I think this is a long shot, but this list has always
worked for me in the past...
I have an application, now functional for over 4 years, that was designed
on the TurboChannel-based Alphas using the J300 Sound and Motion card
(sometimes called AV300) and MultiMedia Extensions (MME). Basically I'm
using it as a frame grabber.
Wonder of wonders, after all this time, I am now able to order "modern"
Alphas for the project. So I ordered up a nice Aspen Durango II.
It has Digital UNIX V4.0D (unpatched) and MME V2.4B installed.
Here's where the weird stuff starts. I discovered, much to my dismay,
that the entire FullVideo product line had been retired (last ship of
AV321 appears to have been January). Don't know how that slipped by me,
but the weird part is that MME itself has *not* been retired despite the
fact that the "replacement" part for video I/O, the AV901 (no fancy name
I can find; can't even find a Customer Update product announcement),
does *not* support the MME video API. It comes with its *own*
API. In fact the AV901 turns out to be a rebadged product called
the Osprey-150/UXA from a company called Multimedia Access Corp.
I managed to find their web site (www.mmac.com), but the page on this
product only talks about Solaris! Typical DEC. If anyone out there is
more informed on what the h*ll is going on here I'd really appreciate
it...
Anyway, I know product politics is somewhat outside the scope of this
list. My *real* question has to do the the FullVideo Supreme aka AV321.
I *did* manage to scrounge one AV321 (and I'm looking for
more of them; if you have a source, let me know). I installed it.
Console, system, and MME all appear to see it just fine. But when
I try to get video input from it (alphavcr, vidstreamin, etc), all
I get is flashes of light that appear to relate to what's on the camera
but is certainly no picture. It would appear to be some sort of hardware
problem, but there are otherwise no errors anywhere. I'm not sure
if the AV321 is PCI slot sensitive, or whether there are console
settings I should be looking at or what. Of course the board might
in fact just be broken, but I'm sending this out on the chance that
someone out there has seen this behavior or has any other anecdotes to
share about AV321s...
All input welcome...
_kelley
W. Kelley Gardner Phone: (617) 735-1914
Director of Technology FAX: (617) 735-1992
Joslin Diabetes Center Email: kelley_gardner_at_joslin.harvard.edu
Received on Wed Dec 02 1998 - 03:25:25 NZDT