3DFX WDM Video Capture Driver 5.3.2

Description:

The present driver is a Video Capture driver for Bt848, Bt849, Bt878, Bt879 based video capture boards. It tries to take the most of the hardware, using all the features the chipset has to offer. It is also implemented as a WDM driver, so thesame driver should work under Win2000, Win98SE, WinXP and WinMe without modifications.

Features

:
- You can capture at full framerate in full screen. Just use Preview mode instead of overlay mode. Overlay mode probably won't work under VideoForWindows (VFW) applications (Bug in VFW to WDM wrapper provided by Microsoft)

- You can capture individual fields (this requires an application that uses the DirectShow API to capture video). Don't know an app. that let you capture individual fields using DirectShow API already exists. Obviously, there exists lots of apps that let you capture full frames and video using DirectShow.
You can capture at any framerate you like : The driver internally subsamples to achieve this "thanks" to a bug of the Microsoft's WDM layer. This is specially important for Video For Windows API based capture applications (As Adobe Premiere)

- There are plenty of capture video formats (all supported by DirectShow and the hardware). For example, use YV12 for MPEG capture!)

- You can use all the newer/(faster) DirectShow capture applications (I would recommend Ulead Media Studio Pro, or Ulead Visual Studio, as those can use this driver to capture full frame size/full rate mpeg2 video.

- All the video capture programs (except NetMeeting , read below) will let you use the TV tuner as your source, and change channels if you like.

- AM/FM radio is supported, Just set TV tuner mode to RADIO!

- You can use this driver under Win2000.

- Driver is optimized for speed, so CPU requirements are less than the original driver (VXD).
You can select different colorspaces/sizes independently for preview and capture (On well written DirectShow applications only). Even, if you capture at full frame sizes, but at a lower framerate than the maximum allowed, and with the same colorspace and size for preview and capture, you will get preview using all the frames not captured.

- Driver stores your settings, so they will remain as you have left them the last time you used the driver (depends on the program being used, some programs overwrite those settings.)

- All the video standards the chipset supports are supported. Don't be suprised if you get a lot more than you were used to with your old driver. Even PAL_N_Combination (Used in Argentina) is supported. (Requiresa Bt848A or better)

- You should be able to get closed captioning and Teletext

- You can turn on Gamma correction to achieve a better image in your monitor (only RGB modes)

- You can control hue, contrast, brightness, saturation.

- You can control Sharpness of the image (very useful to get rid of video noise that is against video compression quality.

- You can select the region of the screen to capture. (DirectShow offers this API, so programs using it can set it, if this was taken into account)

- You can use NetMeeting to do video conference. There is one thing about this: You must select Video Source before launching NetMeeting from another video Capture program.

- You can use Adobe Premiere! (This one uses the VFW API).

- And you, as a programmer, can set and get, using DirectShow API, all driver parameters programmatically, using the standardized and documented API offered by DirectShow.

- Power management of the chip is implemented. While you don't use Chip is in low power mode.
The driver takes into consideration the videonorm selected, to avoid field inversion, a very common problem all the users of these boards face everyday.

Supported Cards:

0 - *** UNKNOWN/GENERIC ***
1 - MIRO PCTV
2 - Hauppauge (bt848)
3 - STB
4 - Intel
5 - Diamond DTV2000
6 - AVerMedia TVPhone
7 - MATRIX-Vision MV-Delta
8 - Fly Video II (Bt848)
9 - TurboTV
10 - Hauppauge (bt878)
11 - MIRO PCTV pro
12 - ADS Technologies Channel Surfer TV
13 - AVerMedia TVCapture 98
14 - Aimslab VHX
15 - Zoltrix TV-Max
16 - Pixelview PlayTV (bt878)
17 - Leadtek WinView 601
18 - AVEC Intercapture
19 - LifeView FlyKit w/o Tuner
20 - CEI Raffles Card
21 - Lucky Star Image World ConferenceTV
22 - Phoebe Tv Master + FM (CPH050)
23 - Modular Technology MM205 PCTV, bt878
24 - [many vendors] CPH05X/06X (bt878)
25 - Terratec/Vobis TV-Boostar
26 - Newer Hauppauge WinCam (bt878)
27 - MAXI TV Video PCI2
28 - Terratec TerraTV+
29 - Imagenation PXC200
30 - FlyVideo 98
31 - iProTV
32 - Intel Create and Share PCI
33 - Terratec TerraTValue
34 - Leadtek WinFast 2000
35 - Flyvideo 98 (LR50Q) / Chronos Video Shuttle II
36 - Flyvideo 98FM (LR50Q) / Typhoon TView TV/FM Tuner
37 - PixelView PlayTV pro
38 - TView99 CPH06X
39 - Pinnacle PCTV Studio/Rave
40 - STB2
41 - AVerMedia TVPhone 98
42 - ProVideo PV951
43 - Little OnAir TV
44 - Sigma TVII-FM
45 - MATRIX-Vision MV-Delta 2
46 - Zoltrix Genie TV/FM
47 - Terratec TV/Radio+
48 - Dynalink Magic TView
49 - GV-BCTV3
50 - Prolink PV-BT878P+4E / PixelView PlayTV PAK / Lenco MXTV-9578 CP
51 - Eagle Wireless Capricorn2 (bt878A)
52 - Pinnacle PCTV Studio Pro
53 - Typhoon TView RDS + FM Stereo / KNC1 TV Station RDS
54 - Lifetec LT 9415 TV (LR90 Rev.F)
55 - BESTBUY Easy TV (CPH031)
56 - FlyVideo '98/FM
57 - GrandTec 'Grand Video Capture'
58 - Phoebe TV Master Only (No FM) CPH060
59 - TV Capturer (CPH03X)
60 - MM100PCTV
61 - AG Electronics GMV1
62 - BESTBUY Easy TV (bt878)
63 - ATI TV-Wonder
64 - ATI TV-Wonder VE
65 - FlyVideo 2000S
66 - Terratec TValueRadio
67 - GV-BCTV4/PCI
68 - 3Dfx VoodooTV FM (Euro), VoodooTV 200 (USA)
69 - Active Imaging AIMMS
70 - PV-BT878P+
71 - Flyvideo 98EZ (capture only)
72 - Prolink PV-BT878P+9B (PlayTV Pro rev.9B FM+NICAM)
73 - Sensoray 311
74 - Conexant Bt878 NTSC XEVK
75 - Rockwell Bt878 NTSC XEVK
76 - Conexant Foghorn NTSC/ATSC-A
77 - Conexant Foghorn NTSC/ATSC-B
78 - Conexant Foghorn NTSC/ATSC-C
79 - RS BT Card
80 - Tekram M205
81 - Generic Bt8xx based card without tuner
82 - Generic Bt8xx based with 4 Composite ins
83 - FlyVideo 2000S with add-on board
84 - Hoontech 878TV/FM
85 - User Defined cards...

Note

that some cards are detected automatically, (Hauppauge,Miro, Pinnacle, and most bt878 based cards)

Known problems / Limitations:

- No support for the audio part of the Bt878 chip. I think that no card is currently using this. All the cards I have seen use the main sound card installed in the computer to digitize audio.

- Overlay mode in VFW applications sometimes works, sometimes does not work. This is a problem with the Microsoft WDM to VFW wrapper, that all VFW based applications will use to use this driver. Please, select Preview mode instead of Overlay mode in all VFW apps to solve this. All DirectShow based applications won't show this problem if used in QCIF (half maximum Y size or less). This is a Hardware limitation of the chipset: It uses one of the fields to get capture and the other for Preview. So, if you want to capture at full frame size, you must use both fields at the same time. So, in this case, you won't get Preview in DirectShow based programs, or Overlay mode in VFW based programs.

- Under Pal N Combination, maximum size is 754x576. this is a Bt chipset limitation.

- The programs that where bundled with your card will probably stop working. They were written for their specific drivers, and are depending on some custom features (that this driver implements in a DirectShow compatible way, probably incompatible with the custom way they were implemented in the original drivers. Use third party programs to accomplish all the same tasks. For example AMCap, an example program that Microsoft gives you with their DirectShow/DirectX SDK, will let you do the same things that you used to do with the bundled software of your card.