KenStewart

I'm trying to write some code for a PCI card that does video capture at broadcast resolution.
However I have no SDK and there is none available that I can find to download/buy.

Often the SDK is free from the manufacturer to encourage third party
tool development, but from what I can see that is not the case here.
Anyway, I own the hardware and would like to find some advice on
where to begin.

I am writing a tool that does very simple video capture with the MatroxRTX100 card.

1) Should I try to snoop the code of programs that make calls to the PCI card? If so how can I do this?

2) How can I find out about the HW initialization and sending commands?

3) Can I sniff the code as the application which uses the hardware is running?


Cheers,
Ken.

DaWei

The PCI interface is one thing, and you should be able to get documentation for it easily. The card's another. The manufacturer should be happy to provide you documentation for it. Those are separate issues that you have to meld together. The third issue is your system. You don't even mention OS (read a "How to Post..." thread, please). One guesses that "PCI" strongly implies a "PC", though it isn't a 100% given. You also don't mention your level of expertise.

You'll find the "How to Post..." thread and the forum's FAQ/rules at the top of each forum, labeled "Announcement" in bold. We've been thinking of changing it to a 72 point red font and naming it, "READ THIS OR ....", but we haven't.

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Dameon

Typically, you don't interact directly with devices. Sometimes, but infrequently, you have to interact device drivers. More commonly, you work through an additional layer of abstraction. On Windows, I believe that DirectShow (one of the DirectX family of APIs) allows for video capture, not unlike what Direct3d or OpenGL does for graphics acceleration.

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KenStewart

Thanks for your feedback. Please excuse my lack of protocol in my original post,
as I am new to the forum and vaguely skimmed the text of the how-to post.

Indeed my OS is windows XP. My skill level is "Mage" and my hitpoints are 7/1....
Alternativly I am fairly familiar with VB6, VB.net, and C++. Probably more familiar
with VB than C++ but thats hardly helpfull when dealing with this kind of application.

Any suggestions are appreciated though.

jim mcnamara

Matrox X.tools don't cut it?

KenStewart

No I'm afraid the Xtools dont cut it. Sadly.

Its for a specific application and I need to capture audio and video at the same time to two different files:

1) AVI (matrox DV/DVCAM format codec) at a constant 25 fps
2) WAV (uncompressed PCM 48000khz)

This is kind of my brief for the project. Oh and it has to be in perfect synch,
just to make it more difficult.

(and whilst premiere DOES capture seperately like this, it will not do it with the Xtools that come with the RTX100 which overide the settings. Naturally I cursed matrox for some time till I resolved to build this application...)

Of course I started very naievly in VB hoping I could avoid major work and
possibly buy some basic OCX functions to do the grunt work. Meanwhile I began learning about directshow thanks to the guys here on the forum and found that I'd need to move up to C++ and get the SDK to begin doing anything remotely with directshow. Plus I figure there is no real way to check or clock the synch when using two OCX's which makes sense as they dumb down the options to keep it simple.

There are wrappers for VB made in C++ but that kind of just confused things without the SDK.

So I'm currently downloading the SDK and rapidly trying to learn all I can about directx/show and trying to find information about capturing synch audio/video.

If anyone out there has some expertise I'd enjoy hearing some comments,
the learning curve is just getting steeper really but at least i'm not trying
to do this in assembler or anything.

Cheers,
Ken.