Why does Pinnacle locks audio on shutdown?

[jwillis84]

I started looking at this as a 'goof' by programmers.

Then I started noticing it across many different Pinnacle and Avid products for video capture.

I don't think its s design flaw anymore because the behavior is very consistent on Windows XP and Windows 7 32 and 64 bit.

It 'appears' by design Pinnacle enables and then deliberately sabotages all of their video capture hardware by writing a nonsense value in the setup parameters for the AudioInput on shutdown of pinnacle software.

Its built-into the device driver for the Crossbar.

Even if you use something like Crossbar Thingy to manually switch the 'hidden' crossbar on.

The first thing the crossbar does on shutdown is it manually writes to the Windows registry (only) for the AudioInput the 'wrong' value for startup. Across product lines from different years it writes the same 'wrong' value, even on different hardware architectures.

Its really annoying.

Its like they didn't want you to use third party software with their hardware.

I could understand just setting the volume to zero, or making a random coding error.. but its in all their products I've looked at.

I know exactly what value to look for now and how to revert it.

The hardware also seems to work with OBS once you override this annoying little 'feature' and records in YUV or Apple ProRes.

It just tweaked me the wrong way and I was wondering if anyone else was aware of this.. or knew why they did it.

[lordsmurf]

I really don't understand what you're referring to.

The 510, for example, works well. The only glaring issue is with audio. But pretty much all capture cards have lousy audio controls. The Pinnacle allows you to set the audio input level ONCE -- from about 66% to about 50%, and going from memory that's about -7 to -12 db. Trying to change it after that first drag of the bars results in either errors, glitchy actions, or outright crash of the software. Crossbar Thing or VirtualDub. Sometimes you can change it again, ONCE, after reboot -- but sometimes not. A trick is to unplug the card, and swap USB. But it may require driver reinstall, because the OS is stupid. After setting, even between reboots, even after Crossbar Thing forgets composite/s-video, the audio is still set.

Most cards have no controls at all.
Some take registry hacking (that must be re-done when card unplugged).

Many software devs are lazy idiots. Way too much "borrowing" of code goes on, and is often a root cause of things like this.

[jwillis84]

I wish I could be that 'generous' and assume stupidity.

But take a look at this registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E96C-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0057\settings\CommonProperties

The "0057" part depends on the sequence in which the device is attached to the Windows system. Each additional one increments it forwards.

Inside that branch is:

AudioInput
VideoInput

Those numbers are the [DirectShow] pin (number) the Xcrossbar exposes when loaded by GraphEdit, Application software ect..

Normally they would have a "rational" number like (pin 5) or (pin 3) which instructs the analog input switch inside the device how to fetch audio and video signals into the decoder.

Pinnacle hardware works fine, until you unload or shutdown the capture application.

Then on unloading the XCrossbar componet, it writes directly to the AudioInput value 0xffffffff which is nonsense.

Many Third Party capture software doesn't probe for or mess with the crossbar, they just leave it alone.

But doing this insures you can't access audio without manually changing the value to something that makes sense.

For example:

If you change the AudioInput to (5) then start up any ThirdParty capture software, audio works fine.. but as soon as you are done and unload the ThirdParty capture software.. it goes right back and writes 0xffffffff to the AudioInput registry value.

That's no accident.. its deliberate.

I checked other models of Pinnacle capture devices with different chips, they do the same thing.

Its like sabatoge.. or "locking" the keys to the device after unloading an application.

Its quite sinister.

Normally I don't go straight to conspiracy theories.. but I started looking at forums where this was not understood and no one else seems to have figured it out.

Pinnacle was bought by Avid and then Avid was bought by Pinnacle.. then Pinnacle was split and Pinnacle software was sold to Corel and Pinnacle hardware was sold to Hauppauge.. it "seems" Hauppauge did not continue the practice.. their Pinnacle PCTV products don't do this.

On some Third Party programs like OBS.. you can pull up the Capture Panel from Microsoft for the device and switch to the Audio Input selector on the drop down and then look at the Left side drop down.. its blank, and the interpetation below says [setting -1] using the drop down you can manually select 5 Line In.. and it immediately works.

This is easy to do.. but its time consuming and awkward for people who aren't programmers.. and know what a DirectShow control panel actually is.

I'm getting paranoid.

I am wondering now.. how many audio problems were "locking" the device up like this so you can't use alternative capture software.

I'm thinking about how best to fix this since it covers multiple capture devices.

One way is to short circuit the "write" instruction in the binary .dll or make it write a rational value.

Another is to front load a startup short cut with a reg update command.

[lordsmurf]

Interesting.

Pinnacle did design most hardware specifically for their buggy Studio software. But since using Windows/MS standard AV systems, obviously it's generic. Maybe you're correct, but still maybe not.

Recycling code is equally likely as to why all cards do it.

Nevertheless, a fix for this would be good. Again, you can set the audio Cropssbar once, and never again, until uninstall/etc. And that's a PITA.

Thankfully, Pinnacle audio is close to perfect by default, and just needs tweaking for some loud tape recordings to be better. It captures audio just fine in VirtualDub.