linux/Documentation/DocBook/videobook.tmpl
<<
>>
Prefs
   1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   2<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN"
   3        "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd" []>
   4
   5<book id="V4LGuide">
   6 <bookinfo>
   7  <title>Video4Linux Programming</title>
   8  
   9  <authorgroup>
  10   <author>
  11    <firstname>Alan</firstname>
  12    <surname>Cox</surname>
  13    <affiliation>
  14     <address>
  15      <email>alan@redhat.com</email>
  16     </address>
  17    </affiliation>
  18   </author>
  19  </authorgroup>
  20
  21  <copyright>
  22   <year>2000</year>
  23   <holder>Alan Cox</holder>
  24  </copyright>
  25
  26  <legalnotice>
  27   <para>
  28     This documentation is free software; you can redistribute
  29     it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
  30     License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
  31     version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
  32     version.
  33   </para>
  34      
  35   <para>
  36     This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
  37     useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
  38     warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
  39     See the GNU General Public License for more details.
  40   </para>
  41      
  42   <para>
  43     You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
  44     License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
  45     Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
  46     MA 02111-1307 USA
  47   </para>
  48      
  49   <para>
  50     For more details see the file COPYING in the source
  51     distribution of Linux.
  52   </para>
  53  </legalnotice>
  54 </bookinfo>
  55
  56<toc></toc>
  57
  58  <chapter id="intro">
  59      <title>Introduction</title>
  60  <para>
  61        Parts of this document first appeared in Linux Magazine under a
  62        ninety day exclusivity.
  63  </para>
  64  <para>
  65        Video4Linux is intended to provide a common programming interface
  66        for the many TV and capture cards now on the market, as well as
  67        parallel port and USB video cameras. Radio, teletext decoders and
  68        vertical blanking data interfaces are also provided.
  69  </para>
  70  </chapter>
  71  <chapter id="radio">
  72        <title>Radio Devices</title>
  73  <para>
  74        There are a wide variety of radio interfaces available for PC's, and these
  75        are generally very simple to program. The biggest problem with supporting
  76        such devices is normally extracting documentation from the vendor.
  77  </para>
  78  <para>
  79        The radio interface supports a simple set of control ioctls standardised
  80        across all radio and tv interfaces. It does not support read or write, which
  81        are used for video streams. The reason radio cards do not allow you to read
  82        the audio stream into an application is that without exception they provide
  83        a connection on to a soundcard. Soundcards can be used to read the radio
  84        data just fine. 
  85  </para>
  86  <sect1 id="registerradio">
  87  <title>Registering Radio Devices</title>
  88  <para>
  89        The Video4linux core provides an interface for registering devices. The
  90        first step in writing our radio card driver is to register it.
  91  </para>
  92  <programlisting>
  93
  94
  95static struct video_device my_radio
  96{
  97        "My radio",
  98        VID_TYPE_TUNER,
  99        radio_open.
 100        radio_close,
 101        NULL,                /* no read */
 102        NULL,                 /* no write */
 103        NULL,                /* no poll */
 104        radio_ioctl,
 105        NULL,                /* no special init function */
 106        NULL                /* no private data */
 107};
 108
 109
 110  </programlisting>
 111  <para>
 112        This declares our video4linux device driver interface. The VID_TYPE_ value
 113        defines what kind of an interface we are, and defines basic capabilities.
 114  </para>
 115  <para>
 116        The only defined value relevant for a radio card is VID_TYPE_TUNER which
 117        indicates that the device can be tuned. Clearly our radio is going to have some
 118        way to change channel so it is tuneable.
 119  </para>
 120  <para>
 121        We declare an open and close routine, but we do not need read or write,
 122        which are used to read and write video data to or from the card itself. As
 123        we have no read or write there is no poll function.
 124  </para>
 125  <para>
 126        The private initialise function is run when the device is registered. In
 127        this driver we've already done all the work needed. The final pointer is a
 128        private data pointer that can be used by the device driver to attach and
 129        retrieve private data structures. We set this field "priv" to NULL for
 130        the moment.
 131  </para>
 132  <para>
 133        Having the structure defined is all very well but we now need to register it
 134        with the kernel. 
 135  </para>
 136  <programlisting>
 137
 138
 139static int io = 0x320;
 140
 141int __init myradio_init(struct video_init *v)
 142{
 143        if(!request_region(io, MY_IO_SIZE, "myradio"))
 144        {
 145                printk(KERN_ERR 
 146                    "myradio: port 0x%03X is in use.\n", io);
 147                return -EBUSY;
 148        }
 149
 150        if(video_device_register(&amp;my_radio, VFL_TYPE_RADIO)==-1) {
 151                release_region(io, MY_IO_SIZE);
 152                return -EINVAL;
 153        }               
 154        return 0;
 155}
 156
 157  </programlisting>
 158  <para>
 159        The first stage of the initialisation, as is normally the case, is to check 
 160        that the I/O space we are about to fiddle with doesn't belong to some other 
 161        driver. If it is we leave well alone. If the user gives the address of the 
 162        wrong device then we will spot this. These policies will generally avoid 
 163        crashing the machine.
 164  </para>
 165  <para>
 166        Now we ask the Video4Linux layer to register the device for us. We hand it
 167        our carefully designed video_device structure and also tell it which group
 168        of devices we want it registered with. In this case VFL_TYPE_RADIO.
 169  </para>
 170  <para>
 171        The types available are
 172  </para>
 173   <table frame="all" id="Device_Types"><title>Device Types</title>
 174   <tgroup cols="3" align="left">
 175   <tbody>
 176   <row>
 177        <entry>VFL_TYPE_RADIO</entry><entry>/dev/radio{n}</entry><entry>
 178
 179        Radio devices are assigned in this block. As with all of these
 180        selections the actual number assignment is done by the video layer
 181        accordijng to what is free.</entry>
 182        </row><row>
 183        <entry>VFL_TYPE_GRABBER</entry><entry>/dev/video{n}</entry><entry>
 184        Video capture devices and also -- counter-intuitively for the name --
 185        hardware video playback devices such as MPEG2 cards.</entry>
 186        </row><row>
 187        <entry>VFL_TYPE_VBI</entry><entry>/dev/vbi{n}</entry><entry>
 188        The VBI devices capture the hidden lines on a television picture
 189        that carry further information like closed caption data, teletext
 190        (primarily in Europe) and now Intercast and the ATVEC internet
 191        television encodings.</entry>
 192        </row><row>
 193        <entry>VFL_TYPE_VTX</entry><entry>/dev/vtx[n}</entry><entry>
 194        VTX is 'Videotext' also known as 'Teletext'. This is a system for
 195        sending numbered, 40x25, mostly textual page images over the hidden
 196        lines. Unlike the /dev/vbi interfaces, this is for 'smart' decoder 
 197        chips. (The use of the word smart here has to be taken in context,
 198        the smartest teletext chips are fairly dumb pieces of technology).
 199        </entry>
 200    </row>
 201    </tbody>
 202    </tgroup>
 203    </table>
 204  <para>
 205        We are most definitely a radio.
 206  </para>
 207  <para>
 208        Finally we allocate our I/O space so that nobody treads on us and return 0
 209        to signify general happiness with the state of the universe.
 210  </para>
 211  </sect1>
 212  <sect1 id="openradio">
 213  <title>Opening And Closing The Radio</title>
 214
 215  <para>
 216        The functions we declared in our video_device are mostly very simple.
 217        Firstly we can drop in what is basically standard code for open and close. 
 218  </para>
 219  <programlisting>
 220
 221
 222static int users = 0;
 223
 224static int radio_open(struct video_device *dev, int flags)
 225{
 226        if(users)
 227                return -EBUSY;
 228        users++;
 229        return 0;
 230}
 231
 232  </programlisting>
 233  <para>
 234        At open time we need to do nothing but check if someone else is also using
 235        the radio card. If nobody is using it we make a note that we are using it,
 236        then we ensure that nobody unloads our driver on us.
 237  </para>
 238  <programlisting>
 239
 240
 241static int radio_close(struct video_device *dev)
 242{
 243        users--;
 244}
 245
 246  </programlisting>
 247  <para>
 248        At close time we simply need to reduce the user count and allow the module
 249        to become unloadable.
 250  </para>
 251  <para>
 252        If you are sharp you will have noticed neither the open nor the close
 253        routines attempt to reset or change the radio settings. This is intentional.
 254        It allows an application to set up the radio and exit. It avoids a user
 255        having to leave an application running all the time just to listen to the
 256        radio. 
 257  </para>
 258  </sect1>
 259  <sect1 id="ioctlradio">
 260  <title>The Ioctl Interface</title>
 261  <para>
 262        This leaves the ioctl routine, without which the driver will not be
 263        terribly useful to anyone.
 264  </para>
 265  <programlisting>
 266
 267
 268static int radio_ioctl(struct video_device *dev, unsigned int cmd, void *arg)
 269{
 270        switch(cmd)
 271        {
 272                case VIDIOCGCAP:
 273                {
 274                        struct video_capability v;
 275                        v.type = VID_TYPE_TUNER;
 276                        v.channels = 1;
 277                        v.audios = 1;
 278                        v.maxwidth = 0;
 279                        v.minwidth = 0;
 280                        v.maxheight = 0;
 281                        v.minheight = 0;
 282                        strcpy(v.name, "My Radio");
 283                        if(copy_to_user(arg, &amp;v, sizeof(v)))
 284                                return -EFAULT;
 285                        return 0;
 286                }
 287
 288  </programlisting>
 289  <para>
 290        VIDIOCGCAP is the first ioctl all video4linux devices must support. It
 291        allows the applications to find out what sort of a card they have found and
 292        to figure out what they want to do about it. The fields in the structure are
 293  </para>
 294   <table frame="all" id="video_capability_fields"><title>struct video_capability fields</title>
 295   <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
 296   <tbody>
 297   <row>
 298        <entry>name</entry><entry>The device text name. This is intended for the user.</entry>
 299        </row><row>
 300        <entry>channels</entry><entry>The number of different channels you can tune on
 301                        this card. It could even by zero for a card that has
 302                        no tuning capability. For our simple FM radio it is 1. 
 303                        An AM/FM radio would report 2.</entry>
 304        </row><row>
 305        <entry>audios</entry><entry>The number of audio inputs on this device. For our
 306                        radio there is only one audio input.</entry>
 307        </row><row>
 308        <entry>minwidth,minheight</entry><entry>The smallest size the card is capable of capturing
 309                        images in. We set these to zero. Radios do not
 310                        capture pictures</entry>
 311        </row><row>
 312        <entry>maxwidth,maxheight</entry><entry>The largest image size the card is capable of
 313                                      capturing. For our radio we report 0.
 314                                </entry>
 315        </row><row>
 316        <entry>type</entry><entry>This reports the capabilities of the device, and
 317                        matches the field we filled in in the struct
 318                        video_device when registering.</entry>
 319    </row>
 320    </tbody>
 321    </tgroup>
 322    </table>
 323  <para>
 324        Having filled in the fields, we use copy_to_user to copy the structure into
 325        the users buffer. If the copy fails we return an EFAULT to the application
 326        so that it knows it tried to feed us garbage.
 327  </para>
 328  <para>
 329        The next pair of ioctl operations select which tuner is to be used and let
 330        the application find the tuner properties. We have only a single FM band
 331        tuner in our example device.
 332  </para>
 333  <programlisting>
 334
 335
 336                case VIDIOCGTUNER:
 337                {
 338                        struct video_tuner v;
 339                        if(copy_from_user(&amp;v, arg, sizeof(v))!=0)
 340                                return -EFAULT;
 341                        if(v.tuner)
 342                                return -EINVAL;
 343                        v.rangelow=(87*16000);
 344                        v.rangehigh=(108*16000);
 345                        v.flags = VIDEO_TUNER_LOW;
 346                        v.mode = VIDEO_MODE_AUTO;
 347                        v.signal = 0xFFFF;
 348                        strcpy(v.name, "FM");
 349                        if(copy_to_user(&amp;v, arg, sizeof(v))!=0)
 350                                return -EFAULT;
 351                        return 0;
 352                }
 353
 354  </programlisting>
 355  <para>
 356        The VIDIOCGTUNER ioctl allows applications to query a tuner. The application
 357        sets the tuner field to the tuner number it wishes to query. The query does
 358        not change the tuner that is being used, it merely enquires about the tuner
 359        in question.
 360  </para>
 361  <para>
 362        We have exactly one tuner so after copying the user buffer to our temporary
 363        structure we complain if they asked for a tuner other than tuner 0. 
 364  </para>
 365  <para>
 366        The video_tuner structure has the following fields
 367  </para>
 368   <table frame="all" id="video_tuner_fields"><title>struct video_tuner fields</title>
 369   <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
 370   <tbody>
 371   <row>
 372        <entry>int tuner</entry><entry>The number of the tuner in question</entry>
 373   </row><row>
 374        <entry>char name[32]</entry><entry>A text description of this tuner. "FM" will do fine.
 375                        This is intended for the application.</entry>
 376   </row><row>
 377        <entry>u32 flags</entry>
 378        <entry>Tuner capability flags</entry>
 379   </row>
 380   <row>
 381        <entry>u16 mode</entry><entry>The current reception mode</entry>
 382
 383   </row><row>
 384        <entry>u16 signal</entry><entry>The signal strength scaled between 0 and 65535. If
 385                        a device cannot tell the signal strength it should
 386                        report 65535. Many simple cards contain only a 
 387                        signal/no signal bit. Such cards will report either
 388                        0 or 65535.</entry>
 389
 390   </row><row>
 391        <entry>u32 rangelow, rangehigh</entry><entry>
 392                        The range of frequencies supported by the radio
 393                        or TV. It is scaled according to the VIDEO_TUNER_LOW
 394                        flag.</entry>
 395
 396    </row>
 397    </tbody>
 398    </tgroup>
 399    </table>
 400
 401   <table frame="all" id="video_tuner_flags"><title>struct video_tuner flags</title>
 402   <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
 403   <tbody>
 404   <row>
 405        <entry>VIDEO_TUNER_PAL</entry><entry>A PAL TV tuner</entry>
 406        </row><row>
 407        <entry>VIDEO_TUNER_NTSC</entry><entry>An NTSC (US) TV tuner</entry>
 408        </row><row>
 409        <entry>VIDEO_TUNER_SECAM</entry><entry>A SECAM (French) TV tuner</entry>
 410        </row><row>
 411        <entry>VIDEO_TUNER_LOW</entry><entry>
 412             The tuner frequency is scaled in 1/16th of a KHz
 413             steps. If not it is in 1/16th of a MHz steps
 414        </entry>
 415        </row><row>
 416        <entry>VIDEO_TUNER_NORM</entry><entry>The tuner can set its format</entry>
 417        </row><row>
 418        <entry>VIDEO_TUNER_STEREO_ON</entry><entry>The tuner is currently receiving a stereo signal</entry>
 419        </row>
 420    </tbody>
 421    </tgroup>
 422    </table>
 423
 424   <table frame="all" id="video_tuner_modes"><title>struct video_tuner modes</title>
 425   <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
 426   <tbody>
 427   <row>
 428                <entry>VIDEO_MODE_PAL</entry><entry>PAL Format</entry>
 429   </row><row>
 430                <entry>VIDEO_MODE_NTSC</entry><entry>NTSC Format (USA)</entry>
 431   </row><row>
 432                <entry>VIDEO_MODE_SECAM</entry><entry>French Format</entry>
 433   </row><row>
 434                <entry>VIDEO_MODE_AUTO</entry><entry>A device that does not need to do
 435                                        TV format switching</entry>
 436   </row>
 437    </tbody>
 438    </tgroup>
 439    </table>
 440  <para>
 441        The settings for the radio card are thus fairly simple. We report that we
 442        are a tuner called "FM" for FM radio. In order to get the best tuning
 443        resolution we report VIDEO_TUNER_LOW and select tuning to 1/16th of KHz. Its
 444        unlikely our card can do that resolution but it is a fair bet the card can
 445        do better than 1/16th of a MHz. VIDEO_TUNER_LOW is appropriate to almost all
 446        radio usage.
 447  </para>
 448  <para>
 449        We report that the tuner automatically handles deciding what format it is
 450        receiving - true enough as it only handles FM radio. Our example card is
 451        also incapable of detecting stereo or signal strengths so it reports a
 452        strength of 0xFFFF (maximum) and no stereo detected.
 453  </para>
 454  <para>
 455        To finish off we set the range that can be tuned to be 87-108Mhz, the normal
 456        FM broadcast radio range. It is important to find out what the card is
 457        actually capable of tuning. It is easy enough to simply use the FM broadcast
 458        range. Unfortunately if you do this you will discover the FM broadcast
 459        ranges in the USA, Europe and Japan are all subtly different and some users
 460        cannot receive all the stations they wish.
 461  </para>
 462  <para>
 463        The application also needs to be able to set the tuner it wishes to use. In
 464        our case, with a single tuner this is rather simple to arrange.
 465  </para>
 466  <programlisting>
 467
 468                case VIDIOCSTUNER:
 469                {
 470                        struct video_tuner v;
 471                        if(copy_from_user(&amp;v, arg, sizeof(v)))
 472                                return -EFAULT;
 473                        if(v.tuner != 0)
 474                                return -EINVAL;
 475                        return 0;
 476                }
 477
 478  </programlisting>
 479  <para>
 480        We copy the user supplied structure into kernel memory so we can examine it. 
 481        If the user has selected a tuner other than zero we reject the request. If 
 482        they wanted tuner 0 then, surprisingly enough, that is the current tuner already.
 483  </para>
 484  <para>
 485        The next two ioctls we need to provide are to get and set the frequency of
 486        the radio. These both use an unsigned long argument which is the frequency.
 487        The scale of the frequency depends on the VIDEO_TUNER_LOW flag as I
 488        mentioned earlier on. Since we have VIDEO_TUNER_LOW set this will be in
 489        1/16ths of a KHz.
 490  </para>
 491  <programlisting>
 492
 493static unsigned long current_freq;
 494
 495
 496
 497                case VIDIOCGFREQ:
 498                        if(copy_to_user(arg, &amp;current_freq, 
 499                                sizeof(unsigned long))
 500                                return -EFAULT;
 501                        return 0;
 502
 503  </programlisting>
 504  <para>
 505        Querying the frequency in our case is relatively simple. Our radio card is
 506        too dumb to let us query the signal strength so we remember our setting if 
 507        we know it. All we have to do is copy it to the user.
 508  </para>
 509  <programlisting>
 510
 511
 512                case VIDIOCSFREQ:
 513                {
 514                        u32 freq;
 515                        if(copy_from_user(arg, &amp;freq, 
 516                                sizeof(unsigned long))!=0)
 517                                return -EFAULT;
 518                        if(hardware_set_freq(freq)&lt;0)
 519                                return -EINVAL;
 520                        current_freq = freq;
 521                        return 0;
 522                }
 523
 524  </programlisting>
 525  <para>
 526        Setting the frequency is a little more complex. We begin by copying the
 527        desired frequency into kernel space. Next we call a hardware specific routine
 528        to set the radio up. This might be as simple as some scaling and a few
 529        writes to an I/O port. For most radio cards it turns out a good deal more
 530        complicated and may involve programming things like a phase locked loop on
 531        the card. This is what documentation is for. 
 532  </para>
 533  <para>
 534        The final set of operations we need to provide for our radio are the 
 535        volume controls. Not all radio cards can even do volume control. After all
 536        there is a perfectly good volume control on the sound card. We will assume
 537        our radio card has a simple 4 step volume control.
 538  </para>
 539  <para>
 540        There are two ioctls with audio we need to support
 541  </para>
 542  <programlisting>
 543
 544static int current_volume=0;
 545
 546                case VIDIOCGAUDIO:
 547                {
 548                        struct video_audio v;
 549                        if(copy_from_user(&amp;v, arg, sizeof(v)))
 550                                return -EFAULT;
 551                        if(v.audio != 0)
 552                                return -EINVAL;
 553                        v.volume = 16384*current_volume;
 554                        v.step = 16384;
 555                        strcpy(v.name, "Radio");
 556                        v.mode = VIDEO_SOUND_MONO;
 557                        v.balance = 0;
 558                        v.base = 0;
 559                        v.treble = 0;
 560                        
 561                        if(copy_to_user(arg. &amp;v, sizeof(v)))
 562                                return -EFAULT;
 563                        return 0;
 564                }
 565
 566  </programlisting>
 567  <para>
 568        Much like the tuner we start by copying the user structure into kernel
 569        space. Again we check if the user has asked for a valid audio input. We have
 570        only input 0 and we punt if they ask for another input.
 571  </para>
 572  <para>
 573        Then we fill in the video_audio structure. This has the following format
 574  </para>
 575   <table frame="all" id="video_audio_fields"><title>struct video_audio fields</title>
 576   <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
 577   <tbody>
 578   <row>
 579   <entry>audio</entry><entry>The input the user wishes to query</entry>
 580   </row><row>
 581   <entry>volume</entry><entry>The volume setting on a scale of 0-65535</entry>
 582   </row><row>
 583   <entry>base</entry><entry>The base level on a scale of 0-65535</entry>
 584   </row><row>
 585   <entry>treble</entry><entry>The treble level on a scale of 0-65535</entry>
 586   </row><row>
 587   <entry>flags</entry><entry>The features this audio device supports
 588   </entry>
 589   </row><row>
 590   <entry>name</entry><entry>A text name to display to the user. We picked
 591                        "Radio" as it explains things quite nicely.</entry>
 592   </row><row>
 593   <entry>mode</entry><entry>The current reception mode for the audio
 594
 595                We report MONO because our card is too stupid to know if it is in
 596                mono or stereo. 
 597   </entry>
 598   </row><row>
 599   <entry>balance</entry><entry>The stereo balance on a scale of 0-65535, 32768 is
 600                        middle.</entry>
 601   </row><row>
 602   <entry>step</entry><entry>The step by which the volume control jumps. This is
 603                        used to help make it easy for applications to set 
 604                        slider behaviour.</entry>
 605   </row>
 606   </tbody>
 607   </tgroup>
 608   </table>
 609
 610   <table frame="all" id="video_audio_flags"><title>struct video_audio flags</title>
 611   <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
 612   <tbody>
 613   <row>
 614                <entry>VIDEO_AUDIO_MUTE</entry><entry>The audio is currently muted. We
 615                                        could fake this in our driver but we
 616                                        choose not to bother.</entry>
 617   </row><row>
 618                <entry>VIDEO_AUDIO_MUTABLE</entry><entry>The input has a mute option</entry>
 619   </row><row>
 620                <entry>VIDEO_AUDIO_TREBLE</entry><entry>The  input has a treble control</entry>
 621   </row><row>
 622                <entry>VIDEO_AUDIO_BASS</entry><entry>The input has a base control</entry>
 623   </row>
 624   </tbody>
 625   </tgroup>
 626   </table>
 627
 628   <table frame="all" id="video_audio_modes"><title>struct video_audio modes</title>
 629   <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
 630   <tbody>
 631   <row>
 632                <entry>VIDEO_SOUND_MONO</entry><entry>Mono sound</entry>
 633   </row><row>
 634                <entry>VIDEO_SOUND_STEREO</entry><entry>Stereo sound</entry>
 635   </row><row>
 636                <entry>VIDEO_SOUND_LANG1</entry><entry>Alternative language 1 (TV specific)</entry>
 637   </row><row>
 638                <entry>VIDEO_SOUND_LANG2</entry><entry>Alternative language 2 (TV specific)</entry>
 639   </row>
 640   </tbody>
 641   </tgroup>
 642   </table>
 643  <para>
 644        Having filled in the structure we copy it back to user space.
 645  </para>
 646  <para>
 647        The VIDIOCSAUDIO ioctl allows the user to set the audio parameters in the
 648        video_audio structure. The driver does its best to honour the request.
 649  </para>
 650  <programlisting>
 651
 652                case VIDIOCSAUDIO:
 653                {
 654                        struct video_audio v;
 655                        if(copy_from_user(&amp;v, arg, sizeof(v)))
 656                                return -EFAULT;
 657                        if(v.audio)
 658                                return -EINVAL;
 659                        current_volume = v/16384;
 660                        hardware_set_volume(current_volume);
 661                        return 0;
 662                }
 663
 664  </programlisting>
 665  <para>
 666        In our case there is very little that the user can set. The volume is
 667        basically the limit. Note that we could pretend to have a mute feature
 668        by rewriting this to 
 669  </para>
 670  <programlisting>
 671
 672                case VIDIOCSAUDIO:
 673                {
 674                        struct video_audio v;
 675                        if(copy_from_user(&amp;v, arg, sizeof(v)))
 676                                return -EFAULT;
 677                        if(v.audio)
 678                                return -EINVAL;
 679                        current_volume = v/16384;
 680                        if(v.flags&amp;VIDEO_AUDIO_MUTE)
 681                                hardware_set_volume(0);
 682                        else
 683                                hardware_set_volume(current_volume);
 684                        current_muted = v.flags &amp; 
 685                                              VIDEO_AUDIO_MUTE;
 686                        return 0;
 687                }
 688
 689  </programlisting>
 690  <para>
 691        This with the corresponding changes to the VIDIOCGAUDIO code to report the
 692        state of the mute flag we save and to report the card has a mute function,
 693        will allow applications to use a mute facility with this card. It is
 694        questionable whether this is a good idea however. User applications can already
 695        fake this themselves and kernel space is precious.
 696  </para>
 697  <para>
 698        We now have a working radio ioctl handler. So we just wrap up the function
 699  </para>
 700  <programlisting>
 701
 702
 703        }
 704        return -ENOIOCTLCMD;
 705}
 706
 707  </programlisting>
 708  <para>
 709        and pass the Video4Linux layer back an error so that it knows we did not
 710        understand the request we got passed.
 711  </para>
 712  </sect1>
 713  <sect1 id="modradio">
 714  <title>Module Wrapper</title>
 715  <para>
 716        Finally we add in the usual module wrapping and the driver is done.
 717  </para>
 718  <programlisting>
 719
 720#ifndef MODULE
 721
 722static int io = 0x300;
 723
 724#else
 725
 726static int io = -1;
 727
 728#endif
 729
 730MODULE_AUTHOR("Alan Cox");
 731MODULE_DESCRIPTION("A driver for an imaginary radio card.");
 732module_param(io, int, 0444);
 733MODULE_PARM_DESC(io, "I/O address of the card.");
 734
 735static int __init init(void)
 736{
 737        if(io==-1)
 738        {
 739                printk(KERN_ERR 
 740         "You must set an I/O address with io=0x???\n");
 741                return -EINVAL;
 742        }
 743        return myradio_init(NULL);
 744}
 745
 746static void __exit cleanup(void)
 747{
 748        video_unregister_device(&amp;my_radio);
 749        release_region(io, MY_IO_SIZE);
 750}
 751
 752module_init(init);
 753module_exit(cleanup);
 754
 755  </programlisting>
 756  <para>
 757        In this example we set the IO base by default if the driver is compiled into
 758        the kernel: you can still set it using "my_radio.irq" if this file is called <filename>my_radio.c</filename>. For the module we require the
 759        user sets the parameter. We set io to a nonsense port (-1) so that we can
 760        tell if the user supplied an io parameter or not.
 761  </para>
 762  <para>
 763        We use MODULE_ defines to give an author for the card driver and a
 764        description. We also use them to declare that io is an integer and it is the
 765        address of the card, and can be read by anyone from sysfs.
 766  </para>
 767  <para>
 768        The clean-up routine unregisters the video_device we registered, and frees
 769        up the I/O space. Note that the unregister takes the actual video_device
 770        structure as its argument. Unlike the file operations structure which can be
 771        shared by all instances of a device a video_device structure as an actual
 772        instance of the device. If you are registering multiple radio devices you
 773        need to fill in one structure per device (most likely by setting up a
 774        template and copying it to each of the actual device structures).
 775  </para>
 776  </sect1>
 777  </chapter>
 778  <chapter id="Video_Capture_Devices">
 779        <title>Video Capture Devices</title>
 780  <sect1 id="introvid">
 781  <title>Video Capture Device Types</title>
 782  <para>
 783        The video capture devices share the same interfaces as radio devices. In
 784        order to explain the video capture interface I will use the example of a
 785        camera that has no tuners or audio input. This keeps the example relatively
 786        clean. To get both combine the two driver examples.
 787  </para>
 788  <para>
 789        Video capture devices divide into four categories. A little technology
 790        backgrounder. Full motion video even at television resolution (which is
 791        actually fairly low) is pretty resource-intensive. You are continually
 792        passing megabytes of data every second from the capture card to the display. 
 793        several alternative approaches have emerged because copying this through the 
 794        processor and the user program is a particularly bad idea .
 795  </para>
 796  <para>
 797        The first is to add the television image onto the video output directly.
 798        This is also how some 3D cards work. These basic cards can generally drop the
 799        video into any chosen rectangle of the display. Cards like this, which
 800        include most mpeg1 cards that used the feature connector,  aren't very
 801        friendly in a windowing environment. They don't understand windows or
 802        clipping. The video window is always on the top of the display.
 803  </para>
 804  <para>
 805        Chroma keying is a technique used by cards to get around this. It is an old
 806        television mixing trick where you mark all the areas you wish to replace
 807        with a single clear colour that isn't used in the image - TV people use an
 808        incredibly bright blue while computing people often use a particularly
 809        virulent purple. Bright blue occurs on the desktop. Anyone with virulent
 810        purple windows has another problem besides their TV overlay.
 811  </para>
 812  <para>
 813        The third approach is to copy the data from the capture card to the video
 814        card, but to do it directly across the PCI bus. This relieves the processor
 815        from doing the work but does require some smartness on the part of the video
 816        capture chip, as well as a suitable video card. Programming this kind of
 817        card and more so debugging it can be extremely tricky. There are some quite
 818        complicated interactions with the display and you may also have to cope with
 819        various chipset bugs that show up when PCI cards start talking to each
 820        other. 
 821  </para>
 822  <para>
 823        To keep our example fairly simple we will assume a card that supports
 824        overlaying a flat rectangular image onto the frame buffer output, and which
 825        can also capture stuff into processor memory.
 826  </para>
 827  </sect1>
 828  <sect1 id="regvid">
 829  <title>Registering Video Capture Devices</title>
 830  <para>
 831        This time we need to add more functions for our camera device.
 832  </para>
 833  <programlisting>
 834static struct video_device my_camera
 835{
 836        "My Camera",
 837        VID_TYPE_OVERLAY|VID_TYPE_SCALES|\
 838        VID_TYPE_CAPTURE|VID_TYPE_CHROMAKEY,
 839        camera_open.
 840        camera_close,
 841        camera_read,      /* no read */
 842        NULL,             /* no write */
 843        camera_poll,      /* no poll */
 844        camera_ioctl,
 845        NULL,             /* no special init function */
 846        NULL              /* no private data */
 847};
 848  </programlisting>
 849  <para>
 850        We need a read() function which is used for capturing data from
 851        the card, and we need a poll function so that a driver can wait for the next
 852        frame to be captured.
 853  </para>
 854  <para>
 855        We use the extra video capability flags that did not apply to the
 856        radio interface. The video related flags are
 857  </para>
 858   <table frame="all" id="Capture_Capabilities"><title>Capture Capabilities</title>
 859   <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
 860   <tbody>
 861   <row>
 862<entry>VID_TYPE_CAPTURE</entry><entry>We support image capture</entry>
 863</row><row>
 864<entry>VID_TYPE_TELETEXT</entry><entry>A teletext capture device (vbi{n])</entry>
 865</row><row>
 866<entry>VID_TYPE_OVERLAY</entry><entry>The image can be directly overlaid onto the
 867                                frame buffer</entry>
 868</row><row>
 869<entry>VID_TYPE_CHROMAKEY</entry><entry>Chromakey can be used to select which parts
 870                                of the image to display</entry>
 871</row><row>
 872<entry>VID_TYPE_CLIPPING</entry><entry>It is possible to give the board a list of
 873                                rectangles to draw around. </entry>
 874</row><row>
 875<entry>VID_TYPE_FRAMERAM</entry><entry>The video capture goes into the video memory
 876                                and actually changes it. Applications need
 877                                to know this so they can clean up after the
 878                                card</entry>
 879</row><row>
 880<entry>VID_TYPE_SCALES</entry><entry>The image can be scaled to various sizes,
 881                                rather than being a single fixed size.</entry>
 882</row><row>
 883<entry>VID_TYPE_MONOCHROME</entry><entry>The capture will be monochrome. This isn't a
 884                                complete answer to the question since a mono
 885                                camera on a colour capture card will still
 886                                produce mono output.</entry>
 887</row><row>
 888<entry>VID_TYPE_SUBCAPTURE</entry><entry>The card allows only part of its field of
 889                                view to be captured. This enables
 890                                applications to avoid copying all of a large
 891                                image into memory when only some section is
 892                                relevant.</entry>
 893    </row>
 894    </tbody>
 895    </tgroup>
 896    </table>
 897  <para>
 898        We set VID_TYPE_CAPTURE so that we are seen as a capture card,
 899        VID_TYPE_CHROMAKEY so the application knows it is time to draw in virulent
 900        purple, and VID_TYPE_SCALES because we can be resized.
 901  </para>
 902  <para>
 903        Our setup is fairly similar. This time we also want an interrupt line
 904        for the 'frame captured' signal. Not all cards have this so some of them
 905        cannot handle poll().
 906  </para>
 907  <programlisting>
 908
 909
 910static int io = 0x320;
 911static int irq = 11;
 912
 913int __init mycamera_init(struct video_init *v)
 914{
 915        if(!request_region(io, MY_IO_SIZE, "mycamera"))
 916        {
 917                printk(KERN_ERR 
 918                      "mycamera: port 0x%03X is in use.\n", io);
 919                return -EBUSY;
 920        }
 921
 922        if(video_device_register(&amp;my_camera, 
 923            VFL_TYPE_GRABBER)==-1) {
 924                release_region(io, MY_IO_SIZE);
 925                return -EINVAL;
 926        }
 927        return 0;
 928}
 929
 930  </programlisting>
 931  <para>
 932        This is little changed from the needs of the radio card. We specify
 933        VFL_TYPE_GRABBER this time as we want to be allocated a /dev/video name.
 934  </para>
 935  </sect1>
 936  <sect1 id="opvid">
 937  <title>Opening And Closing The Capture Device</title>
 938  <programlisting>
 939
 940
 941static int users = 0;
 942
 943static int camera_open(struct video_device *dev, int flags)
 944{
 945        if(users)
 946                return -EBUSY;
 947        if(request_irq(irq, camera_irq, 0, "camera", dev)&lt;0)
 948                return -EBUSY;
 949        users++;
 950        return 0;
 951}
 952
 953
 954static int camera_close(struct video_device *dev)
 955{
 956        users--;
 957        free_irq(irq, dev);
 958}
 959  </programlisting>
 960  <para>
 961        The open and close routines are also quite similar. The only real change is
 962        that we now request an interrupt for the camera device interrupt line. If we
 963        cannot get the interrupt we report EBUSY to the application and give up.
 964  </para>
 965  </sect1>
 966  <sect1 id="irqvid">
 967  <title>Interrupt Handling</title>
 968  <para>
 969        Our example handler is for an ISA bus device. If it was PCI you would be
 970        able to share the interrupt and would have set IRQF_SHARED to indicate a
 971        shared IRQ. We pass the device pointer as the interrupt routine argument. We
 972        don't need to since we only support one card but doing this will make it
 973        easier to upgrade the driver for multiple devices in the future.
 974  </para>
 975  <para>
 976        Our interrupt routine needs to do little if we assume the card can simply
 977        queue one frame to be read after it captures it. 
 978  </para>
 979  <programlisting>
 980
 981
 982static struct wait_queue *capture_wait;
 983static int capture_ready = 0;
 984
 985static void camera_irq(int irq, void *dev_id, 
 986                          struct pt_regs *regs)
 987{
 988        capture_ready=1;
 989        wake_up_interruptible(&amp;capture_wait);
 990}
 991  </programlisting>
 992  <para>
 993        The interrupt handler is nice and simple for this card as we are assuming
 994        the card is buffering the frame for us. This means we have little to do but
 995        wake up        anybody interested. We also set a capture_ready flag, as we may
 996        capture a frame before an application needs it. In this case we need to know
 997        that a frame is ready. If we had to collect the frame on the interrupt life
 998        would be more complex.
 999  </para>
1000  <para>
1001        The two new routines we need to supply are camera_read which returns a
1002        frame, and camera_poll which waits for a frame to become ready.
1003  </para>
1004  <programlisting>
1005
1006
1007static int camera_poll(struct video_device *dev, 
1008        struct file *file, struct poll_table *wait)
1009{
1010        poll_wait(file, &amp;capture_wait, wait);
1011        if(capture_read)
1012                return POLLIN|POLLRDNORM;
1013        return 0;
1014}
1015
1016  </programlisting>
1017  <para>
1018        Our wait queue for polling is the capture_wait queue. This will cause the
1019        task to be woken up by our camera_irq routine. We check capture_read to see
1020        if there is an image present and if so report that it is readable.
1021  </para>
1022  </sect1>
1023  <sect1 id="rdvid">
1024  <title>Reading The Video Image</title>
1025  <programlisting>
1026
1027
1028static long camera_read(struct video_device *dev, char *buf,
1029                                unsigned long count)
1030{
1031        struct wait_queue wait = { current, NULL };
1032        u8 *ptr;
1033        int len;
1034        int i;
1035
1036        add_wait_queue(&amp;capture_wait, &amp;wait);
1037
1038        while(!capture_ready)
1039        {
1040                if(file->flags&amp;O_NDELAY)
1041                {
1042                        remove_wait_queue(&amp;capture_wait, &amp;wait);
1043                        current->state = TASK_RUNNING;
1044                        return -EWOULDBLOCK;
1045                }
1046                if(signal_pending(current))
1047                {
1048                        remove_wait_queue(&amp;capture_wait, &amp;wait);
1049                        current->state = TASK_RUNNING;
1050                        return -ERESTARTSYS;
1051                }
1052                schedule();
1053                current->state = TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE;
1054        }
1055        remove_wait_queue(&amp;capture_wait, &amp;wait);
1056        current->state = TASK_RUNNING;
1057
1058  </programlisting>
1059  <para>
1060        The first thing we have to do is to ensure that the application waits until
1061        the next frame is ready. The code here is almost identical to the mouse code
1062        we used earlier in this chapter. It is one of the common building blocks of
1063        Linux device driver code and probably one which you will find occurs in any
1064        drivers you write.
1065  </para>
1066  <para>
1067        We wait for a frame to be ready, or for a signal to interrupt our waiting. If a
1068        signal occurs we need to return from the system call so that the signal can
1069        be sent to the application itself. We also check to see if the user actually
1070        wanted to avoid waiting - ie  if they are using non-blocking I/O and have other things 
1071        to get on with.
1072  </para>
1073  <para>
1074        Next we copy the data from the card to the user application. This is rarely
1075        as easy as our example makes out. We will add capture_w, and capture_h here
1076        to hold the width and height of the captured image. We assume the card only
1077        supports 24bit RGB for now.
1078  </para>
1079  <programlisting>
1080
1081
1082
1083        capture_ready = 0;
1084
1085        ptr=(u8 *)buf;
1086        len = capture_w * 3 * capture_h; /* 24bit RGB */
1087
1088        if(len>count)
1089                len=count;  /* Doesn't all fit */
1090
1091        for(i=0; i&lt;len; i++)
1092        {
1093                put_user(inb(io+IMAGE_DATA), ptr);
1094                ptr++;
1095        }
1096
1097        hardware_restart_capture();
1098                
1099        return i;
1100}
1101
1102  </programlisting>
1103  <para>
1104        For a real hardware device you would try to avoid the loop with put_user().
1105        Each call to put_user() has a time overhead checking whether the accesses to user
1106        space are allowed. It would be better to read a line into a temporary buffer
1107        then copy this to user space in one go.
1108  </para>
1109  <para>
1110        Having captured the image and put it into user space we can kick the card to
1111        get the next frame acquired.
1112  </para>
1113  </sect1>
1114  <sect1 id="iocvid">
1115  <title>Video Ioctl Handling</title>
1116  <para>
1117        As with the radio driver the major control interface is via the ioctl()
1118        function. Video capture devices support the same tuner calls as a radio
1119        device and also support additional calls to control how the video functions
1120        are handled. In this simple example the card has no tuners to avoid making
1121        the code complex. 
1122  </para>
1123  <programlisting>
1124
1125
1126
1127static int camera_ioctl(struct video_device *dev, unsigned int cmd, void *arg)
1128{
1129        switch(cmd)
1130        {
1131                case VIDIOCGCAP:
1132                {
1133                        struct video_capability v;
1134                        v.type = VID_TYPE_CAPTURE|\
1135                                 VID_TYPE_CHROMAKEY|\
1136                                 VID_TYPE_SCALES|\
1137                                 VID_TYPE_OVERLAY;
1138                        v.channels = 1;
1139                        v.audios = 0;
1140                        v.maxwidth = 640;
1141                        v.minwidth = 16;
1142                        v.maxheight = 480;
1143                        v.minheight = 16;
1144                        strcpy(v.name, "My Camera");
1145                        if(copy_to_user(arg, &amp;v, sizeof(v)))
1146                                return -EFAULT;
1147                        return 0;
1148                }
1149
1150
1151  </programlisting>
1152  <para>
1153        The first ioctl we must support and which all video capture and radio
1154        devices are required to support is VIDIOCGCAP. This behaves exactly the same
1155        as with a radio device. This time, however, we report the extra capabilities
1156        we outlined earlier on when defining our video_dev structure.
1157  </para>
1158  <para>
1159        We now set the video flags saying that we support overlay, capture,
1160        scaling and chromakey. We also report size limits - our smallest image is
1161        16x16 pixels, our largest is 640x480. 
1162  </para>
1163  <para>
1164        To keep things simple we report no audio and no tuning capabilities at all.
1165  </para>
1166  <programlisting>        
1167
1168                case VIDIOCGCHAN:
1169                {
1170                        struct video_channel v;
1171                        if(copy_from_user(&amp;v, arg, sizeof(v)))
1172                                return -EFAULT;
1173                        if(v.channel != 0)
1174                                return -EINVAL;
1175                        v.flags = 0;
1176                        v.tuners = 0;
1177                        v.type = VIDEO_TYPE_CAMERA;
1178                        v.norm = VIDEO_MODE_AUTO;
1179                        strcpy(v.name, "Camera Input");break;
1180                        if(copy_to_user(&amp;v, arg, sizeof(v)))
1181                                return -EFAULT;
1182                        return 0;
1183                }
1184
1185
1186  </programlisting>
1187  <para>
1188        This follows what is very much the standard way an ioctl handler looks
1189        in Linux. We copy the data into a kernel space variable and we check that the
1190        request is valid (in this case that the input is 0). Finally we copy the
1191        camera info back to the user.
1192  </para>
1193  <para>
1194        The VIDIOCGCHAN ioctl allows a user to ask about video channels (that is
1195        inputs to the video card). Our example card has a single camera input. The
1196        fields in the structure are
1197  </para>
1198   <table frame="all" id="video_channel_fields"><title>struct video_channel fields</title>
1199   <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
1200   <tbody>
1201   <row>
1202
1203   <entry>channel</entry><entry>The channel number we are selecting</entry>
1204   </row><row>
1205   <entry>name</entry><entry>The name for this channel. This is intended
1206                   to describe the port to the user.
1207                   Appropriate names are therefore things like
1208                   "Camera" "SCART input"</entry>
1209   </row><row>
1210   <entry>flags</entry><entry>Channel properties</entry>
1211   </row><row>
1212   <entry>type</entry><entry>Input type</entry>
1213   </row><row>
1214   <entry>norm</entry><entry>The current television encoding being used
1215                   if relevant for this channel.
1216    </entry>
1217    </row>
1218    </tbody>
1219    </tgroup>
1220    </table>
1221    <table frame="all" id="video_channel_flags"><title>struct video_channel flags</title>
1222    <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
1223    <tbody>
1224    <row>
1225        <entry>VIDEO_VC_TUNER</entry><entry>Channel has a tuner.</entry>
1226   </row><row>
1227        <entry>VIDEO_VC_AUDIO</entry><entry>Channel has audio.</entry>
1228    </row>
1229    </tbody>
1230    </tgroup>
1231    </table>
1232    <table frame="all" id="video_channel_types"><title>struct video_channel types</title>
1233    <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
1234    <tbody>
1235    <row>
1236        <entry>VIDEO_TYPE_TV</entry><entry>Television input.</entry>
1237   </row><row>
1238        <entry>VIDEO_TYPE_CAMERA</entry><entry>Fixed camera input.</entry>
1239   </row><row>
1240        <entry>0</entry><entry>Type is unknown.</entry>
1241    </row>
1242    </tbody>
1243    </tgroup>
1244    </table>
1245    <table frame="all" id="video_channel_norms"><title>struct video_channel norms</title>
1246    <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
1247    <tbody>
1248    <row>
1249        <entry>VIDEO_MODE_PAL</entry><entry>PAL encoded Television</entry>
1250   </row><row>
1251        <entry>VIDEO_MODE_NTSC</entry><entry>NTSC (US) encoded Television</entry>
1252   </row><row>
1253        <entry>VIDEO_MODE_SECAM</entry><entry>SECAM (French) Television </entry>
1254   </row><row>
1255        <entry>VIDEO_MODE_AUTO</entry><entry>Automatic switching, or format does not
1256                                matter</entry>
1257    </row>
1258    </tbody>
1259    </tgroup>
1260    </table>
1261    <para>
1262        The corresponding VIDIOCSCHAN ioctl allows a user to change channel and to
1263        request the norm is changed - for example to switch between a PAL or an NTSC
1264        format camera.
1265  </para>
1266  <programlisting>
1267
1268
1269                case VIDIOCSCHAN:
1270                {
1271                        struct video_channel v;
1272                        if(copy_from_user(&amp;v, arg, sizeof(v)))
1273                                return -EFAULT;
1274                        if(v.channel != 0)
1275                                return -EINVAL;
1276                        if(v.norm != VIDEO_MODE_AUTO)
1277                                return -EINVAL;
1278                        return 0;
1279                }
1280
1281
1282  </programlisting>
1283  <para>
1284        The implementation of this call in our driver is remarkably easy. Because we
1285        are assuming fixed format hardware we need only check that the user has not
1286        tried to change anything. 
1287  </para>
1288  <para>
1289        The user also needs to be able to configure and adjust the picture they are
1290        seeing. This is much like adjusting a television set. A user application
1291        also needs to know the palette being used so that it knows how to display
1292        the image that has been captured. The VIDIOCGPICT and VIDIOCSPICT ioctl
1293        calls provide this information.
1294  </para>
1295  <programlisting>
1296
1297
1298                case VIDIOCGPICT
1299                {
1300                        struct video_picture v;
1301                        v.brightness = hardware_brightness();
1302                        v.hue = hardware_hue();
1303                        v.colour = hardware_saturation();
1304                        v.contrast = hardware_brightness();
1305                        /* Not settable */
1306                        v.whiteness = 32768;
1307                        v.depth = 24;           /* 24bit */
1308                        v.palette = VIDEO_PALETTE_RGB24;
1309                        if(copy_to_user(&amp;v, arg, 
1310                             sizeof(v)))
1311                                return -EFAULT;
1312                        return 0;
1313                }
1314
1315
1316  </programlisting>
1317  <para>
1318        The brightness, hue, color, and contrast provide the picture controls that
1319        are akin to a conventional television. Whiteness provides additional
1320        control for greyscale images. All of these values are scaled between 0-65535
1321        and have 32768 as the mid point setting. The scaling means that applications
1322        do not have to worry about the capability range of the hardware but can let
1323        it make a best effort attempt.
1324  </para>
1325  <para>
1326        Our depth is 24, as this is in bits. We will be returning RGB24 format. This
1327        has one byte of red, then one of green, then one of blue. This then repeats
1328        for every other pixel in the image. The other common formats the interface 
1329        defines are
1330  </para>
1331   <table frame="all" id="Framebuffer_Encodings"><title>Framebuffer Encodings</title>
1332   <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
1333   <tbody>
1334   <row>
1335   <entry>GREY</entry><entry>Linear greyscale. This is for simple cameras and the
1336                        like</entry>
1337   </row><row>
1338   <entry>RGB565</entry><entry>The top 5 bits hold 32 red levels, the next six bits
1339                        hold green and the low 5 bits hold blue. </entry>
1340   </row><row>
1341   <entry>RGB555</entry><entry>The top bit is clear. The red green and blue levels
1342                        each occupy five bits.</entry>
1343    </row>
1344    </tbody>
1345    </tgroup>
1346    </table>
1347  <para>
1348        Additional modes are support for YUV capture formats. These are common for
1349        TV and video conferencing applications.
1350  </para>
1351  <para>
1352        The VIDIOCSPICT ioctl allows a user to set some of the picture parameters.
1353        Exactly which ones are supported depends heavily on the card itself. It is
1354        possible to support many modes and effects in software. In general doing
1355        this in the kernel is a bad idea. Video capture is a performance-sensitive
1356        application and the programs can often do better if they aren't being
1357        'helped' by an overkeen driver writer. Thus for our device we will report
1358        RGB24 only and refuse to allow a change.
1359  </para>
1360  <programlisting>
1361
1362
1363                case VIDIOCSPICT:
1364                {
1365                        struct video_picture v;
1366                        if(copy_from_user(&amp;v, arg, sizeof(v)))
1367                                return -EFAULT;
1368                        if(v.depth!=24 || 
1369                           v.palette != VIDEO_PALETTE_RGB24)
1370                                return -EINVAL;
1371                        set_hardware_brightness(v.brightness);
1372                        set_hardware_hue(v.hue);
1373                        set_hardware_saturation(v.colour);
1374                        set_hardware_brightness(v.contrast);
1375                        return 0;
1376                }
1377
1378
1379  </programlisting>
1380  <para>
1381        We check the user has not tried to change the palette or the depth. We do
1382        not want to carry out some of the changes and then return an error. This may
1383        confuse the application which will be assuming no change occurred.
1384  </para>
1385  <para>
1386        In much the same way as you need to be able to set the picture controls to
1387        get the right capture images, many cards need to know what they are
1388        displaying onto when generating overlay output. In some cases getting this
1389        wrong even makes a nasty mess or may crash the computer. For that reason
1390        the VIDIOCSBUF ioctl used to set up the frame buffer information may well
1391        only be usable by root.
1392  </para>
1393  <para>
1394        We will assume our card is one of the old ISA devices with feature connector
1395        and only supports a couple of standard video modes. Very common for older
1396        cards although the PCI devices are way smarter than this.
1397  </para>
1398  <programlisting>
1399
1400
1401static struct video_buffer capture_fb;
1402
1403                case VIDIOCGFBUF:
1404                {
1405                        if(copy_to_user(arg, &amp;capture_fb, 
1406                             sizeof(capture_fb)))
1407                                return -EFAULT;
1408                        return 0;
1409                        
1410                }
1411
1412
1413  </programlisting>
1414  <para>
1415        We keep the frame buffer information in the format the ioctl uses. This
1416        makes it nice and easy to work with in the ioctl calls.
1417  </para>
1418  <programlisting>
1419
1420                case VIDIOCSFBUF:
1421                {
1422                        struct video_buffer v;
1423
1424                        if(!capable(CAP_SYS_ADMIN))
1425                                return -EPERM;
1426
1427                        if(copy_from_user(&amp;v, arg, sizeof(v)))
1428                                return -EFAULT;
1429                        if(v.width!=320 &amp;&amp; v.width!=640)
1430                                return -EINVAL;
1431                        if(v.height!=200 &amp;&amp; v.height!=240 
1432                                &amp;&amp; v.height!=400
1433                                &amp;&amp; v.height !=480)
1434                                return -EINVAL;
1435                        memcpy(&amp;capture_fb, &amp;v, sizeof(v));
1436                        hardware_set_fb(&amp;v);
1437                        return 0;
1438                }
1439
1440
1441
1442  </programlisting>
1443  <para>
1444        The capable() function checks a user has the required capability. The Linux
1445        operating system has a set of about 30 capabilities indicating privileged
1446        access to services. The default set up gives the superuser (uid 0) all of
1447        them and nobody else has any.
1448  </para>
1449  <para>
1450        We check that the user has the SYS_ADMIN capability, that is they are
1451        allowed to operate as the machine administrator. We don't want anyone but
1452        the administrator making a mess of the display.
1453  </para>
1454  <para>
1455        Next we check for standard PC video modes (320 or 640 wide with either
1456        EGA or VGA depths). If the mode is not a standard video mode we reject it as
1457        not supported by our card. If the mode is acceptable we save it so that
1458        VIDIOCFBUF will give the right answer next time it is called.  The
1459        hardware_set_fb() function is some undescribed card specific function to
1460        program the card for the desired mode.
1461  </para>
1462  <para>
1463        Before the driver can display an overlay window it needs to know where the
1464        window should be placed, and also how large it should be. If the card
1465        supports clipping it needs to know which rectangles to omit from the
1466        display. The video_window structure is used to describe the way the image 
1467        should be displayed. 
1468   </para>
1469   <table frame="all" id="video_window_fields"><title>struct video_window fields</title>
1470   <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
1471   <tbody>
1472   <row>
1473        <entry>width</entry><entry>The width in pixels of the desired image. The card
1474                        may use a smaller size if this size is not available</entry>
1475        </row><row>
1476        <entry>height</entry><entry>The height of the image. The card may use a smaller
1477                        size if this size is not available.</entry>
1478        </row><row>
1479        <entry>x</entry><entry>   The X position of the top left of the window. This
1480                        is in pixels relative to the left hand edge of the
1481                        picture. Not all cards can display images aligned on
1482                        any pixel boundary. If the position is unsuitable
1483                        the card adjusts the image right and reduces the
1484                        width.</entry>
1485        </row><row>
1486        <entry>y</entry><entry>   The Y position of the top left of the window. This
1487                        is counted in pixels relative to the top edge of the
1488                        picture. As with the width if the card cannot
1489                        display  starting on this line it will adjust the
1490                        values.</entry>
1491        </row><row>
1492        <entry>chromakey</entry><entry>The colour (expressed in RGB32 format) for the
1493                        chromakey colour if chroma keying is being used. </entry>
1494        </row><row>
1495        <entry>clips</entry><entry>An array of rectangles that must not be drawn
1496                        over.</entry>
1497        </row><row>
1498        <entry>clipcount</entry><entry>The number of clips in this array.</entry>
1499    </row>
1500    </tbody>
1501    </tgroup>
1502    </table>
1503    <para>
1504        Each clip is a struct video_clip which has the following fields
1505   </para>
1506   <table frame="all" id="video_clip_fields"><title>video_clip fields</title>
1507   <tgroup cols="2" align="left">
1508   <tbody>
1509   <row>
1510        <entry>x, y</entry><entry>Co-ordinates relative to the display</entry>
1511        </row><row>
1512        <entry>width, height</entry><entry>Width and height in pixels</entry>
1513        </row><row>
1514        <entry>next</entry><entry>A spare field for the application to use</entry>
1515    </row>
1516    </tbody>
1517    </tgroup>
1518    </table>
1519    <para>
1520        The driver is required to ensure it always draws in the area requested or a        smaller area, and that it never draws in any of the areas that are clipped.
1521        This may well mean it has to leave alone. small areas the application wished to be
1522        drawn.
1523  </para>
1524  <para>
1525        Our example card uses chromakey so does not have to address most of the
1526        clipping.  We will add a video_window structure to our global variables to
1527        remember our parameters, as we did with the frame buffer.
1528  </para>
1529  <programlisting>
1530
1531
1532                case VIDIOCGWIN:
1533                {
1534                        if(copy_to_user(arg, &amp;capture_win, 
1535                            sizeof(capture_win)))
1536                                return -EFAULT;
1537                        return 0;
1538                }
1539
1540
1541                case VIDIOCSWIN:
1542                {
1543                        struct video_window v;
1544                        if(copy_from_user(&amp;v, arg, sizeof(v)))
1545                                return -EFAULT;
1546                        if(v.width &gt; 640 || v.height &gt; 480)
1547                                return -EINVAL;
1548                        if(v.width &lt; 16 || v.height &lt; 16)
1549                                return -EINVAL;
1550                        hardware_set_key(v.chromakey);
1551                        hardware_set_window(v);
1552                        memcpy(&amp;capture_win, &amp;v, sizeof(v));
1553                        capture_w = v.width;
1554                        capture_h = v.height;
1555                        return 0;
1556                }
1557
1558
1559  </programlisting>
1560  <para>
1561        Because we are using Chromakey our setup is fairly simple. Mostly we have to
1562        check the values are sane and load them into the capture card.
1563  </para>
1564  <para>
1565        With all the setup done we can now turn on the actual capture/overlay. This
1566        is done with the VIDIOCCAPTURE ioctl. This takes a single integer argument
1567        where 0 is on and 1 is off.
1568  </para>
1569  <programlisting>
1570
1571
1572                case VIDIOCCAPTURE:
1573                {
1574                        int v;
1575                        if(get_user(v, (int *)arg))
1576                                return -EFAULT;
1577                        if(v==0)
1578                                hardware_capture_off();
1579                        else
1580                        {
1581                                if(capture_fb.width == 0 
1582                                    || capture_w == 0)
1583                                        return -EINVAL;
1584                                hardware_capture_on();
1585                        }
1586                        return 0;
1587                }
1588
1589
1590  </programlisting>
1591  <para>
1592        We grab the flag from user space and either enable or disable according to
1593        its value. There is one small corner case we have to consider here. Suppose
1594        that the capture was requested before the video window or the frame buffer
1595        had been set up. In those cases there will be unconfigured fields in our
1596        card data, as well as unconfigured hardware settings. We check for this case and
1597        return an error if the frame buffer or the capture window width is zero.
1598  </para>
1599  <programlisting>
1600
1601
1602                default:
1603                        return -ENOIOCTLCMD;
1604        }
1605}
1606  </programlisting>
1607  <para>
1608
1609        We don't need to support any other ioctls, so if we get this far, it is time
1610        to tell the video layer that we don't now what the user is talking about.
1611  </para>
1612  </sect1>
1613  <sect1 id="endvid">
1614  <title>Other Functionality</title>
1615  <para>
1616        The Video4Linux layer supports additional features, including a high
1617        performance mmap() based capture mode and capturing part of the image. 
1618        These features are out of the scope of the book.  You should however have enough 
1619        example code to implement most simple video4linux devices for radio and TV
1620        cards.
1621  </para>
1622  </sect1>
1623  </chapter>
1624  <chapter id="bugs">
1625     <title>Known Bugs And Assumptions</title>
1626  <para>
1627  <variablelist>
1628    <varlistentry><term>Multiple Opens</term>
1629    <listitem>
1630    <para>
1631        The driver assumes multiple opens should not be allowed. A driver
1632        can work around this but not cleanly.
1633    </para>
1634    </listitem></varlistentry>
1635
1636    <varlistentry><term>API Deficiencies</term>
1637    <listitem>
1638    <para>
1639        The existing API poorly reflects compression capable devices. There
1640        are plans afoot to merge V4L, V4L2 and some other ideas into a
1641        better interface.
1642    </para>
1643    </listitem></varlistentry>
1644  </variablelist>
1645
1646  </para>
1647  </chapter>
1648
1649  <chapter id="pubfunctions">
1650     <title>Public Functions Provided</title>
1651!Edrivers/media/video/v4l2-dev.c
1652  </chapter>
1653
1654</book>
1655
lxr.linux.no kindly hosted by Redpill Linpro AS, provider of Linux consulting and operations services since 1995.