I have just bought a Formac Studio DV/tv.
It seems pretty good.
I don't know anything about video - but am learning fast.
The formac software is pretty bad so I have invested in a copy of BTV Pro.
I want to use applescript to control BTV so that I can use it as a Personal Video Recorder.
I can get BTV to capture DV streams, but outputting DV streams to the formac studio is a little bit more difficult.
The studio seems to have two 'modes' that it can be in -
analogue to digital (input) which streams captured video (DV) into the mac via FireWire.
and
digital to analogue (output) which takes DV streamed via FireWire from the mac and sends it out to the video connectors.
When the hardware is in input mode both the capture software and the connectors display the video being converted (e.g. live TV).
When the hardware is in output mode the capture software and the connectors show either the DV stream being sent out by the mac - or (if there is no DV stream being sent) a blue screen.
The problem is that I cannot switch the mode of the box - only iMovie can successfully switch the mode (pressing 'stop' in the import controls) - and iMovie is not scriptable - in any tangible sense - (it has a scripting Dictionary, but only one event - "DoCommand" which does nothing as far as I can tell).
I thought I could switch the mode by sending BTV a "stop DV device" command - which creates the bluescreen effect - but if I try and send a DV stream I get an error ("There was an error while starting FireWire output - error 630, -14104").
Basically BTV will not output DV to my studio after it has captured video from the studio - once it has done any form of capturing the box has to be reset using the iMovie method.
Does anyone know a definite way to reset (through software) the mode of the box?
Top
