Linux Capture Apps

[2ZOD.COM]

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[jggimi]

Yes, there are capture applications. Good? I wouldn't know. I have linux on my capture PC, but I capture in Windows due to application set I use.

Would you like me to move this to the Linux forum?

[Arachnotron]

I tried a while back with the latest Suse (9.1) only to find my card was not supported yet.

As far as TV cards went, only BT878 and SAA7134 based cards worked, and I wanted to try a CX23881 based card (newer Hauppauge WinTV card). And Suse is one of the most multimedia oriented distro's!

So, the first thing to check is: is my device supported? Not many are I'm afraid. (mostly due to no freely available specsheets and such from the manufacturer)

[2ZOD.COM]

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[jggimi]

Moved to Linux forum.

[shevegen]

"As far as TV cards went, only BT878 and SAA7134 based cards worked"
This may seem awkward, but I am a bit clueless about that ...
*blush* how can I find out what kind of chip a card like vivanco "magix" is using?

I bought it some time ago and didnt look much for any specs, nor do i have much other info.

Anyone knows where to read sth more for BT878 and SAA7134? (Google doesnt always help as some sites are really just a waste of time, and wikipedia at times not perfect about detail questions yet :< )

[albertgasset]

@2ZOD.COM:

I use mencoder to capture. To capture to mjpeg q2:

mencoder -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:outfmt=yv12:width=720:height=576:fps=25:chanlist=europe-west:audiorate=48000:alsa:amode=1:channel=44
-vf crop=704:576:16:0 -noskip -o capture.avi -oac pcm -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mjpeg:vhq:vqscale=2 tv://

To preview the video only:
mplayer -tv driver=v4l2:device=/dev/video0:outfmt=yv12:width=720:height=576:fps=25:chanlist=europe-west:audiorate=48000:alsa:amode=1:44
-vf crop=704:576:16:0 tv://

Mplayer and mencoder support a lot of codecs, and I haven't had any problem with audio sync. As mencoder doesn't show de video while capturing, I use xine to play the avi that it's being captured (with delay of some seconds). I've tried different capture apps, and this is the app that works best for me.


@Arachnotron:

Yes, it's supported. Look at http://linux.bytesex.org/v4l2/cx88.html. The driver is included in kernels 2.6.x. I don't know if it should work with SuSE 9.1, if not you can download the driver and install it yourself.

@shevegen:

You can use the 'lspci' in Linux to see information about the pci hardware in your computer. You have to login as root (you can use 'su') to be able to execute 'lspci'. This is the output of 'lspci' in my pc:
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS645DX Host & Memory & AGP Controller
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Virtual PCI-to-PCI bridge (AGP)
0000:00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS962 [MuTIOL Media IO] (rev 04)
0000:00:02.1 SMBus: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]: Unknown device 0016
0000:00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE]
0000:00:03.0 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
0000:00:03.1 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
0000:00:03.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
0000:00:03.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller
0000:00:08.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
0000:00:08.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)
0000:00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
0000:00:0b.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy (rev 04)
0000:00:0b.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy MIDI/Game port (rev 04)
0000:00:0b.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Creative Labs SB Audigy FireWire Port (rev 04)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400] (rev b2)

[Arachnotron]

@albertgaset

The last time I checked, the support was only partial, which was also the reason Suse did not include it. There apparently have been one or two releases since then, but from the readme I get the impression it is still not fully functional or stable.

I could have compiled the drivers myself, but since I am a linux newbe and the card was already capping under windows I did not bother with it. I think I saw somewhere the reason the SAA7134 was supported was because Philips made both hardware and specs available.

I still plan to do some capping under linux to try it out, but I will use a BT878 card for that. By now that driver should be mature :D

@shevegen
Visual inspection also works :). These chips are the biggest chip you will find on a TV card.

The only vivanco TV card I could find (68404) seems to use a BT878 chip. But most of the vivanco sites are down.

But as albertgaset pointed out, lspci works fine too.

[doug_s]

For dvd authoring you could try using dvdauthor with qdvdauthor for a front end.

For recording tv shows I use mythtv, a pvr (like tivo) app for linux.

[shevegen]

thanks for the infos provided here, always good to learn more :)

EDIT --> info on FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 46)

i think now i can do some more research

[Mr_Myaghi]

There is a program called transcode, there is also a graphical frontend for this called dvd::rip.
Check out http://www.exit1.org/dvdrip/index.cipp for more info.
I'm installing it as we speek so I havn't tried it out yet, but I've heard it's really good. It's very complete and you can even use it to burn with.