Lnux video capture apps ... suggestions?

Nitemare · Posted: May 13, 2008 00:18

Okay, I have an ATI TV Wonder VE. Don't laugh, it was a gift and it works great for my needs (with alternate drivers, natch). It also works under Linux (allegedly).

I tried downloading and installing MythTV. That isn't working out. All of the "setup mythtv" pages I go to, I try to follow the instructions and what I get when I run the backend setup looks NOTHING LIKE what every website says it should look like. No help there. Besides, I don't want to make a media center, I just want to capture some VHS to the HDD. MythTV, while it sounds cool as heck, seems like overkill for this task. (I believe my mythtv problems are really Mysql problems... I'm not interested enough to look into this too deeply)

I am aware that capture can be done with a "2 line script" (the most frequently found results when I search) I am not interested in this. I need an app that will let me see what I'm capturing. I am not lazy, nor am I a COMPLETE noob, but right now I'm working 13 of every 14 days and I just don't have the time to dick around with this on my 2 days off/month.

You'd think that finding an app would be easy, but all I get when I search is the 2-line-script-from-command-line, MythTV results, and a bunch of confusion. I know that there has to be something decent to work with but I'm having trouble finding it. Can someone steer me right?
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freebird73717 · Posted: May 13, 2008 08:33

This is an area that I think linux needs a lot of work. Actually if you think about it the problem falls squarely on ATI (amd now) sholders. They choose not to offer linux capture support. I have an ATI all in wonder 7200 and it works great in windows but only works as a graphics card in linux. I have tried just about everything and could not get it to capture in linux. I could use it to watch tv on my computer (using Xawtv) but not to capture. Yes ati offers linux graphics drivers but they don't offer any capture support for linux. That's a shame to because the cards work very well in windows.

I really don't have any help to offer you. Just encouragement. I hope you have better luck than I with your ati card and linux. I'm looking to buy a hauppage card eventually as they seem to funcion well in linux.
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Nitemare · Posted: May 13, 2008 16:48

The card is listed as one of those supported in MythTV, I wonder if that's just for "tv watching"? Since I never got MythTV to work properly (in the precious few hours I have every week) I never got to test capturing capabilities for that card.

I believe that the yanked support for XP and the cramming of Vista down everyone's throat is going to make the market share for Linux and Mac explode.

If I were a hardware vendor, I'd start looking for opportunities outside of windows. Since I'm working all these hours, maybe a Hauppage card is the way for me to go also. It's a shame though... that ATI card has digitized a LOT of memories for me.
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freebird73717 · Posted: May 13, 2008 16:54

disturbed1 · Member Joined: 22 Apr 2001 Location: init 4

Isn't the VE (Value Edition) just a bt8x8 based card? You should be able to read the actual model number on the IC or perhaps a simple lspci. BT cards sometimes require special values to be passed in order to be set up correctly.

The MythTV wiki should have some info on how to correctly set up the card. As well as linuxtv.org
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GMaq · Linux Member Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Location: Canada

Nitemare,

Don't waste your valuable time on this, because it ain't gonna happen, we can have conversations about all of the great stuff you can do with Linux, but this ain't gonna be one of them. There isn't anything in Linux that is going to give you capture and a video preview unless you have a dual tuner card, or two separate cards, including MythTV. I started in Linux with an ATI AIW 128 Pro. Oh Sure there were lots of threads on forums about the Gatos project and how it would allow capture, I never got it to happen and I spent far too many hours on trying. Even Hauppage cards are tricky, I have a PVR-150 - XawTV, XdTV,VLC, TVTime, KDETV, KMPlayer all never worked and if you could get Xdtv to work it would only capture in MJPEG AVI, on a card with an MPEG Hardware Encoder...what a waste!

One time when the planets were in perfect alignment and I faced east at sunrise with 2 toads legs in my left back pocket I got a v4l2 command line capture with video only out of my PVR-150. The point is if you get your card to work at all it will be so lacking compared to Windows capabilities that you will probably be disappointed.

For myself I bought a used Canopus ADVC-100 Firewire Video Converter on eBay, it works great with Kino in Linux and will work with any OS with firewire support. There is quite a depressing graveyard of abandoned Video applications for Linux at Sourceforge.

I apologize if this reply is a bit "ranty" it's just that I've been disappointed numerous times with numerous cards in this particular area of Linux.
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Nitemare · Posted: May 14, 2008 07:57

No wonder I'm having such a hard time finding what I'm looking for! I have considered getting a Firewire video converter but the frugal side of me has always stopped me from doing it. When I HAVE a capture card that works, spending money for something that works "better" isn't something I can justify to myself.

Now, if GMaq were to face west at sunset when the moons of jupiter are in the shadow of Grogg's house while dipping crab legs into pickle juice, maybe my capture card would die and then I could replace it? Just a thought.

(don't really try that Gmaq... I'd hate to be responsible for tipping the planet off it's axis or anything...)

Thanks for the input gang. Maybe I'll play with MythTV one more time. I kind of remember, during a sleepy install... some warnign about remembering something I'd typed...like the mysql password that I completely forgot... or some such. I don't really remember. I really MUST stop installing software while I'm falling asleep!
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tekkieman · Grizzled Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Location: Over the hill

@Nitemare -

If you plan on trying MythTV again, you might want to try one of the "Myth-ified" distros that are already (mostly) set up for you. The ones that come to mind are Mythbuntu, Mythdora, MythTVOS, or even geexbox. Those may take some of the sting out of trying to set it up from scratch.
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Nitemare · Posted: May 14, 2008 14:28

Ah, but then I wouldn't learn anything. I might try that as a last resort, but I'd really rather take the time (when/if I ever have it) and really learn what I'm doing, where I went wrong, etc.
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tekkieman · Grizzled Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Location: Over the hill

Verlager · Member Joined: 05 Feb 2008 Location: Rochester NY

Might look into a Plextor ConvertX PX-m402u. It's a USB external video capture device, ~$50 reconditioned. I bought it based on my opposition to internal TV cards and on the excellent reputation of Plextor. I run it under Linux Mint. If, like me, you simply need to pipe clips from a DVR from the cable company onto your comp's HD, this'll do nicely in hardware, no performance penalty. I use the testing utility, gorecord, to capture video data. Here is the dreaded two-line, deal-breaking, ball-busting, super-secret karate and voodoo, too, j/k script which I wrote in about 5 min. I'm not a real scripter, I just learn as I go.

GMaq · Linux Member Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Location: Canada

@Verlager,

Thanks for posting that, I used to have a M402U as well (ebayed it for the Canopus), I knew there was a Linux driver but I had read it was obsoleted by kernel 2.6.12. Is there a new driver? ANY possibilities for Linux capture are worth discussing.

And now back to our OP!
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Verlager · Member Joined: 05 Feb 2008 Location: Rochester NY

Cons: The original author of the project abandoned it. Plextor probably feels it's adequate.
Pros: New third-party patches (below) written in 2007-08 are rock-solid with Linux 2.6 kernels. I captured several 2+ hr. videos w/o error, never a video/audio out of sync.

http://nikosapi.org/wiki/index.php/WIS_Go7007_Linux_driver#Ubuntu ... ty.2FGutsy
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=407787

You'll have to compile a specific kernel module. Among others:

http://nikosapi.org/software/WIS_Go7007/
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-624028.html
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Verlager · Member Joined: 05 Feb 2008 Location: Rochester NY

I too, have never been able to set up MythTV. But last week I was able to set up a headless (no KB, monitor, mouse) PVR machine with my Plextor ConvertX px-tv402u for recording. The composite inputs are connected to my Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD and the coax 75-ohm input is a basic cable input. Using my gorecord "2-line scripts" and cron I am able to setup timed recordings accessible from any local LAN computer. Pretty simple to do.

Yeah, Linux suffers from lack of video capture apps, but my setup works nicely and uses no resources on the other computers. I believe an external USB video capture device is a good idea because using an internal PCI card for video can lead to RF interference. I may move to a Hauppauge WINTV-PVR-USB2 941 TV Tuner, but it's not necessarily an upgrade. What Linux mini-app would replace Plextor's basic gorecord utility? And I still don't have a Linux live-TV viewer.
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