PRB: Captured video frame does not contain video image, but appears black or noisy

Document ID: Q101012

This article applies to the following:
Product(s): Second Opinion Standard
Hardware: Standard Video Capture Board (Hauppauge WinTV or Hi-Q)
Last Revised On: October 20, 2010

Summary

While using the Hauppauge WinTV or Hi-Q video capture card, you can see video in the preview, but when you attempt to capture still frames, the video image does not appear.

Discussion

The video capture board has a frame buffer to "capture" a video image. This frame buffer might have an address conflict with some PC’s, resulting in the board’s not being able to capture images. Please read this entire document before applying any changes.

1. Run Second Opinion
2. Open a sample patient
3. In the Select Image dialog box, click the Capture button, or choose Capture Video from the Image menu. Ensure a video source is plugged in and playing on screen.
4. Click Capture in the Live Video window
5. Click Exit to close the Live Video window
6. If the captured image appears correctly on the Second Opinion desktop, the Memory Base Address is correct. If not, the following procedure can be used to change the address:

• EMM386 overlapping with the Memory Base
• BIOS caching the Memory Base
• Another device such as a network card or SVGA card using the same Memory Base

Changing the Memory Base Address if your PC has 16MB or more of RAM:

1. Run Second Opinion
2. Click on Options from the System menu
3. Choose the Capture tab
4. Click on Configure to open the Hardware Configuration dialog box
5. Change the setting of Memory Base to another address. We suggest D000 as the best address to try.
6. Exit Second Opinion
7. Click Start, Run.
8. Type SYSEDIT and click OK.
9. Choose the CONFIG.SYS window. If you are using EMM386, there should be a line that normally says:

   DEVICE=EMM386.EXE NOEMS

   This must be changed to exclude the 32K memory range used by the video capture board. For example, if you chose D000, edit this line so it reads:

   DEVICE=EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=D000-D7FF

   You may also need to include HIMEM.SYS. If you are using another expanded memory manager such as QEMM, instead of EMM386, the memory range must be excluded according to that program’s requirements.

10. Exit SYSEDIT saving changes
11. Exit Windows
12. You can now reboot your computer (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and then run Windows and Second Opinion. Now retest the video capture. If you still cannot see the captured image on the Second Opinion desktop, then you will have to rerun the above procedure, trying a different memory base address. The available addresses are:

Memory Base	Edit the EMM386.EXE statement to read
B000	EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=B000-B7FF
B800	EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=B800-BFFF
C800	EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=C800-CFFF
D000	EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=D000-D7FF
D800	EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=D800-DFFF
E000	EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=E000-E7FF
E800	EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=E800-EFFF

NOTE: Some PCs shadow or cache all of the memory between 640K and 1MB. If your PC does this, to properly save an image the Memory Base address must be uncached or the shadow disabled. After setting the Memory Base to D000, this can be done in your PC’s Advanced BIOS setup program:

DisableShadowMemory Size = 32K

DisableShadowMemory Base = D000H

In Packard Bell Pentium PCs, when in the BIOS select Advanced Setup then Plug-and-Play options. Select address D000 with a size of 32K.

On some systems with PCI or VESA Local Bus VGA cards, the buffer address must be set to D000, with this region excluded in EMM386.EXE or QEMM386.SYS. Otherwise capturing images may not be possible.

The default port address is 51C. If you need to change the address due to a conflict with another device, use the following procedure:

1. Set the jumpers on the board to the desired address:

Port Address	Addresses	1,2	3,4	5,6
516-51F hex	51Ch	on	on	on
536-53F hex	53Ch	on	on	off
556-55F hex	55Ch	on	off	on
576-57F hex	57Ch	on	off	off
596-59F hex	59Ch	off	on	on
5B6-5BF hex	5BCh	off	on	off
5D6-5DF hex	5DCh	off	off	on
5F6-5FF hex	5FCh	off	off	off

2. Run Second Opinion and choose the same Address by clicking on System, Options, Capture, Configure, I/O Address. If you cannot get to the Capture tab, edit the PCVIDEO.INI file and change the Port=51Ch line to use the new address.

The video capture board also comes preset for IRQ 15 on JP4. This IRQ is used only for motion video capture and is not currently used by Second Opinion. If you experience IRQ conflict problems, try removing or changing the jumper on JP4.