Blank video with EasyCap (em28xx)

[Timo-Pekka Yrjola]

When capturing video using EasyCap (with em28xx chipset) the result is null bytes ie. black frames. Firmware is the latest as of today (2012-08-03) and it was updated with rpi-update.

EasyCap was connected via powered hub so power requirements should be satisfied and there were no errors in logs. The camera is Watec 902H3 and it is working fine when connected to video monitor.

Following is transcript of avconv run which is only one of the methods used to test capture. Resulting MPEG file appears as solid green when viewed using QuickTime on Mac.

# avconv -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 /tmp/out.mpg
avconv version 0.8.2-6:0.8.2-1+rpi1+b1, Copyright (c) 2000-2011 the Libav developers
  built on Jun 27 2012 01:07:05 with gcc 4.6.3
[video4linux2 @ 0x128b2e0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, video4linux2, from '/dev/video0':
  Duration: N/A, start: 1344027793.306716, bitrate: 165888 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: rawvideo, yuyv422, 720x576, 165888 kb/s, 25 tbr, 1000k tbn, 25 tbc
Incompatible pixel format 'yuyv422' for codec 'mpeg1video', auto-selecting format 'yuv420p'
[buffer @ 0x128d8a0] w:720 h:576 pixfmt:yuyv422
[avsink @ 0x128c7e0] auto-inserting filter 'auto-inserted scaler 0' between the filter 'src' and the filter 'out'
[scale @ 0x128cc40] w:720 h:576 fmt:yuyv422 -> w:720 h:576 fmt:yuv420p flags:0x4
[mpeg @ 0x128ba60] VBV buffer size not set, muxing may fail
Output #0, mpeg, to '/tmp/out.mpg':
  Metadata:
    encoder : Lavf53.21.0
    Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg1video, yuv420p, 720x576, q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 90k tbn, 25 tbc
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (rawvideo -> mpeg1video)
Press ctrl-c to stop encoding
frame= 243 fps= 14 q=2.0 Lsize= 146kB time=9.68 bitrate= 123.6kbits/s dup=123 drop=0
video:143kB audio:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 1.842656%
Received signal 2: terminating.

[peter green (plugwash)]

My gut feeling is this ss probablly a kernel related issue. Are you still seeing it on a raspbian system with a recent kernel?

[Diederik (didi-debian)]

Any updates on this bug ypekka?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for Raspbian because there has been no activity for 60 days.]