30 Chapter 3: Customizing the DCF
Acquiring analog or digital data
You can use Matrox Intellicam to verify that your camera is set up properly,
whether it be analog or digital.
For most standard analog cameras, the DCFs provided by Matrox should be
Y sufficient to grab. However, for non-standard analog cameras or digital cameras
(aside from Camera Link cameras), you will mostly likely need to modify an
existing DCF to suit the cameras.
R All the information required to customize a DCF for your camera should be
A 5 available in the documentation for the camera, including video timings, pixel clock
frequencies, and maximum resolutions.
IN 0 Analog data
When acquiring analog data, you will usually need to build a custom cable to get
0 the camera to function properly, which might be simple to set up. You can use
Matrox Intellicam to verify whether the cabling is correct by performing test grabs.
IM 2 For analog data, you usually only need one signal which contains composite
(horizontal and vertical) synchronization signals, along with the video
information. Sometimes, you might also have separate horizontal and/or vertical
L Y synchronization signals. Analog video is converted to digital data by the frame
grabber. You can also have RGB analog data where each component (red, green
or blue) is a separate signal.
E A Digital data
Because there are no standards for digital cables, a custom cable must be built for
R M each camera. This can get complex for digital setups, though image quality is better
than for analog signals.
P 9Using Matrox Intellicam, you can start off with a pre-defined DCF for a camera
similar to yours and customize it to your requirements. In general, when receiving
1digital data and synchronization signals, the signals you need to connect are a pixel
clock, horizontal synchronization, vertical synchronization, and data signals.
❖ Note that Matrox does not have DCFs which support IEEE-1394 compliant
cameras directly. You can use an existing DCF which most closely matches the
IEEE-1394 camera and modify it to meet specific requirements.
