BSOD (IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL) when trying to configure Dazzle DVC100 in OBS

[Bill-kun]

Running OBS version 30.0.2 on Windows 10 and trying to get either of my Dazzle DVC100 (version 1.1) units to work. I've gotten them to work before, but since I use my computer for other things, every time I want to use one of my Dazzles, I have to plug it in and reconfigure it in OBS. Every session, it's always a long, gigantic fight to get the image and sound to appear in OBS (2 hours and counting on this session). On this computer, I used to use OBS for a few things, but transferring VHS to computer video files is now nearly the only thing I use it for on this computer.

This attempt, I keep getting BSODed. It has happened 3 times now. Each time, the BSOD says "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL". I know from vintage computing that that IRQ is Interrupt Request, and it is a form of I/O device communication path where a device can send a signal to the CPU to prompt it to do a certain thing. Wikipedia says IRQL is Interrupt Request Level. Perhaps I have an IRQ conflict? But I haven't heard of IRQ conflicts happening since about 1992 when users still had to configure IRQ numbers themselves. The entire USB protocol was established to do all that automatically now, correct?

Three full OBS log files attached. I have usually not been running any other programs except for OBS. This link and this link might be helpful in the IRQL error explanation.

 

[Bill-kun]

Here's a bit more information I found today from experience in trying more stuff.

On 3 different computers running OBS, I encountered a similar problem of the video and/or audio from the DVC100 not appearing in OBS. (Today is the first time that I've been BSODed by it, and that only happened on my main computer.) Going by the guess that it was genuinely an IRQL conflict, I disconnected the 2 USB webcams, and it was much easier to get the video from the DVC100 to show up. Because I could not use the USB webcams, I had to use the low-quality native laptop camera to video myself giving commentary. And even then, I couldn't get the audio to appear from the DVC100, just the video.

I have also historically had a lot of impossibility getting my computers/OBS to take simultaneous input from more than one webcam. Sometimes this can be accomplished by using two different webcam brands, but that doesn't always work, either.

I am still frustrated, because it is still my understanding that the establishment of the USB protocol was supposed to automatically eliminate device conflicts. And I'm still having difficulty getting the sound to come in from the DVC100.

The good (?) news is that OBS never has a problem getting video from the native laptop/tablet cameras when I use the DVC100. It is only the USB webcams that it doesn't like. Unfortunately, the native webcams are low quality, and cannot be pointed in any direction except the direction the factory installed them.

 

[Bill-kun]

There have been 76 views of this thread so far but no replies. Can someone please help me on getting the DVC100 to reliably appear in both video and audio in OBS?

 

[AaronD]

Lots of views and no answer, probably means that nobody else knows either.

Very few things cause BSOD's anymore, so if you're seeing one now, it probably means that something is horribly broken. "What," is anyone's guess. It could be the Dazzle driver, or it could be something seemingly unrelated to any of this, that is poorly written and gets into a weird state by the butterfly effect.

Also, it seems that the old NTSC / PAL / SECAM capture devices are especially tricky to get working. Don't really know why, except for there being so much variance in how they all work. Maybe just a different device would solve everything? Or maybe it introduces a new set of problems?

I do seem to remember Dazzle being one of the trickier brands though, so you might actually try that first. See if a different brand of capture device "just works", or takes only a small amount of tweaking to get working.