hi there

i am a student, doing my final year engineering. as a project i have to write a device driver for a tv capture card. the card is PCTV pro from pinnacle systems. although pinnacle provides a driver i have to write one as it is my project.

how should i go about it and where will i get the hardware details of the tv capture card. i am planning to create a skeltal code with the help of jungo software once i come to know about the hardware.

hi there

i am a student, doing my final year engineering. as a project i have to write a device driver for a tv capture card. the card is PCTV pro from pinnacle systems. although pinnacle provides a driver i have to write one as it is my project.

how should i go about it and where will i get the hardware details of the tv capture card. i am planning to create a skeltal code with the help of jungo software once i come to know about the hardware.


i have no idea of you current skill level, however as a guess i suspect that it is rather little. as having to ask where details for a device are found suguests this.


short of contacting the chip vendors of the chips used on the card i know of no other method.
you have picked a somewhat complex and hard device to write drivers for. and since most vendos are rather reluctant to provide detailed low level support for a device i suspect they will not be willing to provide detailed hardware information due to trade secrets.


if the vendor is unwilling to provide information then you may wish to select a diffrent device from another vendor which does have detailed chipset information available
good luck....and let us know if pinnacle does provide hardware reference information to you on their device.

I agree with Damien below since I have the Pinnacle Unit. I must add however, that it is one of the best cards for TV and video and it is very difficult to render good colors and resolution from an RF analog to digital. The card may use a Nogatech chip (most widely used for TV frequency and FM) If you can design a driver for that chip you could build a complete receiver with various features not commonly found in commercial cards. With similar chips, you could create your own company and produce a new breed of receivers such as for satellite or HDTV. Make sure you comply with the many copyright rules of the operation and please, post your decision on this forum. Many of us would love to read and learn from your experience.
John.

I have a problem , I have a legacy video capture device , was in a Vio of mine , it was set up for windows95 , I put in a new hard drive and instaled windowXP .
I cant make movie maker X work , drivers don't work with XP , can't get help from windows .

I would also agree with all above.. I wanted to comment about this..tried out almost all Capture devices before I actually found one that worked decently..the Happauge WinTV PCI..(878 chipset)..using true AVI output..
If you do have the ability to design/produce a new product you will almost be another Pioneer to the industry.. I have been very disatisfied with the recent technology of capture, External USB especially.. No ability to custom/tweak
configure and bad performance.. not including Bottlenecking of the Usb bus..
Some components were never meant to be adapted to USB...as far as I am concerned...
I hope you are able to succeed..
Best Of luck..

I have a PCTV 550 v 4.0 rev.a TV card, but I have to reinstall it because I have to reinstall windows XP in my PC, so... since that day I canīt use it. When I try to open it, a windows error message appears in the desktop (below) a everytime a try.
Can you help me,please?
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::...

Pinnacle PCTV error
My OS is win XP, I have to reinstall it in my PC a few week ago, therefore I have to reinstall the Tv card, but every time I try open it this windows error message appears in my screen:
PCTV vision: hardware not found or in use
The PCTV device is already in
use or not connected. Please
connect the hardware and try again.
If another application is open that uses
PCTV (Studio, PCTV Radio or PCTV
Twain driver), please close it first.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::

I hope this info helps to solve the problem, thanks.