FWCTL(8) System Manager's Manual FWCTL(8)

fwctl — IEEE1394 control utility

fwctl [-prt] [-b pri_req] [-c node] [-d node] [-g gap_count] [-l file] [-M mode] [-m EUI64 | hostname] [-o node] [-R filename] [-S filename] [-s node] [-u bus_num]

The fwctl utility is designed to provide a way for users to access and control the NetBSD IEEE1394 subsystem. Without options, fwctl will output a list of devices that are/were connected to the bus.

The following options are available:

pri_req
Set the PRIORITY_BUDGET register on all supported nodes.
node
Show the configuration ROM on the node.
node
Hex dump of the configuration ROM.
node
Force specified node to be the root node on the next bus reset by sending a PHY config packet. Valid values are 0 - 63.
gap_count
Broadcast new gap_count by phy_config packet. By default this value is 63 on all nodes. Valid values are 0 - 63.
pri_req
Set the PRIORITY_BUDGET register on all supported nodes.
file
Load hex dump file of the configuration ROM and parse it.
mode
Explicitly specify either dv or mpeg mode for the incoming stream. Only meaningful in case of and must precede the -R option. If not specified, the program will try to guess. In case of “format 0x20” error, try to force the mpeg mode.
EUI64 | hostname
Set default fwmem target. Hostname will be converted to EUI64.
node
Send a link-on PHY packet to the node.
Dump PHY registers.
filename
Receive DV or MPEG TS stream and dump it to a file. Use Ctrl-C to stop receiving. Some DV cameras seem not to send the stream if a bus manager exits. If you cannot get the stream, try the following commands: 
sysctl hw.ieee1394if.try_bmr=0
fwctl -r

The resulting file contains raw DV data excluding isochronous header and CIP header. It can be handled by the pkgsrc/multimedia/libdv package. The resulting MPEG TS stream can be played and sent over a network using the VideoLAN tool (pkgsrc/multimedia/vlc). The stream can be piped directly to vlc, see EXAMPLES.

Initiate bus reset.
filename
Send a DV file as isochronous stream.
node
Write to the RESET_START register on the node.
Show the topology map.
bus_num
Specify the IEEE1394 bus number to be operated on. The default is bus 0.

/dev/fw0.0
 

Each DV frame has a fixed size and it is easy to edit the frame order.

fwctl -R original.dv

Receive a DV stream with DV camera attached.

dd if=original.dv of=first.dv bs=120000 count=30

Get first 30 frames (NTSC).

dd if=original.dv of=second.dv bs=120000 skip=30 count=30

Get second 30 frames (NTSC).

cat second.dv first.dv | fwctl -S /dev/stdin

Swap first and second 30 frames and send them to DV recorder.

For PAL, replace “bs=120000” with “bs=144000”.

fwctl -R file.m2t

Receive an MPEG TS stream from a camera producing MPEG transport stream. This has been tested with SONY HDR-FX1E camera that produces HD MPEG-2 stream at 25 Mbps bandwidth.

To send the stream from the camera over the network using TCP (which surprisingly works better with vlc), you can use

fwctl -R - | nc 192.168.10.11 9000
with pkgsrc/net/netcat and to receive the stream, use
nc -l -p 9000 | vlc -

To netcast via UDP, you need to use pkgsrc/misc/buffer, since vlc is not fast enough to read UDP packets from buffers and thus it experiences dropouts when run directly. The sending side can use

fwctl -R - | nc 192.168.10.11 9000
and to receive the stream, use
nc -l -u -p 9000 | buffer -s 10k -b 1000 -m 20m -p 5 | vlc -

For more information on how to work with vlc see its documentation.

mplayer(1), vlc(1), fwip(4), fwohci(4), ieee1394if(4), sbp(4)

The fwctl command first appeared in FreeBSD 5.0, as fwcontrol. It was added to NetBSD 4.0 under its present name.

Hidetoshi Shimokawa <simokawa@FreeBSD.org>
Petr Holub <hopet@ics.muni.cz> - MPEG TS mode.
KIYOHARA Takashi <kiyohara@NetBSD.org>

This utility is still under development and provided for debugging purposes. Especially MPEG TS reception support is very rudimental and supports only high-bandwidth MPEG-2 streams (fn field in CIP header equals 3).

August 24, 2010 NetBSD 11.0