Sleepy Circuits Hypno Intergration

[jenz]

Hi!!

Would it be possible to intergrate the Sleepy Circuit's Hypno https://sleepycircuits.com/hypno
in MMV with a HDMI to USB Capture Card?

[Terry Payman]

What a cool device! New to me, and very interesting.

From a quick look at the manual https://sleepycircuits.gitbook.io/sleep ... pno-manual I think it's almost certain that the Hypno can be used as an input to Magic, but it might need care/experimentation in the selection of the HDMI to USB video capture card. There's also the possibility of capturing the Hypno NDI output into Magic.

Using the HDMI video output
The Hypno video output is 720x480 at 60FPS from an HDMI connector. There are two requirements for successful HDMI capture:

1) The capture card will need an HDMI input capable of capturing 720x480 at 60FPS.
2) Magic needs to be able to set the capture card appropriately, unless the card can set itself automatically.

In my experience the second requirement may prove simple, tricky or impossible (depending on the complexity of the capture card). Some cards have non-standard settings, requiring a custom driver. Magic does not support these, even though other apps on the same machine work as expected with the same card. Chances are best if the card has only one input (in this case HDMI).

I use Magewell USB capture cards, which automatically select inputs and input video resoulution. I'll try to simulate the Hypno output and see if I can capture this into Magic on a Magewell card.

Using the NDI output
The Hypno has an NDI output too, and I believe this can be captured into Magic with the addition of a third-party module.https://github.com/leadedge/MagicNDI
I have no experience of this, but there may be issues matching NDI versions, MagicNDI module versions and Magic versions.
There may also be differences in latency (lag) between USB and NDI capture. One may be noticably quicker, but I can't even guess which.

EDIT: I did a quick test using a Magewell USB Capture DVI Plus card as the input to Magic. Magic could successfully capture a 720x480 60FPS input, although I didn't find a setting that got the aspect ratio exactly right. It might be necessary to add a Scale module with different settings for X and Y scaling factor.
I'm not suggesting that you use the same card - it's unnecessarily expensive and versatile, costing almost as much as the Hypno! The Hypno website mentions that capture is possible using cheap cards, but their example used OBS as the capture application. OBS can configure very many different capture cards, some of which may not be configurable by Magic.

EDIT2:
It would be helpful if you could specify whether you're using Mac or PC, as the capture methods are somewhat different.

EDIT 3:
Using the composite video output
Having read a bit further on in the manual I see that the Hypno also has a composite video output, which can be configured for PAL as well as the default NTSC format .The resolution will be inferior to the HDMI output, and there will likely be some colour fringing artifacts, but even a low spec composite video capture card should be fine for use with Magic. If the capture card can only accept a single composite input then configuration will be trivial and I would expect it to work in Magic provided it will work with your computer's OS.

[jenz]

Wow thanx for the reply!

I use a PC (Acer Nitro 5 laptop) with Windows 11

[Terry Payman]

The Acer Nitro 5 spec looks great for video capture - USB 3.2 ports plus Thunderbolt 4 - so that should be fine for any capture card.

I think it's likely that cards made for Windows 10 will work on Windows 11. My main laptop is a Windows 10 system, but I'll see if my Magewell USB cards run OK on Win 11 and let you know.

The Hypno forum only lists generic capture cards on the list of USB accessories that work with Hypno:
https://forum.sleepycircuits.com/t/list ... -hypno/127
The Amazon listing for the HDMI capture card (generic) shows a USB 2 card but says "Currently unavailable"
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BFJVC3B
A Google image search for the product photo finds the device still offered on Alibaba, so should be relatively easy to find.
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/ ... 9000.html

As a general rule I avoid plugging such units directly into my laptop - I'm concerned that if they get knocked there could be damage to the laptop's USB socket. A short USB extender cable will protect the laptop. I saw some HDMI capture cards that had short cables to the USB plug, which would avoid the problem.

EDIT: Just for fun I ordered one of these to play with. I'll let you know if it works!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/capture-Papeas ... B0BL3HVMWW

[jenz]

You rule Terry thanx!!

[Terry Payman]

You're welcome jenz !

Windows 11 is no problem
Both the cheap card and the Magewell card worked OK under Windows 11 without needing any setup
Once again I generated a 720x480 at 60FPS HDMI feed as a video source (from an instance of Magic on my laptop).

Note that the cheap card only worked with Magic's VideoCapture module. For some reason Magic crashes when the VideoCaptureDS module is used with the cheap card (under both Win 10 and Win 11). I will report this.

Cheap card (UK) link again: https://www.amazon.co.uk/capture-Papeas ... B0BL3HVMWW

For North America this looks to be the same card in a different colour:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B091NX24PC

Ports used for checking the cheap card:
On my Windows 10 laptop the cheap card worked OK connected to either USB 3, USB C or Thunderbolt ports (the latter two via the included adaptor).

On the Windows 11 desktop the cheap card worked OK connected to a USB 2 port.

[jenz]

Once again Terry thanx a lot!

Looking forward to trying this!