[mythtv-users] Getting VCR Recordings Into MythTV/MythVideo

[Brad Templeton]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2005 at 11:29:33PM -0500, Da Worm wrote:
> Can anyone reccommend the best way to get recordings from a VCR into MythTV or MythVideo?  I tried the following, but no luck:
> 
> 1. Create new video source, called it VCR, left the data direct stuff blank, and hooked it to the composite input on the PVR-250 in the Input Connections screen
> 2. Defined a custom channel, pointed it to the new video source
> 3. Went to Watch TV, selected the custom channel
> 4. Pressed play on the VCR
> 5. After FBI warning played on the tape, I pressed R on the keyboard.  OSD displayed something along the lines of [Record ""].


You could do this, but perhaps you're thinking about the problem the
wrong way?   I mean you have a video capture card in your system.  It
is probably video4linux compatbile, and if you go to the 4vl web pages
there are a number of recording programs of all stripes, some of them
with built in editors etc. for doing a manual recording to a file and
cleaning it up nice.

If you have the pvr-250, you can actually record trivially from the
current source, which you can set with ivtvctl.

It's literally as simple as
    cat /dev/video0 >file.mpg

And then hit break when you are done.  Or if you want a timer,
just do it in the background and follow it with something like:

    cat /dev/video0 >file.mpg &
    sleep 3600 ; kill %1

In other words, mythtv might be overkill, considering you are not
getting all the stuff it does well -- coordination of listings etc.


Anyway, once you have your file.mpg, you can edit and transcode it
and simply copy it to your mythtv "videos" directory (I think it's
/var/lib/video by default but most people move it.)

Then in myth, run the Setup/Video section to scan the file, and
then edit its description etc. (mythweb is also good for that)

And lo, there it will be in your videos from then on.


I suspect adding a capture module into myth would not be that hard,
but this is so easy to do, and there are many capture programs out
there.

Check out:

    http://www.exploits.org/v4l/

For video4linux software.