Machine Vision

[josborne]

Hi all,

I have been doing a lot of USB and Firewire video acquisition using LabVIEW.

But someone recently asked me if I could acquire from an HDMI camera?

Anyone know if IMAQdx can do this?

I know the NI VMS can do it, but I want to use LabVIEW.  Can't seem to find much reference to HDMI on the NI website.

[CSD]

LabVIEW can do it, though without NI Hardware.  Epiphan (http://www.epiphan.com/) sells a PCIe and USB DVI (and VGA) capture device that shows up in windows as a WDM device.  IMAQdx can capture directly from WDM devices.  HDMI can be converted to DVI via a cable change, although the embedded audio in the HDMI will be dropped.

If you need to do the capture at some distance from the source, you may consider converting the HDMI signal to HD-SDI via mini converter from Blackmagic, and capturing that data via one of Blackmagic's Decklink cards.  These cards also show up as WDM devices in windows, and LabVIEW/IMAQdx sees them just fine.

[BlueCheese]

Keep in mind that those Epiphan solutions appear to only capture unencrypted DVI/HDMI transmissions. Many HDMI devices output encrypted streams which this would be unable to capture. The NI Digital Video Analyzer system (http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/205782), on the other hand, can do analysis of an encrypted image stream. Although I don't know offhand, I would not be suprised if it cannot do straight capturing due to licensing issues with decrypting HDMI. Such restrictions would likely be present in any device that can accept an encrypted stream.

Eric

[josborne]

Thanks! 

Though, I am still a little confused how I'd make that work with a "WDM" device.  If I do this, does IMAQdx end up using the DirectShow interface to the WDM camera?

In any case, it sounds like it might be possible if the video stream is unencrypted.

[CSD · Accepted solution]

BlueCheese is correct, the Ephianan solution will only work if the HDMI stream is unencrypted.  I forgot to mention that as one of my assumptions.

WDM devices are visible to IMAQdx through DirectShow.  They show up in MAX and are available to LabVIEW for recording as an IMAQdx source.

If you plan to widely deploy this solution, you'll need to consider the liscensing of IMAQdx as well.  The Ephianan devices come with sample software for capture and display purposes, which may or may not fulfill all your requirements.

Good luck.

[mdnelson1234]

OK I have a BlackMagic Intensity Pro card and NI vision does see it and will capture.   But I don't see an IMAQdx example of wdm capture like I found when I was capturing USB twain streams.

Am I missing the Icon or is there some place I can get an example code to plagiarize?

Thanks

[mdnelson1234]

Never Mind.  I just found anE enumerate VI from Steve_tdiode.  

http://forums.ni.com/t5/Machine-Vision/IMAQdx-Open-Camera-and-MAX-listing-DirectShow-cameras-that-ar...

And so I modified my old USB video capture program to point to the WDM device and Viola.  I am capturing and analyzing HDMI video streams in realtime.   I love Labview.