libam7xxx-0.1.7 released

by ao2, March 7, 2018

The libam7xxx-0.1.7 release is out; it's a maintenance release with no big new features.

libam7xxx is a library to communicate with USB pico-projectors like, for instance, the Philips/Sagemcom PicoPix devices; you can read more about it in some of the previous stories:

One notable change in this release is that FFMpeg 3.1+ is now required to build one of the example programs.

Building for Windows has also been improved.

Here is an overview from the NEWS file of the changes accumulated since the previous release:

News for v0.1.7:
================

  * Fix FFMpeg deprecation warnings, the code now depends on FFMpeg 3.1+ 
  * Fix compilation on Windows
  * Update the Windows build instructions in HACKING.asciidoc
  * Add a HOWTO for new users in contrib/howto-picopix.asciidoc
  * Add a patch to contrib/ to allow compiling libam7xxx on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
  * Make sure am7xxx_get_device_info() always returns sensible values
  * Fix warnings about _BSD_SOURCE deprecation
  * Misc code and build system cleanups

The Debian packages have been kindly uploaded to Unstable by Gregor Herrmann.

Short link: https://ao2.it/132

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Comments

by Bastien (not verified) | Thu, 08/03/2018 - 21:38

Hi Antonio, First of all

Hi Antonio,

First of all thank you very much for the work you' ve done writing this driver!

I have an Acer C120 and I'm trying to use it on my PC with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

I didn't really know how to proceed with your code, so I followed the instructions from this page: https://git.ao2.it/libam7xxx.git/blob/HEAD:/contrib/howto-picopix.asciidoc

I've installed the driver with: sudo apt-get install libam7xxx0.1-bin

Then I plugged my Acer C120 and I ran the following comand:
am7xxx-play -f x11grab -i :0.0

But I got this message:
scan_devices[919]: Cannot find any device to open
am7xxx_open_device: No such device

Did I do something wrong, did I miss something?

Thank you very much for your help :)
Bastien

by ao2 | Fri, 09/03/2018 - 00:20

Hi Bastien, the Acer C120 is

Hi Bastien,

the Acer C120 is not based on the AM7XXX chip so it won't work with libam7xxx.

The good news is that there is a kernel driver written by Hans de Goede for it, see https://ao2.it/news/2015/07/08/linux-kms-driver-acer-c120.

Having a kernel driver means that the Acer C120 will work even better than AM7XXX projectors.

I think Hans also tried to submit the driver for inclusion into the mainline linux tree, but I am not sure what the status is, you can ask him.

Ciao, Antonio

by Bastien (not verified) | Sun, 11/03/2018 - 17:50

Hi Antonio, Thanks for your

Hi Antonio,

Thanks for your response. I didn't realize your code wasn't conceived for the Acer120, my mistake.

I tried the kernel driver from Hans. I have a problem during the compilation so I'll try to contact him directly.

Anyway, thank you very much.

Bastien

by Bastien (not verified) | Wed, 14/03/2018 - 19:45

Do you know how/where I could

Do you know how/where I could contact him?

by ao2 | Tue, 27/03/2018 - 08:57

If you look at any of the

If you look at any of the commits in the gm12u320-kms git repository you can find his e-mail address.

by Rickyx (not verified) | Sun, 13/01/2019 - 02:31

Thank you for the update.
I have installed in Debian Buster libam7xxx (0.1.7-1) from the standard sources but I have some troubles:
trying the command "am7xxx-play -f x11grab -i :0.0 -o video_size=800x480" I display only my mouse cursor (correctly) on a black background: what is on my desktop does not show ...

Do you have any suggestion?
Thank you,
Rickyx

by ao2 | Sun, 13/01/2019 - 18:09

Hi Rickyx, IIRC the

Hi Rickyx,

IIRC the video_size=800x480 option does not rescale the input, so it might be that you are projecting only a portion of the screen.

Try without the option, or change the screen resolution.

Ciao, Antonio

by Rickyx (not verified) | Tue, 15/01/2019 - 02:05

Grazie Antonio, I tried

Grazie Antonio,

I tried without the option but is the whole screen black:
I done a video demonstrating the problem (sorry for the low quality): https://we.tl/t-C2hznfgJJB

On the left you can see the projected mouse on a black background: I'm for sure missing some option.
I'm using Gnome with Wayland, don't know if it is interesting...

Grazie ancora,
Riccardo

by ao2 | Tue, 15/01/2019 - 16:16

Ah, the x11grab input format

Ah, the x11grab input format assumes a full X11 setup, using it under Wayland may capture Xwayland which is used only for backwards compatibility with some applications and does not manage the whole screen.

Capturing the screen under Wayland is trickier (see here for some info) and ffmpeg, which am7xxx-play is based on, does not support it.

You may try different solutions:

using GNOME in an Xorg session. Debian makes it very easy, look at the GDM login screen;
try the kmsgrab input format but that does not work with some drivers;
write something Gnome-specific, it looks like the org.gnome.Shell.Screencast service relies on GStreamer, so using gst-am7xxxsink should not be too hard. I looked at green-recorder and the code is easy to follow, that could be the base for an experiment.

Ciao, Antonio

by Rickyx (not verified) | Thu, 17/01/2019 - 02:18

GNOME in an Xorg session

GNOME in an Xorg session works perfectly!

Thank you for the software and the help,
Rickyx

by Felipe Marschall (not verified) | Mon, 26/10/2020 - 03:55

strange.. I'm having a "no

strange.. I'm having a "no such device" for my PicoPix 2055

scan_devices: am7xxx device found, index: 0, name: Philips/Sagemcom PicoPix 2055
am7xxx_open_device: No such device

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