[NBLUG/talk] Video 4 Linux -- works!

[Scott Doty]

On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 09:14:09AM -0700, Mark Street wrote:
> You might want to give kino a look.
> 
> http://freshmeat.net/projects/kino/?topic_id=256
> 
> Cinelerra is extreme....

I'll take a look, thanks.

BTW, I seem to have everything dialed in now.  I'm using mencoder to encode
directly to divx4.  The command line looks like this:

mencoder -tv on:driver=v4l:width=320:height=200:input=1:norm=NTSC:adevice=/dev/dsp -o output.avi -oac copy -ovc lavc

This records divx4.

The "norm=NTSC" is very important, as the Hauppage defaults to PAL, yielding
a monochrome image with the wrong sync.  (This caused me no end of trouble
trying to straighten out -- xawtv doesn't seem to reliably set NTSC when
selected from the menu while in "overlay" mode.)

A similar command line works with mplayer to watch.  I got started on the
"-tv on:" line by examining freevo, then discovering the magic word in the
mplayer/mencoder man page was "v4l".

A caution if you got with the Hauppage WinTV DBX -- if you're using
composite input (as I am), you get that to the card using a composite/svideo
adapter that comes with the card.  The one I got isn't keyed!  I managed to
bend the pins on the blasted thing.

Weirdly, I had video working just fine, and was trying to get the audio
working -- it was only after I bought a new composite/svideo cable ($40 at
ratshack) that I started having the PAL monochrome problem.  I thought it
was the cable...then I saw it worked in w2k.

Finally, I had to do "-oac copy" (vice "pcm") to keep the audio in sync with
the video.  The audio part of the Hauppage card doesn't seem to work, so I'm
using line-in on my Audigy.

 -Scott