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<p class="MsoNormal">For years I’ve been using 10 PVR-150 tuners spread across 4 SBEs to capture composite video/audio for classroom recordings, but those systems are about 5 years old now and I’m not sure how much longer they will be operating.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since I’m not capturing digital cable/satellite, most of the capture cards used/tested with MythTV won’t work for my application, so I’m looking to the security industry for capture cards that better fit my needs for multiple composite+mono
audio inputs in a single card. But since these cards aren’t normally used with Mythtv, I’m not sure what would be necessary to make one work.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So here are the points that I’m not quite clear on:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">1.What standards (V4L2?, ALSA?) does a capture card driver need to support to be recognized/controlled by mythtv?
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2. Beyond the driver support, does MythTV need to be programmed to support a particular card input/output format combo—e.g. composite+mono input<span style="font-family:Wingdings">à</span>h.264 encoded output?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m thinking of this model specifically: <a href="http://store.bluecherry.net/bluecherry-bc-h04120a-4-port-video-4-port-audio-h.264-pcie-hardware-compression-capture-card.html">http://store.bluecherry.net/bluecherry-bc-h04120a-4-port-video-4-port-audio-h.264-pcie-hardware-compression-capture-card.html</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These are the relevant specs from the product page:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hardware compression H.264 capture card<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">4 port video inputs, 1 port video output<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">4 port audio inputs, 1 port audio output<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">120FPS recording @ 352x240, 120FPS @ 704x480<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">New! PCIe design<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Bluecherry BC-H04120A is true hardware compression card supported by our Video4Linux(2) driver. Recently tests with this driver has shown siginificant CPU / memory saving over standard software compression cards.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This card has several features not commonly found on traditional Linux supported MPEG-4 encoders, including:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Each port has a MJPEG and H.264 encoder, each can be opened separately.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Each device shows up as a Video4Linux(2) device and you have access to each encoder using standard Video4Linux APIs.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Each port is loaded up as an ALSA sound device, allowing for encoding G.723 audio from each audio input.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The driver exposes the video output as a 'display' device, allowing you to control the video output (specify which inputs are displayed on the composite output)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Any help/advice the MythTV community could provide would be appreciated.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Jon<o:p></o:p></p>
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