4/29/2023

TDK indiCapture VC-2600 UE drivers and insides

I happened across this TDK IndiCapture with driver and software disk today. Curious I took a look inside and at the device drivers.

This comes from around the year 2002-2004 when video capture from camcorders, and later television became popular.

 



The device driver hints that its actually based on a Lumanate / Emuzed / Bali USB device which uses the Broadcom KFir-II hardware compression chip.

TDK 2002

IndiAvIn.inf

HKLM,Software\Sonic\OEM\Capture,"BaliDevice",,%IndiAvIn.DeviceDesc%


;;; ---------------------------- REGISTER EMUZED DIRECTSHOW FILTERS
[EzdFilters.AddReg]
HKLM,Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce,"EzIKfir.ax",,"RunDll32.exe %11%\EzdReg32.dll,RegisterControl %11%\EzIKfir.ax"
HKLM,Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce,"EzdFWrtr.ax",,"RunDll32.exe %11%\EzdReg32.dll,RegisterControl %11%\EzdFWrtr.ax"
HKLM,Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce,"EzdFCtrl.ax",,"RunDll32.exe %11%\EzdReg32.dll,RegisterControl %11%\EzdFCtrl.ax"

;----------------
; Localizable
;----------------
STRING.PINNAME_MPEG_OUT       = "MPEG Out"

IndiAvIn.InstallationDir    = "TDK INDI AV-IN USB Drivers"
IndiAvIn.Provider              = "TDK Electronics Corp."
IndiAvIn.Manufacturer      = "TDK Electronics Corp."
IndiAvIn.DeviceDesc        = "TDK INDI AV-IN USB Device"
IndiAvIn.Crossbar             = "TDK INDI AV-IN USB Crossbar"

The TDK Suite disc is in BIN CUE format but easily converts to .ISO format

It includes ArcSoft ShowBiz 1.2

Since it is designed for Windows XP only with a 32 bit device driver, its probably not of as much interest today, but the KFir-II chipset was often used in Rovi Tivo devices of that day and of fairly good quality.

The Moonsoon capture utility SnappySoft might also work with it.. and since SnappySoft works with many MPEG sources of the day, PowerDirector 8,9,10 may also be a viable capture software.

The primary Video decoder chip was the Thompson / Philips / NXP SAA7115 although the device driver clearly suggests its the SAA7114

;
; SAA7114
;
HKR,SAA7114,"DeviceAddress",0x10001, 42,00,00,00
;HKR,SAA7114,"CrystalFrequencyKHz",0x10001, 24576 ; 24.576
HKR,SAA7114,"CrystalFrequencyKHz",0x10001, 32110 ; 32.11



The SAA7115 also supported "frame locked" audio sampling which suggests it discarded audio samples for which there was no frame data, and thus avoided loosing synchronization between audio and video where frames were lost.


 Versions of the Bali USB appeared as Pinnacle / Avid bundles and as combo video capture and NTSC / PAL TV tuner capture devices.



[IndiAvIn.Device]
%IndiAvIn.DeviceDesc%=IndiAvIn.Install,USB\VID_04BF&PID_0A28

or just

USB VID 04BF PID 0A28

I believe there was a slight update that TDK made available for ShowBiz 1.2 but it was never archived and did not seem related to the device driver.

The design and implementation of the device driver is extremely simple and minimal. and being associated with Luminate / Emuzed it was probably fairly stable.. L & E went on to manufacture and import devices for Dell Computers.. and their selection as a provider probably speaks to their costs, simplicity and stability compared to the competition at the time.

The original MSRP was at the time I think $199 .. there is no equating that to today, in todays dollars even with inflation adjusted figures.. since the whole process of video capture has changed substantially.