Capturing Audio with an Easycap DC60+ (SMI Grabber Device / Syntek TDK2860)

[SenorKaffee]

A few day ago I got this Hong-Kong-rip-off of an EzCap, called Easycap DC60+. It identifies as SMI Grabber Device and according to the reseller page ist uses a Syntek TDK2860 chip. It comes with a Mini-CD and minimal software, e.g. no Ulead.



Just like the rest of the Internet I had the problem of getting no sound and read here, that I have to connect to the PC sound card to capture sound. I couldn't believe that there was a connector on this thing that didn't have any use so I dug a little deeper into the cause of the problem and came up with a solution.

First start for all problems with DirectShow-devices is Microsofts GraphEdit. It's part of the DirectX SDK you can also get a pretty similar OSS-alternative called GraphStudio here: http://blog.monogram.sk/janos/tools/monogram-graphstudio/. Sorry if the screenshots contain a little german, this comes from my Windows but you will get the point.



In the filter list we see the cause of the problem. The device doesn't register as a proper "Audio Capture source".

Well, what are the white and red wires for then? Let's check the "Video Capture source" filters.



There is our "SMI Grabber Device". Inserting it in the graph builder will show the kind of connections it supports.



Here we have it - "Audio PCM Out". The audio output is a pin in the "Video Capture source" filter. Great piece of programming, Syntek peole, I don't know of any capture software that supports this combination.

Good thing we have GraphEdit - with this we can build our own capturing software!

Let's start with setting up the input and a preview so we can check our settings. For this, we need the following filters.

WDM Streaming Crossbars -> SM BDA Crossbar Filter
Video Capture Sources -> SMI Grabber Device
Direct Show Filters -> Smart Tee (two instances)
Direct Show Filters -> Video Renderer
Audio Renderers -> Default DirectSound Device

Insert them and wire them up like in the following screenshot. The additional filters between Video YUV Out of the SMI Grabber device and Video Renderer are automatically added.



You can check your capture settings by bringing up the properties of the filters "SM BDA Crossbar Filter" and "SMI Grabber Device".



Now hit that "Play"-Button and see what happens...



Video and Audio preview work - first step taken!


The second part of this post will be a little system-specific, you will need to modify it to your desired settings.
Hang on...

[SenorKaffee]

Okay, first of all the bad news. I couldn't work out how to save the output of the SMI Grabber Devices,  Easycap DC60+, or however you'd like to call it to an AVI.
After starting the capturing it takes the device a couple dozen of frames to deliver the image which confuses the AVI Mux filter, it will throw an error after a few seconds because it doesn't get the right sequence of frames.

But maybe you have more luck than me - here is the wiring for writing an AVI file.
The file name filter is called "File Writer" in the list.
Audio codecs are sorted as "Audio Compressor", Video Codecs as "Video Compressors".
The 64bit version of GraphEdit will only list 64bit codecs, switch to the regular version if you miss the ones you want to use.



Next stop is the configuration I use on my PC...

[SenorKaffee]

I loaded this from a saved graph file, so it's a little messy. You'll notice I have an ATI graphics card and use the AVIVO encoder to write a high-quality MPEG2 file.

You can see a test capture of this setup here:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/JjqbivsCbnE&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/JjqbivsCbnE&rel=0</a>

I should have deinterlaced it before uploading, but... well... it was just a test.

[SenorKaffee]

Now if you want to setup your own compression scheme, it's actually pretty easy.

You need a filter that compresses video, a filter that compresses audio, a muxer that ... muxes the two streams and a file writer that writes the file on your hard drive.
The muxer part is actually optional, you can also use two file writers and combine video and audio later.

Have fun with your Hong-Kong rip-off.

[AdamTaylorr]

I think I have the same easycap as you and would love some help on this to get audio to work, this sounds really complicated for my liking so would love a walkthrough.

add my msn, adamtaylor05@aol.com

thanks.

[gogostarmen]

I just got the SMI Grabber one and having hell of a trouble with it. Everytime i configure it to NTSC-4.33 it tends to switch back to PAL-B on its own. I too don't see anything to capture audio, there's only SMI grabber thingy on Video devices.
Best performance i got was in AMCAP with default configuration which gave me a funny screen (most of the picture was out of the screen but it ran smoothly, still having very little delay)
When i get a proper 16:9 screen the lag just rises.
Maybe with different capture programs i can fix it, so any suggestions are welcome. I just want to play my Xbox on my laptop screen.
Thanks!