Dumping RCA A/V output to Linux

[sdhoigt]

Hi,

I just got my hands on an older video camera that only has RCA A/V outputs.

What are my best options for dumping the video/audio to my Linux box? My current video card doesn't have any inputs and my sound card only has an 1/8" input.

I've seen some RCA A/V to USB adapters (GrabBee and EasyCap), but I wonder how well they're supported under Linux. Anyone know?

I can probably figure out the software to use (I've got a LJ subscription, and I'm pretty sure I've seen audio featured in a fairly recent issue), but I'd be open to hear people's experiences.

Thanks for reading.
SD

[GMaq]

Hello,
I am just getting into video capturing with Linux myself, there is good hardware support for the Hauppage 150/250/350 Conexxant based PCI cards however there are not very many good software choices. It seems to me that your best bet in Linux is to use a DV camcorder with A\V passthrough and connect your old camcorder to the RCA input jacks, essentially the DV camcorder is serving as a A/D converter. Kino and KDenlive are both really nice apps that are easily used with DVCam/firewire interfaces. The Hauppage products mentioned above can be used with terminal commands but there is little good documentation on how to tweak the parameters for best quality. This is definitely a "need to grow" area in Linux. There are firewire A/D Converters like the Canopus products as well, they are reputedly very good but expensive, I don't know off-hand what the Linux support is like.

[courtrrb]

The Hauppage 150/250/350 Capture card are easy to setup (if your distro of choice makes it easy) I can set mine up & capturing to DVD MPEG in less the 10Min after a full install. Without any special software. I use a two line script that I wrote to do my captures.

I have 5 PC & one laptop I can watch HDDEF tv on any of them. yet only 1 of them actually has a tv card.

Some distros can make it a real pain to setup & use.

[sdhoigt]

Would you kindly post your two line script?

Thanks!
SD

[uth]

Get a Haupage card or if you are budget consicious, then get one of these:

http://www.buy.com/prod/kworld-tv-tuner-video-capture-mpeg-4-2-1-recording-remote-pci/.../10405687.html

Works great for RCA capture

[GMaq]

Hi,
Here is the two line script Courtrrb was referring to:

         ivtvctl -d /dev/video1 -f width=720,height=480 -p 5
         cat /dev/video1 > (some name).mpg

This code does NOT work with Hauppage PVR-150.

I was totally unimpressed with the software choices for Hauppage in Linux though, and that 2 line script doesn't give you any kind of preview. What I did was returned my Hauppage PVR-150 and bought a used Canopus ADVC-100 on eBay, I ended up paying 150 US, but it works great, it is a firewire device so it doesn't require any firmware or drivers, works with Linux, Mac and Windows. "Kino" picks it up just like it's a DV Camera and I can capture as DV, which is a higher quality format than MPEG-2, edit it nicely in Kdenlive and spit it out in whatever format I want.

Just another option to think about.

[courtrrb]

After updating the ivtv driver to the latest I had to changed mine to the following:

v4l2-ctl --set-input=5 --set-fmt-video=width=720,height=480 --set-standard=ntsc
cat /dev/video > $1.mpg

So even the driver rev determines what the command line is. I have set up 3 system so far with this ivtv rev & had to use these lines. The last card bought was a Hauppage 250 card for
around $110.00.

[ahhaa]

Just a thought, but most cheap DVD recorders still have AV inputs. (The SV2000 at Malwarts: $59.)
Recording in SP or HQ would not significantly lower the quality coming from a VHS camera; you can still transfer/process faster than realtime, and you won't have your hard drives tied up with raw 'footage'. For that matter, you won't have your computer tied down during shooting either.