Raspberry Pi Video Input
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The Raspberry Pi is a small and compact low-cost computer that is based on the ARM processor with a Broadcom GPU. The Raspberry Pi is in most cases run using a Linux based operating system, this hobby computer has some powerful capabilities and has found its way into many commercial and industrial use applications.
The Raspberry Pi has USB 2.0 ports and a dedicated camera input connection that really only interfaces with the Pi camera, as many software application developers as well as hobbyists are developing video or vision based applications there is a requirement for capturing, recording, displaying or processing of video from external cameras or other video sources via the Pi’s USB port.
The PlayZone HD’s PZ-HDMI & PZ-HDSDI capture modules provide the perfect solution for adding a video input to the Pi, since both models of capture devices are based on using a UVC driver, hooking this up to a Raspberry Pi is fairly easy as no custom drivers are required.
The PZ-HDSDI & PZ-HDMI capture modules can be easily accessed via the V4L (Video for Linux) driver as Dev/0 device, so this allows easy application development weather capturing, displaying or streaming.
The PZ capture devices provide 1280x720p/30 via MJPEG, depending upon the application, this allows use of the Broadcom GPU to re-encode to H264, capture frames or using Gstreamer / FFMPEG versions for Pi Arm/GPU hardware acceleration many other video processing capabilities.
The PZ modules can also provide YUV frames out at 10fps at 1280x720 resolution, it is not possible to obtain 1080p frames via USB 2.0 due to bandwidth limitations of the USB 2.0.
When used with the Raspberry Pi USB port it is advisable to connect via a powered USB hub, the Pi USB ports are restricted on the current output, e-mediavision.com developers of the PlayZone HD modules can provide additional guidance for using the Pi with the PZ capture modules.
Developing a video based application for the Raspberry Pi, and require a video input then get the PlayZone PZ-HDMI or PZ-HDSDI capture module today.