[mythtv-users] VCR capture recommendation - solution & update

[Alistair Grant]

On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 5:41 PM, Alistair Grant <akgrant0710 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>Hi All,
>>>
>>>I'm looking to transfer some VCR tapes, and possibly capture the
>>>analogue output of a satellite receiver, both in Australia (PAL-B) and
>>>the Czech Republic (PAL-DK?).
>>>
>>>What would you suggest as a capture device to work with MythTV?
>
> ...
>
> Thanks to everyone for their feedback.  Based on everything I've read,
> it looks like the Hauppauge USB-Live2 will best suit my needs at the
> moment.

The good news is that the Hauppauge USB-Live2 arrived, I've been able
to transfer all the videos and I'm really happy with the quality of
the results - some of the videos are VHSC cassettes which are almost
25 years old, and the player isn't much newer (although it only had
light use).

I never got "cat /dev/video > myfile.mpg" to work.  I ended up using:

mythffmpeg -y -loglevel debug -f alsa -i plughw:1,0 -f v4l2 -s pal
-pix_fmt yuyv422 -i /dev/video1 -b:v 2048k myfile.nut

to capture the video, then post process it with:

mythffmpeg -ss <x> -t <y> -fflags +genpts -i myfile.nut -vcodec copy
-acodec copy myfile.mkv

to fix the timestamps, remove the leading and trailing blank video and
put it in to a more common container.

The bad news is that I had to use an older PC that has USB2 and not
USB3 ports, (running Mythbuntu 14.04).  My laptop, a 12 month old Dell
XPS13 running Ubuntu 14.10 / Linux kernel 3.16 doesn't work with the
Live2.  I've also tried Ubuntu 15.04 with the 3.18 and 3.19-rc4
kernels, and while things appear to be improving (I can get video
without audio now), it still isn't working properly.  The 3.19-rc5
kernel should be out any day now and has another batch of USB3 xhci
fixes, so I'll test it when I have time.

So... If you want to use the Live2, as of January 2015 you need to
have a USB2 port with the ehci drivers.

Thanks again to everyone for their input.

Cheers,
Alistair