Sony USB ASCOM Driver question

Nmichaud
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Joined: Wed Sep 23, 2020 6:24 pm

Re: Sony USB ASCOM Driver question

#11

Post by Nmichaud »

Hi Doug,

I have a Sony A7III and trying to make it work with SharpCap. Are you making your driver public ?

thanks
Nick
dougforpres
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Re: Sony USB ASCOM Driver question

#12

Post by dougforpres »

Hi, sorry for long delay in responding - yes, driver is open-source, is known to work with SharpCap, and recently gained the ability to support both the 32 and 64-bit versions of SharpCap - here is a link to the wiki, it has links for download/install and various other things like troubleshooting:

https://github.com/dougforpres/ASCOMSon ... river/wiki

Doug
Borodog
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Re: Sony USB ASCOM Driver question

#13

Post by Borodog »

Hi. I am trying to get SharpCap working with a Sony a6000. I've installed the ASCOM driver, but when I open SharpCap it immediately begins snapping pictures with whatever settings were set in the Sony Remote app (i.e. iso & shutter speed). It saves ARW and jpg files just the way the Remote app does, as well as clicking the shutter. I am trying to record ser videos in SharpCap for more convenient lunar stacking. Is this supported for the a6000? Or is that part of "Live View", which I know is not supported for the a6000. Is there a way to get this working?

Thank you!
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admin
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Re: Sony USB ASCOM Driver question

#14

Post by admin »

Hi,

the Sony ASCOM driver only supports capturing still images (or at least it only works that way in SharpCap - in theory there is a standard now for ASCOM video cameras, but SharpCap doesn't support it yet, and I suspect that the Sony ASCOM driver doesn't either)..

cheers,

Robin
dougforpres
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Re: Sony USB ASCOM Driver question

#15

Post by dougforpres »

That is correct Robin.
I don't know if the Sony API allows direct streaming of video - the "Live" view shown in the Sony Remote app is just a series of JPEG images (1024x960 pixels) that are displayed quickly enough by that app to simulate video-like behavior.
ASCOM being ASCOM, it's not really up to the task of running at anywhere near that kind of speed.
The Sony driver does support reading these JPEG liveview images, but it requires the cooperation of the application as the ASCOM Camera standard has no knowledge of these things (on my machine it can get around 4fps "LiveView" performance thru to APT).

Doug
dougforpres
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Re: Sony USB ASCOM Driver question

#16

Post by dougforpres »

Just in case anyone is interested, in the next few days I'll be releasing a new version of the driver that can control the exposure time using the camera settings.
This means if you want to take a long exposure it'll use BULB mode, but when you want to take flats or bias images it will be able to wind the exposure time on the camera down to the 1/4000" or 1/8000" setting so you get consistent exposure length's.

I've been able to test this on NINA (and shortly APT) but I'm not a big Sharpcap user, so if anyone wants to get in early hit me up via retrodotkiwi<at>gmail<dot>com
eddem
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Joined: Fri Jul 15, 2022 1:48 pm

Re: Sony USB ASCOM Driver question

#17

Post by eddem »

Hello Doug,
I read the forums, but perhaps I overlooked and did not find my issue, so sorry for duplicity in that case.
I have a Sony A7 mk2, installed the Sony driver, got it tested, camera was recogniesed and listed in the cmd list of devices.
Starting in SharpCap looks flawless, disabled Live View button as suggested by Robin.
In the settings (under "Show" button on the right hand side) I adjusted settings for sharpcap-APP etc. Operation seems ok, as far as BULB mode selected on camera:
- gain settings (ISO) - ok
- exposure - ok
------------------------------- so far so good ----------------
problem is, when I hit to get a snapshot, then the camera operates ok,
setting on its LCD shows actual iso/exp as chosen, I hear the shutter as it should be.
However, no image is shown, but error "Failed to capture a snapshot image" pops up..
In Livestack, the camera keeps taking snapshots in loop but no image is acquired, why is that, where do I make a mistake?

Thanks,
ed
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Re: Sony USB ASCOM Driver question

#18

Post by admin »

Hi Ed,

the best thing you can do is to share the SharpCap log (captured after a few images have failed to load) - that will contain details of the error that caused the 'Failed to capture a snapshot image' message and will hopefully put us on the right track to fixing (or at least understanding) the issue.

cheers,

Robin
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