EE4 Pro SP 2 - Logitech c920 - Device in use.

Question

I'm using EE4 Pro SP2 and am getting an error when trying to add a live source of Logitech C920.

64-Bit Windows 7 Professional

Latest Logitech drivers.

Get the following message:

"Cannot create device. The device may be in use by another program"

Thanks,

Jason

EDIT:  I have verified that the device isn't being used by another program.

EDIT:  After much searching and ZERO luck I stumbled upon something that works.

I installed Windows 8.

I have no idea why this now works, but I'm now able to select and use my C920 inside of EE4 Pro.

Hope this helps someone else out.

Answer 1

Hi, I'm facing exactly the same issue with my C920 using the Expression Encoder 4.

The error message is probaly what you see when a Microsoft.Expression.Encoder.SystemErrorException is thrown. I think it does not necessarily mean the device is actually in use.

With the built-in webcam of my laptop I have no issues whatsoever. Can anyone tell me what might be the reason this occurs, and what can be done to prevent it. The C920 is a top-of-the-line webcam, we should get it to work with EE4...

Can someone from Microsoft please comment on this as well.

Thanks!

Answer 2

I also have this problem. Cannot get a C920 to work with Expression Encoder. Either using c# of using a expression program.

Answer 3

If you need a (commercial) alternative, TVideoGrabber SDK is working incredibly well with the C920. You can find it here http://www.datastead.com/products/tvideograbber.html

Answer 4

This is distressing. JSYN my C910 works fine with EE4, so this is probably easily fixable my EE. But, we might have to face facts. There hasn't been an update to EE4 since November of last year. I'm not even sure if Expression Encoder is being actively developed any longer. The support team seems to have slipped away. If this is so (and I hope I am totally wrong on this!), then what a sad end for such a promising product. Some feedback from MS would help allay this concerns. What are the plans for EE4 and when can we expect an update. Are we (the loyal developers and users) on borrowed time?!?!?

Answer 5

See... The buzzards are circling. Looks like FMLE or ???? is the only way to go forward. This was a pretty shabby way to treat the community. I'm looking at alternative OS's at this point. Why not announce it is dead so that we can move on? 

Jeremy 

Answer 6

You might get away with using libav/ffmpeg. AFAIR C920 has a H264 codec inside - it may even be possible to stream live video without reencoding, and just remuxing the stream for use with Live Smooth Streaming publishing points. Provided that the stream structure from H264 encoder chip isn't brain-dead.

I recently tested this with an IP webcam - pulling rtsp stream over tcp, transcoding it on a windows machine, and pushing it over http with basic authentication to IIS 7.5. Works OK, but I still have to do some tweaking of GOPs, keyframe and MOOV layout, etc. to better mimic the stream that comes out of Expression Encoder. What's nice about this workflow, you don't have to restart publishing points every time something goes wrong ;-)