[Linux-aus] Open source hardware for open source conference recording - now launched!

[Tim Ansell]

Hello everyone,

If you've been to a Linux Australia event, you may know that I have too
many projects <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR4i-XJDGCM>! Recently there
has been a major milestone for one of them, the TimVideos' HDMI2USB.tv
project has launched our first piece of open hardware, the Numato Opsis
board.

The Numato Opsis is a powerful new FPGA-based open source video platform
for videographers and visual artists. The Opsis board was designed to give
the user complete control over high-speed video, enabling everything from
real-time conference capturing solutions, to experimental visual art and
even general FPGA-based video research. I've included more information at
the end of this email.

The board is now crowdfunding on CrowdSupply.com at
https://www.crowdsupply.com/numato-lab/opsis and while we have already
reached 100% of our goal, we want to get the board into the hands of as
many people as possible, because the more people using FOSS hardware, the
better it gets! (In a semi related note, CrowdSupply.com was recently endorsed
by Richard Stallman and the FSF
<https://www.crowdsupply.com/free-software-foundation-endorses-crowd-supply-for-respecting-users-software-freedom>
too.) If
you could share the campaign with anyone you think who might be interested
that would be extremely helpful!

The HDMI2USB.tv firmware, which will also run on the Opsis board, was
recently used to record a user group in Chicago US. You can see a very
happy Carl in this photo ->
https://forum.digilentinc.com/gallery/image/63-carl-has-success/ - It's
been a long road to getting to this stage and I'd like to thank all the
support for Linux Australia and the LA community. *We couldn't have done it
without you all!*

For those who don't know me or what I'm trying to do, here is some more
background information;

A long while back I got involved with doing recording and streaming
conferences like LCA and got the idea that anyone, both conference and user
group, should be able to record their proceedings without needing to know
anything about A/V.

You can watch a talk that I gave at LCA2012 about my first attempt to do
this on YouTube at https://youtu.be/rCoCRmcrPlM . Shortly after the talk I
came to the conclusion that the software and hardware available at the time
was not up to the task - they just didn't have the programmatic APIs and
debugging information available to really build a fool proof system. This
spawned the TimVideos.us <http://code.TimVideos.us> project which has been
plugging away trying to fix the problem (you can see a later talk I
gave at LCA2014
at https://youtu.be/jtuzEQaG0Vc). You may have seen us running around at
LCA2015 earlier this year which we helped stream and record.

One of the big tasks of the project has been trying to make an open
hardware capture platform which has been designed with being debuggable in
mind. Our attempt at his is called the HDMI2USB.tv project and Joel Stanley
gave a talk about the hardware at LCA2015 https://youtu.be/O4D-6IPX308 . At
that time we where stilling using a closed prototyping platform called the
Digilent Atlys but where in the process of developing our second attempt at
doing an open hardware board.


Thank you once again!

Tim 'mithro' Ansell

----------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------
Numato Opsis: FPGA-based open video platform
An open platform for recording, routing, and manipulating HDMI and
DisplayPort video signals.

The Numato Opsis is a powerful new FPGA-based open source video platform
for videographers and visual artists. The Opsis board was designed to give
the user complete control over high-speed video, enabling everything from
real-time conference capturing solutions, to experimental visual art and
even general FPGA-based video research.


   - *A*: HDMI Out 1
   - *B*: HDMI Out 2
   - *C*: HDMI In 1
   - *D*: HDMI In 2
   - *E*: DisplayPort Out
   - *F*: DisplayPort In
   - *G*: USB 2.0 Device / JTAG Programmer / UART Adapter
   - *H*: Expansion Port (TOFE, not PCI-Express compatible)
   - *I*: microSD (underside of board)
   - *J*: USB 2.0 OTG
   - *K*: Gigabit Ethernet

As a collaboration between the TimVideos.us <http://code.timvideos.us/> live
event streaming project and FPGA development board manufacturer Numato Lab,
the Opsis is the ideal device for the HDMI2USB.tv <http://hdmi2usb.tv/> video
capturing firmware, which allows for “fool-proof” video recording from any
computer. Enabling direct acquisition of video streams in realtime to a
computer through the USB 2.0 interface or sent over the network through the
Gigabit Ethernet interface, the Opsis is a vital component within the
complete conference recording solution envisioned and pioneered by the
TimVideos.us project.
Example Applications

The Opsis is flexible and powerful enough to have a large number of use
cases, many of which we probably haven’t considered. That said, we had
certain use cases in mind when we designed the system.
Running HDMI2USB Firmware

The Opsis was designed to run the HDMI2USB <http://hdmi2usb.tv/> firmware
developed by the TimVideos.us project. This firmware makes it easy to build
automated conference/event recording systems.

The diagram below shows one such simple scenario. The HDMI output from the
laptop is fed into the Opsis, which forwards it to an external monitor and
simultaneously allows another computer to capture the output via the USB
2.0 interface. The HDMI2USB.tv firmware emulates a standard UVC webcam,
allowing any video software, such as Skype, Google Hangouts, or WebRTC, to
then send it to an online audience.


*A simple setup*
<snip>

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