Cameras and Live Video Input

Do you recommend specific video input hardware for use with Jitter?

We've been able to test a variety of hardware with Jitter, and some devices perform better than others. While sidestepping the sticky issue of endorsement, the following guidelines might help you to make an informed decision if you're planning a purchase.

• Uncompressed FireWire devices offer a few advantages:
  • Low latency
  • Relatively high frame rates
  • High bandwidth port
  • Under OSX, one can generally use multiple instances of a single device

We've tested the following uncompressed firewire devices with Jitter, listed in the writer's order of preference:

• Imaging Source DFG-1394/1 (~$330US, requires 3rd party driver from ASC). Note: the DFG-1394/1 is not a camera. It converts from analog video (composite or S-VHS) to uncompressed FireWire video.

• Unibrain Fire-i (~$100US)

• Orange Micro iBot (~$100US)

• Apple iSight (~$150US). Note: requires OS X 10.2.5 or higher, or a 3rd party driver. Note: the iSight provided somewhat erratic performance in our tests, seemingly related to its wide variety of advanced functions (auto-exposure, auto-focus, etc). Disabling these features provided the best performance, but without any of the advantages which justify the additional cost of the iSight.

• PCI video cards, in general, provide very good performance for analog video input to desktop machines. Note: Formac ProTV card users should use vmode 1 in jit.qt.grab, which solves an issue we were seeing (note: the ProTV does not have drivers for OSX).

• DV Firewire devices, while common, provide merely average performance due to the overhead of DV decompression. As processors and QuickTime evolve, this is less and less of an issue, but a DV camera will always be slower than a similar uncompressed device. At the time of this writing, Mac OS (9 or X) provides support for only one DV camera at a time.

• USB devices are generally inexpensive, but putting aside the bandwidth difference between USB and FireWire ports for a moment (which is significant), every USB webcam we've seen uses some form of compression. As the computer receives the image sequence from the camera, it must decompress each frame before performing further processing in Jitter. So, USB cameras are at an immediate disadvantage for frame rate and latency. The port bandwidth, then, adds a further slowdown. Generally, USB devices require 3rd party drivers, and these rarely support multiple instances of a particular device. All together, what you save in cash, you might lose in overall performance and flexibility.

• Peter Elsea's Camera Report

iSight

Got this working after some driver twiddling- it inititally conflicted with my M-Audio firewire 410 and had sleep troubles.

320 x 240 frame rate is above 250-320, latency is 166 ms

620x 480 frame rate 101, latency is 220 ms

Cute and convenient- color and contrast are not as good as the other cheap cameras I play with, but it does better in low light. It seems to use key frame compression, so sudden movements screw it up. Auto focus is very slow, and makes a clicking sound. Something I did on the low light test scrambled its brains so badly I had to reboot.

Dazzler Hollywood

Worked out of the box, but wouldn't recover from sleep under 10.2.6.

320 X 240 frame rate is 290-350, latency is 175 ms

620 x 480 frame rate is 96 , latency the same

movement is smooth.

Canopus ADVC 100

worked out of the box

320 X 240 frame rate is latency is 130

620 x 480 frame rate is 95 , latency 225

Movement is very smooth. Color conversion is slightly better than the dazzler.

There are some nice features, such as an audio lock switch.

imaging source DFG 1394

lossless codecquality

320 X 240 frame rate is 250 +, latency is 110

620 x 480 frame rate is 105 , latency 155 ms

• Matthew Lewis's Camera Report

Processor: dual 1.42/1gig Power Mac

iBot 320x240: ~240fps 640x480: ~97fps

DFG1394 320x240: ~225fps 640x480: ~80fps

Dazzle 320x240: ~210fps 640x480: ~80fps

Processor: 1ghz/512 Powerbook

iBot 320x240: ~165fps 640x480: ~60fps

DFG1394 320x240: ~150fps 640x480: ~50fps

Dazzle 320x240: ~120fps 640x480: ~38fps

Processor: 700/640 G4 iMac

iBot 320x240: ~85fps 640x480: ~23fps

DFG1394 320x240: ~80fps 640x480: ~30fps

Dazzle 320x240: ~65fps 640x480: ~20fps

Processor: 400/256 G3 iMac

iBot 320x240: ~60fps 640x480: ~19fps

DFG1394 320x240: ~53fps 640x480: ~15fps

Dazzle 320x240: ~29fps 640x480: ~13fps

Can I use more than one video input at a time with jit.qt.grab?

Yes. On all operating systems, you can use as many unique devices as you can attach to your computer. Additionally, under OSX, you can use multiple instances of the same device with some drivers (e.g. 3 Unibrain Fire-I cameras). Apple's IIDC drivers support multiple devices, but at the time of this writing, Apple's DV drivers do not. OS9 does not support multiple instances of a single device type.

My video input device isn't working in Jitter! What gives?

In general, any video device that works with QuickTime should work with Jitter. If your device isn't working, there may be a driver problem, or a hardware problem, or (although we really hope not) a problem with jit.qt.grab. Here's a quick list of things to try, in the approximate order with which you should try them.

• If you're on windows, make sure you've installed the FULL version of Quicktime and installed The Win VDIG software as mentioned in the jit.qt.grab help file.

• Reboot your computer. This solves 90% of these types of problems. If you're using a Macintosh, zap your PRAM for good measure (hold down ctrl-command-p-r just after you hear the startup chime, until the computer restarts again).

• Download the HackTV sample. Try running the application in the HackTV folder. Does your device work? If no, keep reading. If yes, please send a note to us with some information about your device, operating system, Max/Jitter version, etc.

• Deinstall (if possible) and then reinstall the newest version of your device's driver. Many of the problems we've seen with (especially USB) video inputs have been traced to old or unreliable driver software.

• If your device is still not working in Jitter, nor in other software, you might be facing a hardware failure of some sort. Try finding another device to test with. If you can't get that one to work, you might want to contact the manufacturer of your computer hardware for advice. If the other device works, but yours still doesn't, get in touch with the device's manufacture for support.

• If all else fails, feel free to contact us. Troubleshooting hardware/software conflicts can be frustrating and time-consuming. We're happy to lend a hand, but in most cases we've come across, the problem lies beyond Jitter.