OS2TV Frequently Asked Questions

By Tim Snape



Setting up your TV is a very personal thing, everybody does it differently. Some like the volume high, some like it low. This makes it very difficult for us to automatically configure the TV for you. Combine that with the many different types of TV signal around the world, plus the many types of PC video controller board the result is an infinite number of possible configuration settings and problems.

In this presentation we describe a number of common faults and bugs plus the solutions to resolve them.

WinCast Version Info

 * Question:What is the current version of the Wincast driver
 * Answer:1.017A beta

WinCast Install Fails

 * Question:I have installed the OS/2 WinTV driver and it does not work.
 * Answer:You have installed the wrong driver. The WinTV driver supplied by IBM is for a device that was discontinued 2 years ago.

The latest versions of all the Hauppauge OS/2 drivers are currently held here.

Which Versions of OS/2 are supported

 * Question:Which versions of OS/2 are supported by the drivers
 * Answer:We can only support the current release of OS/2, although as far as we know the drivers should work with all versions of OS/2 after and including OS/2 1.3

Although the drivers will run under very early versions of OS/2 the supporting MM apps are highly sensitive to the version of the OS.

Does the WinCast driver work with the WinTV/PCI card?

 * Question:Does the WinCast driver work with the WinTV/PCI card?
 * Answer:Both of these cards (the WinCast and the WinTV/PCI) are the same design of board. When we started developing the driver the first board was called the WinCast but as development continued it was renamed WinTV/PCI.

Which cards are supported by the WinCast driver

 * Question

Is the xxxx card supported by the WinTV/PCI driver?


 * Answer

The WinCast driver should support all Hauppauge products that use the Brooktree BT848 digitiser chip. Although the driver may successfully install it is unlikely that non-Hauppauge cards will function correctly. This is due to specific information being gathered by the driver from the hardware, and non-Hauppauge hardware does not contain the appropriate chips.

Hauppauge are continually releasing new products with additional functionality, VideoText, Intercast, FM Radio, Teletext, etc. The driver may work with these new boards but all the functionality may not be present. Adding support for new functions is fairly simple, we will endeavour to add support for new boards time and money permitting.

If you have an OEM requirement for any extended functionality we are particularly interested in talking to you.

Trap E or Trap 7

 * Question

I get Trap 000E or Trap 0007 errors on execution of WTV


 * Answer

This error is not necessarily something wrong with the driver or WTV. If you have a Matrox Mystique video card then we suggest that you check the version of the BIOS. We know that version 1.4 works fine but there have been reports that upgrading to v1.5 causes the Trap errors.

If you do not have a Mystique video card then we currently have no solution. Email us with details of the video card and the BIOS and driver versions so that we can find commonalities.

WarpTV has a black screen

 * Question

When I run WarpTV all I see is a black screen, I can hear sound though ?


 * Answer

WarpTV currently does not support the WinTV/PCI driver and so will not display any images in its window (although the snap shot function will work fine). To view video images we have written a special program called WTV (MMOS2\WTV.EXE) that will support the WinTV/PCI. Start the WTV program with the board type and board number (i.e. WTV WCAST 1).

The toolkit SDK also includes the source code for a simple applet using the DIVE api. The toolkit can be found on our web site here.

We are working on a port of the driver that will use GRADD, when this is complete, WarpTV will work.

WTV has a blue screen

 * Question

When I start up WTV all I get is a blue screen


 * Answer

This is a good sign

A blue screen in WTV indicates that the currently active video source is a composite input (either external 1 or SVHS). BUT there is no signal present - it is not plugged in!

Either connect a Composite or SVHS source or select another input source (for example, the Tuner).

WTV has a green screen

 * Question:When I start up WTV all I get is a green screen
 * Answer:This is a bad sign

A green screen in WTV indicates that the WinCast hardware is not talking to the driver.

There is no definite solution to this problem at the current time. It is important to check that the hardware is working correctly and so first a check of the capture abilities of the hardware should be made. Open the multimedia setup, go to the appropriate section and perform a capture (CAPTURE tab in one of the WCAST sections). If the capture performs well (i.e. you see a non-black capture) then the hardware is functioning. If the capture is black please contact us.

A non-black capture is good: the driver and the hardware are working to a certain degree. The next step is to check the version of the DIVE.DLL you are using. This file is in the MMOS2\DLL directory and should have properties similar to below: DIVE.DLL  123679  12-09-95  11:03a If your DLL is smaller than this or older we suggest trying to locate a newer version. Unfortunately we are unable to help with this (unless someone knows where a new version can be found?) Sometimes updating this DLL solves the problem and the TV image appears; sometimes it doesn't.

When running multimedia setup I get "DosFindFirst" errors

 * Question : When running multimedia setup I get "DosFindFirst" errors
 * Answer : Multimedia Setup is looking for the files that map TV Channels to Radio Frequencies, these are referred to as the region files.

Due to copyright reasons we are not able to distribute these region files with the driver. The "DosFindFirst" error indicates that the region files are missing. To obtain these files download the WarpTV ZIP installation file and install WarpTV.

We have requested IBM for permission to include these region files in future distributions of our driver.

The "TV Setup" menu option in WTV doesn't work

 * Question : When I run the WTV app and try and invoke the TV Setup menu option nothing happens.


 * Answer : This is a known problem but we have not had time to fix it. The "TV Setup" menu option is intended to launch the multimedia setup pages for the appropriate WinTV/PCI driver. To alter the properties for the driver use the multimedia setup directly.

The frame rate with WTV is very low

 * Question : The frame-rate is very, very low
 * Answer : Essentially this is a performance problem.

The way the system works at the current time is to make the WinTV/PCI dump images into the PC memory and then the PC draws the images to the screen using DIVE. Ideally the WinTV/PCI should dump images directly to the video controller, however, for rapid development of the driver this option was rejected.

There are several things that you can try.


 * In the SDK there is a demonstration program that performs all the same functions as WTV but uses a different timing mechanism.
 * Use a smaller TV window
 * Use a faster PC

We are working on a new version of the driver that uses GRADD, this should relieve this problem.

When I run WTV the mouse does not work

 * Question : When I run WTV the mouse becomes very jerky
 * Answer : Like the previous question this is a performance problem.

The way the system works at the current time is to make the WinTV/PCI dump images into the PC memory and then the PC draws the images to the screen using DIVE. Ideally the WinTV/PCI should dump images directly to the video controller, however, for rapid development of the driver this option was rejected.

There are several things that you can try.
 * In the SDK there is a demonstration program that performs all the same functions as WTV but uses a different timing mechanism.
 * Use a smaller TV window
 * Use a faster PC

We are working on a new version of the driver that uses GRADD, this should relieve this problem.

The mouse is still jerky

 * Question : When I run WTV the mouse is still very jerky
 * Answer : Use a different mouse pointer, go to mouse setup and install the default set of mouse pointers.

This appears to be a performance issue with some video controllers. If you use a multicolor complicated mouse shape it appears to slow down DIVE apps drastically.

Thanks to Manfredd at Bigfoot for "pointing" this one out.

My video controller is not in the list

 * Question : My video controller is not in the list reported by the Multimedia Setup notebook.


 * Answer : Do not worry, this will have no effect. In future with GRADD support this will become an issue. Right now using DIVE, either your video controller will do DIVE or it won't.

To test if your video controller supports dive, run any of the demo apps written that support dive.

I cannot select a different region
I can't select any regions for my WinTV/PCI tuner The region files are missing or in the incorrect format.
 * Question
 * Answer

How do I select a different source ?
How do I select a different video source, or tune the Tuner? There are two ways to do this: either click the left mouse button in the WTV window or use the multimedia setup. Using the mouse will display a remote control that will allow you to alter the video source (buttons marked 1, 2, 3 and 4) or adjust the current channel (at the top of the remote are two arrow buttons and a text-entry field). The multimedia setup will provide better control for tuning the tuner on the SOURCE page of the notebook.
 * Question
 * Answer

The Tuner will not work
I can see snow when I select the tuner source but I cannot seem to get it to do anything else The snow means you have selected the tuner and it is working. The most likely cause of your problem is that an ini variable has the wrong value.
 * Question
 * Answer

This variable describes the internal address of the tuner device and in an earlier version of the driver this was mistakenly set to a value of 0xc6.

To change the variable to its correct setting use the utility vxpvar to modify the variable : vxpvar wcast 1 tunertype c2

The above command will change the value of the tunertype variable to 0xc2.

Once you have done that and if it works, you need to save the new ini setting in the drivers ini file. To do that run multimedia setup which will save all the current settings to the ini file.

I can't see the TV image in Multimedia setup
I can't see the TV image in Multimedia setup The WinCast driver requires applications to use DIVE to display the TV images.
 * Question
 * Answer

Multimedia Setup does not support DIVE, so although all the settings and controls will work, you will not see a picture. The solution is to run WTV at the same time as Multimedia Setup. Use Multimedia Setup to set the driver up, and WTV to see what you are doing.

The WTV image has disappeared
When altering the scaling and position of the TV image, the image sometimes "disappears" If you study the WTV window carefully you will notice that the image has not disappeared completely but has become a single line at the top of the window. To solve this simply adjust the slider that caused this until the image appears. If the TV image starts like this then adjust the sliders for all of scaling and positioning information to be zero.
 * Question
 * Answer

Why do I see red and cyan images instead of true colours
Why do I see red and cyan images instead of true colours This problem is not actually to do with the driver itself but with the WTV program. WTV uses Direct Video Extensions (DIVE) to draw the TV images on the screen. If you have EnDIVE support turned on (this is a display adapter setting on some cards) then you will experience the blue and cyan phenomenon. With Matrox cards you simply go to the MGA Settings and turn off the 'Enable EnDIVE for 16 and 32 bpp' option (could people contact us with how to do this for other cards).
 * Question
 * Answer

Cannot save settings
Everytime I reboot I have to retune everything There was a fairly major bug in earlier releases of the configuration notebook. This bug meant that the configuration settings were not all being saved to the .ini file.
 * Question
 * Answer

The symptom was that the tuner was always set to Region 0 (the UK).

This bug has been corrected in the latest release of the configuration notebook (as of 29th September 1997)

Can I distribute the driver?
Can I distribute the driver? Yes.
 * Question
 * Answer

Provided that the installation ZIP file remains intact and no files are altered then please feel free to distribute this version of the driver.

However, we advise people to simply give out the WWW address for the driver (http://www.os2tv.com) as more information will be made available through this than through the ZIP file alone.

If you require a license agreement to ship the drivers then please contact Tim Snape at Abbotsbury Software Ltd for details.

Where can I buy the WinTV/PCI cards

 * Question

Where can I buy the WinTV/PCI cards

The boards are manufactured by Hauppauge Computer Works Inc on Long Island USA. Their web site is http://www.hauppauge.com. Contact them for your nearest distributor.
 * Answer

Celebrity Bug Report
What are the outstanding bugs for Celebrity
 * Question

The current latest release of the Celebrity driver is Version 3.001V. There are still a number of outstanding issues :
 * Answer

This can be reduced by reducing the size of the captured image. The latest release of the driver has a setting, that will allow you to improve the captured images quality. This setting works by disabling the display of the image during the capture. To take advantage of this new setting you should go to the files area and select the settings tool.
 * Capture Format - The Hauppauge Celebrity board supports the capture format YUV 422. The conversion routines to convert from YUV422 to RGB appear to add a slight sepia tint to the images. This is a restriction of the Warp multimedia package.
 * Capture Quality - With rapidly changing images you may encounter a degradation in image quality. This may manifest itself as a Venetian blind effect or a complete breakup of the image.
 * Capture Crash - Occasionally when performing VideoIn AVI capture we have observed crashes. This only occurs when you stop the capture. This appears to happen on low performance systems when capturing large images. To get round this "feature" either use faster hardware, reduce the capture rate (fps), or reduce the capture size. We are still investigating this problem.
 * High Resolution Displays - Currently the device driver should work with all display devices at 640 by 480. In practice, however, the driver appears to work on most display devices at resolutions of up to 1280 by 1024. When setting up for high resolutions the display controller should be set to the lowest scanning frequency.

HighQ Bug Report
What are the outstanding bugs for HighQ The current latest release of the HighQ is tracking the Celebrity driver and suffers from the same limitations.
 * Question
 * Answer

Prism Bug Report
What are the outstanding bugs for Prism
 * Question

The current latest release of the Prism driver is Version 2.001G This is a beta release and will remain so until we get more feedback from testers. The outstanding issues we are aware of are :
 * Answer

This can be reduced by reducing the size of the captured image. The latest release of the driver has a setting, that will allow you to improve the captured images quality. This setting works by disabling the display of the image during the capture. To take advantage of this new setting you should go to the files area and select the settings tool.
 * Capture Quality - With rapidly changing images you may encounter a degradation in image quality. This may manifest itself as a Venetian blind effect or a complete breakup of the image.
 * Capture Crash - Occasionally when performing VideoIn AVI capture we have observed crashes. This only occurs when you stop the capture. This appears to happen on low performance systems when capturing large images. To get round this "feature" either use faster hardware, reduce the capture rate (fps), or reduce the capture size. We are still investigating this problem.
 * High Resolution Displays - Currently the device driver should work with all display devices at 640 by 480. In practice, however, the driver appears to work on most display devices at resolutions of up to 800 by 600. When setting up for high resolutions the display controller should be set to the lowest scanning frequency.

Archived Links

 * OS2TV Download