Unibrain API-810 User Manual

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ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide

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Summary of Contents for Unibrain API-810

Page 1 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide unibrain The 1394 Innovators e-mail: support@unibrain.com web: http://www.unibrain.com store: http://www.1394store.com/...
Page 2 November 2003 Unibrain introduces to the IEEE-1394 users and developers community, the latest ubCore™ version 3.1, the first and only FireWire (IEEE-1394) driver suite that fully supports the 1394b standard. ubCore™ is a set of low-level drivers with a top-down layered structure that provides the physical interface to various 1394 devices and includes the following advantageous features: •...
Page 3: Table Of Contents
Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS... 3 TECHNICAL SUPPORT INFORMATION... 5 FEATURES OF UBCORE 3.1 ... 6 ™ VERSUS ICROSOFT SETUP CHECKLIST... 10 UBCORE™ INSTALLATION... 11 ... 11 NTRODUCTION ™ INSTALLATION PROCEDURE ™ I ERIFICATION OF UB NT4 ...17 ERIFICATION ON INDOWS 98SE/M ERIFICATION ON...
Page 4 NT4 ... 59 NSTALLATION ON INDOWS ...61 ERIFY NSTALLATION 98SE/M NSTALLATION ON INDOWS ™ ... 65 INSTALLING FIRE-I™-1394 IIDC CAMERAS SUITE ... 66 ™ C ... 66 OMPATIBILITY ™ A ... 67 PPLICATION UIDE ...67 ONNECTED AMERAS ...67 IDEO ORMAT ...67 IDEO ...67...
Page 5: Technical Support Information
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Technical Support Information All technical support questions should be directed to the following email address: support@unibrain.com This address is monitored throughout the day by Unibrain’s 1394 support team, who will respond quickly and with the required technical accuracy, to your questions. Please refrain from sending any queries directly to Unibrain engineering staff, in order to maintain our support database and make sure that your email will be responded to, in case any specific person is unavailable.
Page 6: Features Of Ubcore 3.1
Features of ubCore 3.1 ubCore™ version 3.1 provides to both existing customers and to new users, the next generation of Unibrain’s innovative 1394 driver suite with the following advantageous features: 1). Full 1394b support at 800Mbps speed rate. ubCore™ 3.1 is the first and only IEEE- 1394 (FireWire) driver platform providing full support of the latest 1394b standard.
Page 7 external 1394 SBP2 disks, it is impossible to simultaneously attach one 1394 SBP2 disk to many PCs connected via FireWire. In other words the SBP2 drive will be attached and recognized only by one PC, in a FireWire network. With Fire-Share™ you are now able to have mutually exclusive usage of the 1394 SBP2 disk, and once used, you can release it notifying the other PCs so this disk becomes available for other user.
Page 8: Ubcore™ Versus Microsoft 1394 Stack
ubCore™ versus Microsoft 1394 stack As is already mentioned, ubCore™ is a complete driver stack providing support for all 1394a and 1394b devices. With your Microsoft operating system you get also a 1394a driver stack built in, for the support of all the 1394a devices. The following comparison table presents the basic ubCore™...
Page 9 Virtual 1394 Device Primitive support on support Windows Me, XP User mode API for applications development Loopback functionality. Source samples (for FireAPI™) Support Table 1: ubCore™ versus MS 1394 stack ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Windows NT4, 98SE, Me, 2000, XP YES (FireAPI™)
Page 10: Setup Checklist
Setup Checklist Before proceeding with the product installation, please verify that: Check No. Your host PC operating system is Windows NT4/98SE/Me/2000/XP. For all operating systems (but especially for Windows 98SE and Windows Me), please be sure to have latest updates installed! Your PC has a FireWire (i-Link) IEEE-1394 interface based on: •...
Page 11: Ubcore™ Installation
ubCore™ Installation Introduction For all operating systems there are common basic tasks during installation that you should follow. Those tasks are in essence the next: Task No. Verify the Setup Check list described in the previous Table 2 Follow the installation instructions described into the next paragraphs.
Page 12: Ubcore™ Installation Procedure
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide ubCore™ installation procedure This part explains how to install ubCore™ 3.1 in your system under the Windows XP operating system. Windows NT4/98Se/Me/2000 have a similar installation. Please notice that the ubCore™ installer automatically identifies the target Operating System and installs the required files accordingly.
Page 13 The ubCore™ License Agreement is being displayed next. Read this Agreement thoroughly. If you agree with the terms stated in this License Agreement, click on “Yes”. Enter your Customer Information, click Next Choose Destination Location of the ubCore™ files. Choose the type of installation. The default selection is “Typical”, but in case want...
Page 14 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide In this case that you choose custom installation, verify the settings as shown in this dialogue. Mark the features and options that you want to be installed in your system: √ ubCore: 1394a and 1394b low-level drivers that provides the interface to various 1394 devices.
Page 15 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide If all options are set correctly, click on “Next” to complete the installation process. You can let Install create a new Program Folder or add the Unibrain ubCore™ icons to any existing group. In the latter case, select the Group you want to add ubCore™.
Page 16 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Once the installation procedure is completed you will see the final dialogue from the installer. Press finish to proceed The ubCore™ driver stack and the accompanying software is installed and if you monitor the device manager you can observe the presence of Unibrain’s driver for the control of the “IEEE 1394 Bus host controllers”...
Page 17: Verification Of Ubcore™ Installation
Verification of ubCore™ Installation Verification on Windows NT4 The most simple procedure to verify the correct installation of ubCore™ is to run the FireViewer™ utility from the “Start–>Programs–>ubCore”. Provided that you have one 1394 PCI controller, not connected with any other FireWire device, you should see the following window: For more details on the FireViewer™...
Page 18 In case you have installed a Unibrain’s FireBoard800™ or a FireBoard400-Blue™ or a FireCard™ or any other third party OHCI compliant 1394 board, then you should have: • Unibrain 1394 OHCI Driver – UBohci.sys OHCI miniport for OHCI compliant 1394 PCI controllers •...
Page 19: Verification On Windows 98Se/Me/2000/Xp
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Verification on Windows 98SE/Me/2000/XP The most simple procedure to verify the correct installation of ubCore™ is to run the FireViewer™ utility from the “Start–>Programs–>ubCore”. Provided that you have one 1394 PCI controller, not connected with any other FireWire device, you should se the following windows: For more details on the FireViewer™...
Page 20: Directory Structure Of Ubcore™ Installation
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Directory structure of ubCore™ installation After the complete installation of ubCore™ 3.1 the directory structure should be as depicted in the next figure, provided that you use the default destination directory: “E:\Program Files\Unibrain”.
Page 21 So the ubCore™ subdirectory is structured as follows: • \ubCore\: here are provided the following 3 applications: ◊ FireCommander: interpreter tool that is used to pass commands Benchmarking support is included. ◊ FireViewer: A 1394 Bus Viewer utility that displays the current topology of the local 1394 bus.
Page 22 • \ubCore\Fire-i: here is provided the Fire- i™ application software to Control and Display any 1394 IIDC camera, along with the required Firei.dll and *.ubd description files for all the SONY 1394 IIDC cameras. • \ubCore\FireNet: here is provided the FireNet™...
Page 23: Coexistence Of Ubcore™ And Microsoft 1394 Stack
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Coexistence of ubCore™ and Microsoft 1394 stack As a user of Microsoft Operating Systems, you should know that for many devices you can find various driver providers including the device manufacturer and of course Microsoft. The same also applies for ubCore™...
Page 24 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Select the “Install from a list of specific location (Advanced)” radio button and click Next In the next dialogue, select the “Don’t search, I will choose the driver to install” option...
Page 25 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Select the appropriate driver (in our case is “Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller”) and click Next This is the completion stage of your hardware update, so please click Finish in the next dialogue.
Page 26 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Following the above procedure you have replaced the ubCore™ 1394 driver with the Microsoft 1394 stack and the Device Manager should appear like the below picture. Please notice that for FireBoard800™ we kept the same driver based on Unibrain’s ubCore™ because it is the only existing driver providing full 1394b capabilities! Please also recall that with a similar to the above procedure you can switch from Microsoft 1394 stack, back to ubCore™.
Page 27: Third Party 1394B Pci Controllers Working With Ubcore
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Third party 1394b PCI controllers working with ubCore™ As is already mentioned, ubCore™ 3.1 supports Unibrain's or any third party 1394a 1394b OHCI PCI/PCMCIA compliant adapter or any Desktop/Portable PC with built- in 1394a or 1394b OHCI support. The two adjacent figures display how the ubCore™...
Page 28: Uninstalling Ubcore
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Uninstalling ubCore™ The procedure to uninstall ubCore™ is straightforward. Just select from “Start→Program Files→ubCore→Unistall ubCore” The following Dialogue box will appear. Select the Remove option and press “Next”. Upgrading ubCore™ The correct procedure to upgrade your ubCore™ is to completely uninstall the old version, REBOOT your system and then follow the steps of the installation procedure in order to install the new version.
Page 29: Ubcore™ Authorization Procedure
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide ubCore™ Authorization procedure To enable an unrestricted use of the ubCore™ software, a unique "Name" and “Product Key” combination per PC station is required. You can purchase Product Keys online at: http://www.1394store.com/, in order to enable ubCore™ to run continuously.
Page 30 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide In order to enable unlimited usage of the ubCore™ stack and all the accompanying applications (FireViewer™, FireCommander™, Fire-i™) INCLUDING FireShare™, you have to provide to the ubCore™ Authorize Utility a product key starting with the key word SHRE, as in the next figure.
Page 31: Fireapi™ Authorization Procedure And Licensing Policy
FireAPI™ Authorization procedure and Licensing policy As is already mentioned ubCore™ combined with FireAPI™ (Unibrain's 1394 Development Toolkit), provides to the software developer a powerful set of functions and tools that enables him to integrate 1394 technology into his product. All the applications distributed with ubCore™...
Page 32: 1394A And 1394B Sbp2 Disk Driver
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide 1394a and 1394b SBP2 disk driver Unibrain’s 1394 SBP2 driver is fine tuned for speeds of 800Mbps providing the fastest 1394b interface to external S800 SBP2 Hard disks. It is also compatible and fully supports removable Devices and other SBP2 compliant devices like Apple’s iPod.
Page 33: Installing Sbp2 Disk Driver In Windows 98Se/Me
Installing SBP2 disk driver in Windows 98SE/Me The following paragraphs describe the steps in order to install the ubCore™ SBP2 disk driver in Windows 98SE/Me. Please notice that for Windows 2K/XP the installation is performed automatically, once installed ubCore™. • Start the Add/Remove Hardware Wizard from Start→Control Panel •...
Page 34 • In the next dialogue click “Have Disk” and locate the directory in which ubCore™ and the SBP2 driver has been placed • Once locating the driver, the next dialogue will appear. Click Next and the installation will be completed. ubCore™...
Page 35: 1394 Sbp2 External Disk Connection
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide 1394 SBP2 external disk connection Lets assume that you have a FireBoard800™ in your system and you connect two (2) powered–on external 1394b Hard Disks. You can use the FireViewer™ utility to observe (see adjacent picture) the topology with FireBoard800™...
Page 36 In case that both disk are FORMATED in a valid Windows file system format (e.g. NTFS) then you are able to explore and fully control the hard disks as valid volumes. In our example depicted in the adjacent picture, the two external hard disks have the volumes: •...
Page 37 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide In case that your external hard disks are not FORMATED please follow the next set of instructions that apply for both Windows 2000 and Windows XP (our sample screen captures are taken from a Windows XP system): 1).
Page 38 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Select the partition type and click Next. The default type is Primary partition and is the recommended type that you select. Use Extended partition if there is a need to create more than four (4) partitions on a single drive At the “Specify Partition Size”...
Page 39 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide In the next dialogue select the file system for the specific hard disk. Under “Format this partition with the following settings”, select FAT, FAT32 or NTFS as the File System. For “Allocation unit size” leave the default setting and give your drive a “Volume label”.
Page 40: Safe Removal Of 1394 Sbp2 Disks
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Safe Removal of 1394 SBP2 disks In order to safely remove you external 1394 SBP2 hard disk(s) please follow the same procedures as for any Plug n Play external device. More specifically: Double click on the taskbar icon to “Unplug or Eject hardware”.
Page 41: Fireviewer™-1394 Bus Viewer
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide FireViewer™-1394 Bus Viewer Unibrain’s 1394 Bus Viewer utility (FireViewer™) shows the current topology of the local 1394 bus, allowing the user to continuously monitor the bus for changes in the topology and also to retrieve various information for each node. The sections below describe the usage of the FireViewer™...
Page 42 If a node is a PC with FireNet™, an IIDC 1394 camera, a Camcorder with 1394 interface, or external SBP2 1394 hard disk, descriptive icons are shown instead of the speed code. The icons are: Icon If a computer with FireNet™ contains two or more adapters connected on the same bus, FireNet™...
Page 43: Color And Pattern Coding
Color and Pattern coding Depending on their speed, nodes are drawn in different colors. All colors will be displayed solid if your graphics adapter supports 256 colors or more. If your graphics mode is set to 16 colors, then the colors will be displayed dithered. The node on which the program is running (the local node) is always drawn in white with black letters.
Page 44: Adapter Selection
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Adapter selection The topology shown each time is the one for the current adapter. For multi-adapter systems, you can select the current adapter as in the following picture. Up to 10 adapters are supported but only the present ones are shown in the menu.
Page 45: Window Appearance
Window appearance Node size The main program window can draw the bus topology with two different node sizes. There are two choices for node size: • Small Nodes: Only the node ID is shown inside the node. This makes the FireViewer™ window consume less space, making it easier to keep visible all the time.
Page 46: Node Properties
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Node Properties Right clicking on any active node will show a context menu that includes the Properties command. Selecting this command will display a small dialog box with information about that node. The information varies according to the node type. The next figure shows the contents of this dialog box which are common to all node types: The first line displays the node’s Globally Unique IDentifier (GUID).
Page 47: Bus Anomalies
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide FireNet properties include the UNC name of the computer, its operating system, the FireNet version it is running, the emulated MAC address it uses and its MTU size. For digital cameras, the Properties dialog box is as follows: Extra information includes the camera vendor and model, as well as the specification number.
Page 48: Menu
Menu The menu bar of the window contains a “View” and “Help” menu. You can also access the “View” menu by right-clicking the mouse button inside the window. View menu • Properties: This item is available only when the “View” menu is opened by right-clicking the mouse on an active node.
Page 49: Firecommander™- 1394 Command Interpreter
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide FireCommander™- 1394 Command Interpreter The 1394 command interpreter is a tool that can be used to pass commands to the 1394 stack, for example sending transaction requests to various nodes and seeing the results, sending PHY packets, initiating bus resets etc. The 1394 command interpreter also has the ability to execute script files containing the commands that it recognizes.
Page 50 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide You can have open at the same time, as many instances of this program as you find suitable. Note that FIRECOMMANDER by default will sound the computer beeper twice whenever a bus reset occurs on the local bus. You can turn off this sound with the beep command. If a bus reset storm is detected (too many bus resets in a very short interval) the program will sound an alarm that will immediately notify the user that there is a problem on the network.
Page 51: Command Syntax
Command Syntax • Type help to see the list of available commands. • The commands are NOT case-sensitive. • In commands where a Bus ID is required, the dot character (.) denotes the local 1394 bus, i.e. bus ID 1023. •...
Page 52: Available Commands
Available commands ack [ack_code|*] Prints the identifier for the acknowledge code provided as parameter. With * as parameter, it prints out a list of all ack codes. ack without a parameter is identical to ack *. adapter [adapter_no|*] Selects the current working adapter. In a situation where multiple adapters are installed on the host, the user should select the adapter s/he wants to work with.
Page 53 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide...
Page 54 br | busreset | reset [long|short] Initiates a bus reset on the local bus. Enter the parameter long or short to specify the type of the bus reset. br and busreset display the new physical ID that the current adapter obtained after the bus reset.
Page 55 Note that the Serial Bus Manager driver (UBSBM.SYS) by default is trying to optimize the gap_count after a bus reset. Remember this if you ever try to experiment with changing the value of gap_count. You can disable this behavior of UBSBM using the appropriate registry entries. Specifically: Path:\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UBSBM\Parameters\NoGapCount Type: REG_DWORD...
Page 56 fifo [RcvSize AsynchXmitSize IsochXmitSize] When executed without any parameters it displays the current FIFO settings of the current adapter. When executed with parameters it changes the current FIFO configuration of the adapter. For example typing FIFO in the command prompt of FIRECOMMANDER would display the following output (with a PCILynx2-based board): ---------------------------------------------- FIFO settings are dynamically changable.
Page 57 Enter 32 or 64 after the lock-function name to choose between a 32-bit or 64-bit operation respectively. data_value specifies the data value for the function, and arg_value specifies the argument value for the function (if any). Note that the data value appears first on the command line, as some functions do not use an argument value.
Page 58 speed Displays the path speed table on the local bus. This table is displayed in a tabular form. Table entry [M, K] contains the speed of the path between the nodes with physical ID M and K. If K is 63, then the result is the broadcast speed, which is the speed of the slowest device on the bus.
Page 59: Firenet™-1394 Networking
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide FireNet™-1394 networking The FireNet™ software is the THE FIRST AND ONLY FireWire™ Networking Solution supporting 1394b on all Windows OSs (including Windows NT4) FireNet™ software, one more application implemented over ubCore™, is a system-independent software product that gives you full Ethernet compatibility at speeds of up to 800Mbps.
Page 60 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide The list with available adapters should contain the Unibrain FireNet™ item, select it and press OK. After that Windows NT will try to bind any selected protocols to Unibrain FireNet™ adapter. Please enter requested information (for example TCP/IP address etc.).
Page 61: Verify Installation
The properties dialogue button provides the following configuration: • Speed: If you are using a 400Mbps board you can adjust the speed for a 100 or 200 or 400MBps operation. If you have a 800Mbps board (like the Unibrain’s FireBoard800™) then you can only adjust it for up to 800Mbps operation.
Page 62: Installation On Windows 98Se/Me/2000/Xp
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Installation on Windows 98SE/Me/2000/XP Start the Add/Remove Hardware Wizard from Start→Control Panel and select the Add/Troubleshoot option. Select the “Add new device” option … …and select manually the new device.
Page 63 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide In the type list of devices select the “Network adapters” and click Next. In the next dialogue click “Have Disk” in order to locate the path for Unibrain’s FireNet™. Once located click OK…...
Page 64 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide …and click Next in the following dialogue box. Now you have completely installed FireNet™ that appears to the operating system as a new network adaptor, in which you can bundle ANY routing protocol, e.g. TCP/IP. In the side picture you can see that the current host PC is equipped with one FireBoard800™...
Page 65: Un-Installing Firenet
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide …modify appropriately the properties of the routing protocol bundled with Unibrain 1394 FireNet Adapter. Un-installing FireNet™ In order to remove the FireNet™, go to the Control Panel, click the Network applet and select the 'Adapters' tab. Then in the list with the Network Adapters select the 'Unibrain FireNet' adapter and Uninstall the driver.
Page 66: Fire-I™-1394 Iidc Cameras Suite
Fire-i™-1394 IIDC cameras suite Along with ubCore™ 3.1 it is provided a complete application for the control and display of all 1394 IIDC compliant cameras. This application is the Fire-i™ Application, of witch the complete source is provided with the FireAPI™ development toolkit.
Page 67: Fire-I™ Application Guide
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Fire-i™ Application Guide After having successfully installed ubCore™ 3.1, the Fire-i™ application is ready to run. Connect one or more 1394 cameras to your PC and run Fire-i™ located at: “E:\Program Files\ Unibrain\ubCore\Fire-i” (Please refer to the “Directory structure of ubCore™...
Page 68: Speed
Speed Speed at which the camera will transmit. (100Mbits, 200Mbits or 400Mbits) Memory Presets In this box you can save in camera-memory the settings that you have made for the selected camera. You can have many presets. Memory 0 contains the factory presets that can not be changed.
Page 69: Display Popup Menu
Saturation : Manual adjustment of the color / black & white ratio. There is no influence on white balance, hue, or sensitivity. 3). Exposure. Pressing this button, the Exposure Control dialog box appears enable you to control the exposure features of your camera: Exposure : Automatic control of the camera sensitivity.
Page 70 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Frame Save Path menu option. Set Frame Save Path. This menu item brings up a dialog box that lets the user specify a directory where camera frames are going to be saved for this camera. This directory applies both to frames saved manually by using one of the assigned shortcuts and to frames saved using the auto save frames functionality of the application.
Page 71 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide The Fire-i controller can be opened from 2 different pc’s connected to the same 1394 bus. Only one instance of the Fire-i application can control a specific camera at the same time. So if a user starts the Fire-i application on a pc and a camera is started the camera controls will be grayed out.
Page 72: Fire-I™ Short-Keys
Fire-i™ Short-Keys Fire-i™ gives you the following functions using your keyboard: ALT+F4: Close your camera display windows Possible shortcuts for save operation: • Ctrl+S • Space • Enter • Left mouse button ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide...
Page 73: Fireshare
FireShare™ Important Warning! Please be very careful on using your external 1394 SBP2 hard disks in your existing 1394 bus. Every 1394 network has a tree topology with peer to peer connection between the network devices. This topology, while is extremely convenient eliminating the need of a central hub and minimizing the cables length, has some important implications: adding or removing ANY device on the 1394 bus produces a “bus reset”.
Page 74: Using Fireshare
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Using FireShare™ The FireShare™ application is the ultimate tool for sharing 1394 SBP2 external disks between various PCs. In order to understand the functionality of this application, less assume the case of two (2) PCs (equipped with Unibrain’s FireBoard800™ 1394b PCI adaptor) interconnected via cable.
Page 75: Disk Coloring
Run the FireShare™ application from Start→Programs→ubCore→FireShare. In case that you are the owner of the 1394 SBP2 disk, the disk will appear in the FireWire disks list with GREEN color. For each external hard disk there are listed: • its ID, a unique serial number extracted from the HDD hardware that identifies the disk and •...
Page 76 ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Suppose that we are the owners of the external disk and that we want to release it so it becomes available to other PCs. In order to release it just Double click on the taskbar icon to “Unplug or Eject hardware”...
Page 77: Fireshare™Authorization
ubCore™ 3.1 User Guide Short Messaging In order to facilitate the communication between the PC’s users connected in the same 1394 bus that want to share external HDDs, FireShare™ has a simple mechanism to interchange short informative messages regarding the availability of the disks.

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