crashing in BTVPro

[Steve Sisak]

At 7:24 PM -0500 4/24/05, Michael Engelhart wrote:
>Well I think I've narrowed down some of the problem.   I downgraded 
>to BTV (non-pro) and now I can open the Video Settings window and 
>also basically everything works as advertised and snappy as well.

Well, that's interesting -- I assume you're following up with BTV tech support.

I might be able to tell you more if you had submit a bug report with 
a crash log as explained in the auto-reply you get every time you 
send a message to <support at ioxperts.com>

Also, what OS version are you using? The symptoms you describe sound 
like a QuickTime bug that was introduced in 10.3.2 and fixed in 
10.3.4 -- there was no way for us to work around it.

>But... when I use my active USB Extension cables,  everything crawls 
>to a halt and I can't capture any video.    Actually I even did a 
>quick test with a short 3 foot extension cable (non-active plalin 
>old USB cable) and I wasn't able to capture.    The NexImage has a 7 
>foot cable so even with a 3 foot extension it should work right?

There is no such thing as a legal USB extension cable.

Here is some useful information:

<http://www.usb.org/developers/whitepapers/cablew~1.pdf>
<http://www.usb.org/faq/ans5#q2>

The camera is a high power device. Because of the way power 
distribution works on USB, there's no way that an active extension 
cable can provide power to a high power device because the hub in the 
cable consumes power.

(Firewire can do this with no problem, however)

You might get it to work if you add a powered hub to the end of the 
cable chain immediately in front of the camera.

>My understanding from the TrippLite website is that there is no 
>performance loss due to the active circuitry which boosts the signal 
>every 15 feet.  I've tried both 1 and 2 active cables daisy chained 
>but no luck.

It should work if each cable is essentially a 1-port hub, except for 
the power distribution requirements -- then again, any electrical 
noise will cause data loss w/isoc data.

>>What I'm not sure of is the driver selection for the camera.   It 
>>chooses the AME - CU 101 as the camera  but I've seen on various 
>>forums that the NexImage uses the same chipset as  the Philips 
>>TouCam?

AME CU-001 is correct.

<http://www.ame-group.com/pccameras.htm>

AME is a Taiwanese camera manufacturer who builds cameras for many 
companies -- the CU-001 contains a Philips SAA8116 chip -- the same 
as the Philips ToUcam Pro.

If appears that the NexImage is a repackaged CU-001 but Celestron 
didn't bother to change the USB vendor or product ID, so there's no 
way for us to tell the difference.

>>Even weirder is that if I connect the camera up and launch Virtual 
>>PC, in the PC Settings dialog the USB Device shows up as an Ariston 
>>USB Device which is what the Driver was choosing as a device in 
>>version 1.1b52.    ???

AMD built cameras for Ariston, so is wouldn't surprise me if there 
was an Ariston camera with the same vendor/product ID's.

>>I realize this is a beta but I'm trying to find out how to help 
>>make the driver work better with my camera.
>>
>>Let me know if there's anything I can send (crash logs, etc) to 
>>help with these issues .

Crash logs are always useful as it give us a clue as to to what's going on.

Cheers,

-Steve