What Capture Card (integrated or external) for OBS on Linux?

[AaronD]

Yeow!!! That's definitely not how mine went! Mine "just worked", and still does.

I'm wondering about posting a tarball of what I downloaded then, and continue to automatically rebuild against each new kernel. Everything all together with no filter is 9.3MiB, and it says it's specific to the 4-input SDI card that I got. What do you have?

 

[BroadcastGoblin]

Hey AaronD! :)

What exactly do you mean by "What do you have?"?

I got this card:

Acasis 4K60Hz HDMI Input Video Capture Card 2K144Hz Game Capture

ACASIS AC-VS2583 capture card has 2 HDMI video signal inputs, providing 4K@60Hz input and capture. It has the characteristics of supporting multiple cards in one machine (up to 4), VRR technology, ultra-low latency, and high bandwidth. Supports streaming or recording applications such as OBS...

www.acasis.com

I am on Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS with Kernel 6.8.0-45-generic.
I was considering moving to the next LTS version, but I am not sure if that would make things better or worse.

This is the file "alex.liu@longtimetech.com" sent me:

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Edit: I dont understand why they cant give all needed drivers here: https://www.acasis.com/pages/acasis-product-drivers
Having to email some guy feels fishy as hell...

 

[AaronD]

What exactly do you mean by "What do you have?"?

I got this card:

Acasis 4K60Hz HDMI Input Video Capture Card 2K144Hz Game Capture

ACASIS AC-VS2583 capture card has 2 HDMI video signal inputs, providing 4K@60Hz input and capture. It has the characteristics of supporting multiple cards in one machine (up to 4), VRR technology, ultra-low latency, and high bandwidth. Supports streaming or recording applications such as OBS...

www.acasis.com

That's what I meant. :-)

And it's not what I have. I don't think my driver will work for you, at least not directly as-is, based on lines 71-75 of hws_video.c. That's where the PCIe identifier is (what card to attach to), and they're different. You might try copying your ID's into my code to see if it just happens to work, but it's all experimental at that point. Likewise with the list of capabilities that immediately follow, and all the other differences.

This is the file "alex.liu@longtimetech.com" sent me:

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

For comparison at least, I've attached my version of what you sent. Another notable difference is the absence of what appears to be a third party in a couple of your header files, that is present for me, along with some renaming away from what is probably an abbreviation of that third party:

Where I have:

/*
    TurboSight TBS PCIE DVB driver
     Copyright (C) 2017 www.tbsdtv.com
*/

and things are prefixed with _TBS_, you have:

/*

*/

and things are prefixed with _HWS_.

A lot of the code is the same, but there are still a fair number of other differences beyond what I mentioned here, I suspect to account for not using that third party anymore. If whoever replaced them or made that code change did a poor job, then that would probably explain it. I didn't dive into it enough to confirm though.

Pity, 'cause that's a good card.

Edit: I dont understand why they cant give all needed drivers here: https://www.acasis.com/pages/acasis-product-drivers
Having to email some guy feels fishy as hell...

Yes it does. Fortunately I didn't have to, but so far there are two people in rapid succession that did. One worked, and the other didn't.

 

[BroadcastGoblin]

Thanks for the feedback AaronD, I appreciate it!
I wrote to Acasis and told them about this... maybe they can come up with a fix. Otherwise I will return the card and start the Odyssee with the next one.

Its a shame because I still have a AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K (GC573) lying around also, which I could also not get to work.

 

[AaronD]

I still have a AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K (GC573) lying around also, which I could also not get to work.

I have a GC553 with the same problem. Works great on Windows, with no installation required...not on Linux at all. An Elgato CamLink 20GAM9902 does work. Both are USB3.

I remember having to do something to get the CamLink to work, but whether it was configuration somewhere or a community driver or what, I don't know anymore.

USB is good if you only have one, but each USB controller (not port: internal hubs...) can only support one. (*) So my 4 inputs on one rig had to be PCIe. The USB one is on a different rig that only needs 1.

(*) With decent quality anyway: I originally had 4 deceptive HDMI -> USB captures on one hub - deceptive because they were actually USB2 chips behind a genuine USB3 *connector* - and in addition to the quality problems (that I didn't notice until I replaced them because I was still learning how to set up and run a broadcast rig in the first place), they were always out of sync with each other and the separate soundtrack by different amounts each time. Good luck chasing *that*!

 

[captainchaos]

Thanks for the feedback AaronD, I appreciate it!
I wrote to Acasis and told them about this... maybe they can come up with a fix. Otherwise I will return the card and start the Odyssee with the next one.

Its a shame because I still have a AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K (GC573) lying around also, which I could also not get to work.

Hey Goblin, Sorry to hear the frustration... did Acasis come back to you with a solution?

For the record, the driver has been working on my machine and there is no need to recompile after kernel upgrades, it just works, I guess that's DKMS working properly. So far so good.

If I were you I'd have been in dialogue with that chap I mentioned, Alex Liu, I think, who I guess writes their drivers, understands Linux, and who provided perfect personal support at least in my case. (I think he's a gent!) But I guess you have.

Anyhow, seeing as I seem to have prompted your purchase I hope you can resolve the issue!

Linux can be tricky, we should know that. Timeshift is your friend! Or maybe clone your system, then test on the clone.

I'm about to add a low-latency kernel and play with that (I have bad latency issues when streaming long shows but that's another thread) ... it should make no difference but I'll report back if there are problems with the new kernel.