[ale] Recording tv shows via computer

[Stuffed Crust]

On Fri, Oct 27, 2000 at 08:42:58AM -0400, James CE Johnson wrote:
> So... *is* there something out there that is Video4Linux compatible?

Yes, but unfortunately they weren't flexible enough for my needs.

What I need:
* Some sort of realtime compression codec that wasn't too lossy.
* The ability to work with large (ie >14G) files or at least the
  ability to transparently stripe across multiple files.
* Able to edit said capture files
* Able to generate highly compressed output.
* Scheduled capture

In particular, Broadcast2000b and MainActor were really nice non-linear
editing packages.  BC2000's capture flexibilty was rather lacking.  
MainActor's was pretty good, but their MJPEG codec provided no means for
capturing interlaced frames. (very important!)  And neither package had a
way of capturing on a timer basis (and it's almost impossible to script
X11 GUI tools..)  Their strengths were in editing, not capture..

And then I hit the 2G file limitiation.  I patched my kernel to handle
large files, but neither BC2000 or MA could create said large files, nor
did they provide the means to stripe.

I could have probably hacked together some kind of FIFO solution for my
own striping layer, but the general CODEC mess is what did me in.  
Alternatives included a DC10+ MJPEG capture card.. that has very good
Linux drivers (and command-line capture tools!).  But I didn't have the
time to experiment.

So in the end, I'm using Win2K.  However, I'm using a pair of GPL tools,
VirtualDub and AVISynth for the editing and all filtering/processing.  I
purchased JPG's PICVideo MJPEG codec (it's really sweet), and a
slightly-flawed-but-definately-worth-it tool called AVI_IO to do the
timing and capturing.  And all of this work is being done on NTFS
partitions because of the large file support.

..But at least I can play the video back under Linux.  :)

 - Pizza
-- 
Solomon Peachy                                        pizza at cc.gatech.edu
I ain't broke, but I'm badly bent.                        +1(404)294-6978
Patience comes to those who wait.                            ICQ #1318344
    ...It's not "Beanbag Love", it's a "Transanimate Relationship"...
--
To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe ale" in message body.