Unibrain API-810 manual

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e u n i brain The 1394 Innovators e-mail: support@unibra in.com web: http://www.unibrain.com store: http://www.1394store.com/ 1[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e T able of Content s TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................... 3 TECHNICAL SUPPORT INFORMATION ................................................................................ 5 FEATURES OF UBCORE 3.1 ........................................[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e I NSTALLATION ON W INDOWS NT4 ............................................................................................ 59 V ERIFY I NSTALLATION .............................................................................................................. 61 I NSTALLATION ON W INDOWS 98SE/M E /2000/XP ..................[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e T echnical 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 sen[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Features of ubCore 3.1 ubCore™ version 3.1 provides to both existing cust omers 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 platf[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 att ached and recognized only by one PC, in a FireWire network. With F ire-Share™ you are now able to have mutually exclusive usage of the 1394 SBP2 disk, and on[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e ubCore™ versus Microsof t 1394 st ack As is already mentioned, ubCore™ is a comple te 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 bas[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Virtual 1394 Device support Primitive support on Windows Me, XP Windows NT4, 98SE, Me, 2000, XP User mode API for applications development NO YES (FireAPI™) Loopback functionality. NO YES Source samples (for FireAPI™) 2 44 Support NO YES Table 1: ubCore™ versus MS 1394 stack 9[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Setup Checklist Before proceeding with the product installation, please verify that: Check No. Description Check? ( √ ) 1 Your host PC operating system is Windows NT4/98SE/Me/2000/XP. 2 For all operating systems (but especially for Windows 98SE and Windows Me), please be sure to have latest updates installed! 3 Your PC h[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e ubCore™ Inst allation 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. Description Check? ( √ ) 1 Verify the Setup Check list described in the previous Table 2 2 Follow the installation instructions described in[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e ubCore™ inst allation 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 accord[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 and Choose the Destination Location of the ubCore™ files. Choose the type of installation. The default sele[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 vari ous 1394 devices. 1394a and 1394b SBP2 disk support is included. √ [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e If all options are set correctly, click on “Next” to complete the installat ion 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™. Press Next to proceed. The installer will start copying the [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 so ftware 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 [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e V erification of ubCore™ Inst allation 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, y[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 • Unibrain 1394 Class Driver – UB1394.sys Kern[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 wi[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Directory structure of ubCore™ inst allation After the complete installation of ubCore™ 3.1 the directory structure should be as d epicted in the next figure, provided that you use the default destination directory: “E:Program FilesUnibrain”. 20[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e S o t he ubCore™ subdirectory is structured as follows: • ubCore: here are provided the following 3 applications: ◊ FireCommander: a 1394 command interpreter tool that is used to pass commands to the 1394 stack. Benchmarking support is included. ◊ FireViewer: A 1394 Bus Viewer utility that displays the current to[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e • ubCoreFire-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. • ubCoreFireNet: here is provided the FireNet™ (1394 Networking software) driver and this is the path [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Coexistence of ubCore™ and Microsof t 1394 st ack As a user of Microsoft Operating Systems, y ou 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™ in that it can be used as an alternative to the built in 1[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Select the “Install from a list of specific location (Advanced) ” radio button an d click Next In the next dialogue, sele ct the “Don’t search, I will choose the d river to install” option 24[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Select the appropriate driver (in our case is “Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller”) and click Next This is the completion sta ge of your hardware updat e, so please click Fin ish in the next dialogue. 25[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Following the above pr ocedure you have replaced t he ubCore™ 1394 driver with th e Microsoft 1394 stack and the Device Manager should appear like th e below picture. Please notice that for Fir eBoard800™ we kept the same dr iver based on Unibra in’s ubCore™ because it is the only existing driver providing full 139[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Third p arty 1394b PCI controllers working with ubCore™ As is already mentioned, ubCore™ 3.1 supports Unibrain's or any third party 1394a or 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™ 1394 stack r[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Uninst alling 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 comp[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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. After obtaining a Product [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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. If you have installed in y our sy[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 distrib[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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. The current paragraph presents the funct[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Inst alling SBP2 disk driver in W indows 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 [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e • 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. 34[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 1394 SBP2 external disk connection Lets assume that you have a Fi reBoard800™ 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™ in node 2 and the two external hard disks in nodes 0 and 1 [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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: • EXTA mapped in volume F: and • EXTB mapped in volume I: .[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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). Go to Start → Administrative Tools → Computer Management and double click the Disk Management option. If [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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” window type in Mbytes the number of the partition size and clic[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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”. Once completed, click Next . At the last dia[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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”. The adjacent dialogue box will appear displaying the PnP external dev[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e FireV iewer™-1394 Bus V iewer Unibrain’s 1394 Bus Viewer utility (FireViewer™) shows the current t opology of the local 1394 bus, allowing the user to contin uously 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 FireView[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 Meaning The node is a PC running FireNet™. Moving the cursor over the node will display a ToolTip window containing the compu[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 co lors 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) i[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Adapter selection The topology shown each time is the one for the current adapter. For multi-adapter systems, you can select the current adapte r as in the following picture . Up to 10 adapters are supported but only the present ones are shown in the menu. 44[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 m akes the FireViewe r™ window consume less space, making it easier to keep visi ble all the time. • Big Nod[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 ven dor and model, as well as the specification number. Bus[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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. It opens a dialog b[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 t he results, sending PHY packets, initiating bus resets etc. The 1394 command interpreter also has the ability to execu[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e You can have open at the same time, as many inst ances of this program as you find suitable. Note that FIRECOMMANDER by default w ill sound the computer beeper twice whenever a bus reset occurs on the local bus. Y ou can turn off this sound with the b eep command. If a bus reset storm is detected (too m any bus resets in a[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Command Synt ax • 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 139 4 bus, i.e. bus ID 1023. • In commands where a Physical ID is required, the dot character ( . ) denotes the local adapter?[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e A vailable commands ack [ack_code|*] Prints the identifier for the acknowledge code prov ided 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 instal[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 53[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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. reset does not display it so that it is more convienient to use in automated c[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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_MACHINESYSTE[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e fifo [RcvSize AsynchXmitSize Isoc hXmitSize] 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 o[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 arg[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e speed Displays the path speed table on the local bus. This table is d isplayed 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. - A dot denotes that the pa[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 a[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 any requested information (for example TCP/IP address etc.). Then Windows NT requires restarting your PC in order t[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 boar d (like the Unibrain’s FireBoard800™) then you can only adjust it for up to 800Mbps operation. The Default value is [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Inst allation on W indows 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. 62[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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… 63[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e …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™ which is uses,[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e …modify appropriately the properties of the routing protocol bundled with Unibrain 1394 FireNet Adapter. Un-inst alling 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 'U nib[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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. Fire-i™ software suite operates [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 UnibrainubCoreFire-i” (Please refer to the “Directory structure of ubCore™ installation” section)[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Speed Speed at which the camera will transmit. (100Mbits, 200Mbits or 400Mbits) Memory Presets In this box you can save in camera-memory th e settings that you have made for the selected camera. You can have many presets. Memory 0 c ontains the factory presets that can not be changed. By clicking on the up and down arrow y[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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. [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e Frame Save Path menu option. Set Frame Save Path. This menu i tem 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 frame[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 a t 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. The user will only have [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 72[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e FireShare™ Import ant W arning! 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 extr emely convenient eliminating the need of a central hub and minimizing [...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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. The FireVi[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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 ide[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 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” and select the disk to unplug. After the disk release, the FireShare™ disk list will be immediately update[...]

ubCore™ 3.1 User Guid e 77 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. For example lets assume that the only disk in the bus i[...]