Designing an embedded Digital Video Recorder (DVR)

Aug 13, 2007 3 Replies

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Miem 18 years ago

Hi,

I wonder if someone tell me how to digitize and save/record composite color video data (and optionally audio) from a low-cost camera into compact flash or SD memory without using a PC.

Following URL

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AT3267.htm ) points an interesting AVR based image/video capture circuit in which designer use an OV528

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which is a JPEG compression chip designed for mobile phones and PDA's. My understanding is that it requires OVT's digital camera chips.

However I want to be able to digitize/capture composite video signal from any ordinary video source such as low-cost cameras, VCR, etc.

Do you know also any other circuit which can digitize composite video signals without needing a PC?

I know I can purchase COTS units like

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But, I want to learn how to digitize and record composite video (as a hobby) with an AVR (and/or a PIC) or some other simple microcontroller.

Thx

Miem

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linnix 18 years ago

Didn't I answere this question somewhere, sometime? You cannot do video capture with PIC/AVR alone. You can do the easy way with a chip like SAA71XX or the hard way with FPGA, flash A2D and local RAM. Of course, you can do the whole thing in a single chip ASIC.

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Donald 18 years ago

I think the OP needs to understand what it will take to digitize video.

Once he understands that, he will be ready to understand your (linnix) response.

Good Luck to Miem, I hope he will take the time to learn something new.

donald

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Hans-Bernhard Bröker 18 years ago

That depends entirely on where you drawn the line beyond which you call things a "PC". Generally, a system capable of pulling off that job will most likely end up more expensive than your average PC.

Let me put it bluntly: no way is that going to work as advertized.

The most an AVR or PIC could do for you in such a system is house-keeping and control for several specialized chips that do the actual work. Those controllers are nowhere near fast enough for realtime video processing on their own.

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