that, go digging on your 3.9 and see if it's missing on your 4.0.

When that's done it should work just fine (mine does).

@RacerX

The problem is that whereas with most programs, where each evolution of the program increases speed, with MAME each revision increases accuracy at the cost of speed.

In other words, our current CPUs are really too slow to run the more modern versions of MAME.

That said, I still want to try one day. :)

@joerg

Quote:

Please do this as soon as possible! For sure no-one will be writing plug-ins while there's no plug-in API!

Thanks for the great work!

I've knocked up an experimental version of my TV program, could some of you try it please?

It's at:
www.retroreview.com/iang/AmiTV_0.7a.lha

It requires:

AmigaOS 4.0 or higher (don't think it needs 4.1)
Overlay-capable graphics card (I think all Radeon-based chipsets will work)
Conexant CX2388x chipset PAL TV card (such as Hauppauge Win/TV)

In the archive:

AmiTV
CX2388x.library
CX2388x_small.library

I'd like to know please what happens when anybody tries this on their system.
This build is only PAL, as I don't have an NTSC CX2388x card, only Bt878.

The only keys that do anything are up/down arrows to change input, and Escape to quit.

I'm particularly interested to see what happens when it's run on a SAM440ep as I don't have one of those, but any feedback is good.

The _small library exists because I'm having trouble with long-width DMA chains, so I want to see if it works better on the SAM with short chains like it does on my A1XE.
Hence can people try both versions please? You'll need to copy cx2388x_small.library to libs:cx2388x.library and reboot to use that version.

Any feedback much appreciated! Mail to IanG@amooganet.org please, but with "amiga" instead of "amooga"! :) Or reply to the thread of course.

Oh, one last thing.... don't expect it not to crash/take down your system/invade Tokyo - but it shouldn't do. Nothing nasty so far apart from confusing my HD0: driver (reboot fixed that).

(Edit: Just uploaded 0.7a - it's nicer and includes a AmiTV_HalfWindow version - test that too please!)

Thanks!

@samo79

Quote:

In the meantime, "version OWB" from a shell prompt in the right directory will tell you what version you're running, I believe....

... though yes, I agree, it'd be nice to have a little "about" window!