Just so you know, I downloaded MythTV and did nothing else and it caused my hard drive to run continuously, not good. I downloaded Freevo and even used the FreevoAptUbuntu page to install and it won't totally install. I think it is designed to work in UBuntu NOT Kubuntu. I have Kubuntu 8.04.
So, with that aside I am wondering if there is another alternative to a PVR for Linux so I can copy some old vtr tapes to my HDD and then to DVD. OH, I have an old analog Hauppage TV card, works great. I tried this stuff in XP and after 6 hours of transferring the recorded movie from HDD to DVD it crashed. Surprised? You betcha:D .
Later. Pepse.
bwkaz
11-22-2008, 12:53 AM
Analog Hauppauge... hmm... I'm guessing the driver exposes a video4linux device, that provides the unencoded video data, right? Then you use the sound card's line in to get the audio? E.g., xawtv works?
If so, you *should* be able to use transcode to copy directly from the v4l device to a video file, using whichever container and codec you want (the MPEG2 program stream container, plus a DVD codec, is probably good if this is going to a DVD; then you won't have to reencode it). Then you can just dump this video file onto a DVD.
The transcode stuff that I used when I did something like this (recording analog TV to an AVI container, XviD4 codec) looked like this:
-i /dev/video0 -- the raw V4L device. If this provides anything other than V4L framebuffer data (e.g. MPEG2 from a TV card encoder), then don't use this.
-p /dev/dsp -- your sound card: the video4linux driver doesn't provide sound on its own, so the v4l input in transcode needs a separate device to get the audio from. (You will have to send line-in to this device using e.g. alsamixer. Also, I'm not sure if this has to be an OSS device, but that's all that I ever got to work.) This kind of a setup is subject to a lack of synchronization, so we add:
-x v4l2="resync_margin=2:resync_interval=5" -- gets the v4l input driver in transcode to pay attention to when the v4l stream is dropping video frames (based on timestamps the video-in card provides), and drop corresponding audio frames. This keeps the streams in sync.
-g <X pixels>x<Y pixels> -- resizes the video. I'm not sure what resolution DVDs run at, but I'd use that here. (There are other options for letterboxing, if you're doing a 16:9 DVD, but I don't know what they are.)
-e 44100,16,2 -- final sound parameters. 44100kHz, 16-bit, 2-channel ("CD quality"). Changing this didn't seem to have much effect on file size.
-y xvid4 -- output codec.
-Q 5 -- Quality: 5 is best; range is 0-5.
-w 1700 -- "encoder bitrate", whatever that is. The manpage says "6000 for MPEG 1/2, 1800 for others"; I'm not sure where I got 1700 from.
-N 0x55 -- MPEG-layer-3 audio; this is the only format that AVI (or is it XviD?) supports.
-o "blahblah.avi" -- output file. ;)
-u 500 -- use 500 framebuffers for A/V processing
-q 1 -- quiet level -- basically, only show errors
-c 0:0:0-<hours>:<minutes>:<seconds> -- amount of time to record. I believe you can leave this off to go forever, then just ctrl+c when you're done recording.
-f 29.97,4 -- NTSC framerate (adjust if you want something different)
-J denoise3d=pre=1 -- run the "denoise3d" filter. Seemed to help with quality; got the filesize smaller since less-noisy data compresses a bit better.
Pepse
11-22-2008, 02:57 AM
AH, right, so how do I actually run this? I tried a couple commands and I get bashed. I have XAW TV but can't figure out how to get any stations to come in. I do have TVTime if that helps. At least it works.
Later. Pepse.
phlipant
11-22-2008, 01:39 PM
For haupauge, the driver is now part of the stock kernel and should be located in /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/media/video/ivtv. If you want to test your card, try mplayer. I use the command
/usr/local/bin/mplayer -really-quiet -autosync 30 -ao alsa -vo xv /dev/video0
It will display whatever is comming off the card. If the channel is not set, you might get static.
ptune-ui.pl is a progrm that will set the channel.
Notice I had to put .txt at the end of ptune-ui.pl
gamblor01
11-22-2008, 03:10 PM
I think it is designed to work in UBuntu NOT Kubuntu. I have Kubuntu 8.04.
Well there's your problem right there...you're using a great distro but using the variant that comes with the crappy window manager KDE! :p
Seriously though, is this system going to be used exclusively as a PVR or do you intend on using it as your general purpose system as well? If it's going to be a dedicated PVR then maybe you could try installing a Myth specific disto such as Mythbuntu?
http://www.mythbuntu.org/
/usr/local/bin/mplayer -really-quiet -autosync 30 -ao alsa -vo xv /dev/video0
It will display whatever is comming off the card.
Wow I didn't know that mplayer could do this. This is an extremely useful piece of information! Thanks for the tip!
bwkaz
11-22-2008, 03:44 PM
AH, right, so how do I actually run this? I tried a couple commands and I get bashed. I have XAW TV but can't figure out how to get any stations to come in. I believe that if running xawtv (on its own, preferably from a terminal so you can see if it has any output) doesn't show you any video, then you don't have the type of card that would work with plain old transcode. The card has to provide raw video data on /dev/video0, and this is what xawtv (at least when I installed it) expects. If it's getting something different, it won't play it.
On another note, I doubt that all Hauppauge cards use the ivtv driver. But I don't know for sure; they might. It just seems a bit strange if they did.
Pepse
11-23-2008, 10:09 PM
Okay, first of all, I have loaded Myth TV twice, never ran it just installed it through Synaptic. Was very disappointed that it caused my hard drive to "continuously" run. XAWTV does work in the GUI as well as through a command line. IIRC it is a bttv driver not ivtv. " /usr/local/bin/mplayer -really-quiet -autosync 30 -ao alsa -vo xv /dev/video0" I get a bash: No such file or directory. I did discover with XAW that when running this through a command line I can tune the channels. But, as I recall XAW does not record.
ptune-ui.pl ?? What/where do I do what??
My brain just isn't grabbing this stuff for some reason.
Pepse.
gamblor01
11-23-2008, 11:43 PM
/usr/local/bin/mplayer -really-quiet -autosync 30 -ao alsa -vo xv /dev/video0" I get a bash: No such file or directory.
/usr/local/bin might not be the correct path. On my Ubuntu system I think it's in /usr/bin. What happens if you type "which mplayer" ? It should return the fully qualified path, or nothing if it's not installed on your system. Assuming it is indeed installed and in your $PATH variable, then you should just be able to run the command without fully qualifying the path to it:
mplayer -really-quiet -autosync 30 -ao alsa -vo xv /dev/video0
Pepse
11-24-2008, 12:26 AM
Here is the results of that:
~$ which mplayer
/usr/bin/mplayer
jim@jim-desktop:~$ mplayer -really-quiet -autosync 30 -ao alsa -vo xv /dev/video0
mplayer: could not open config files /home/jim/.lircrc and /etc/lirc//lircrc
mplayer: No such file or directory
Win32 LoadLibrary failed to load: avisynth.dll, /usr/lib/win32/avisynth.dll, /usr/local/lib/win32/avisynth.dll
Later. Pepse.
bwkaz
11-24-2008, 11:32 PM
IIRC it is a bttv driver not ivtv. Good! The transcode command that I posted worked perfectly for me (for years) on a card that used the bttv driver. I was recording live TV with it, an hour at a time. (Of course I was leaving it in XviD format, not recording to a DVD. But it still recorded.)
Since you never really posted what errors you were getting when you tried to use it, I'm not sure where to start troubleshooting... ;)
Pepse
11-25-2008, 02:37 PM
I am feeling rather sto-o-opid right now because I don't know what recorder we are trying to set me up with? I think we are going with a command line recorder that should work anywhere.
The only things fer sure is that my TV card works, but all the commands I am to try/use don't work?
Later. Pepse.
bwkaz
11-25-2008, 11:36 PM
I am attempting to get something that will record any signal at all from your video-capture card. I know transcode worked for me.
The only things fer sure is that my TV card works, but all the commands I am to try/use don't work? Maybe it would help to explain exactly how they "don't work"? Since none of us can read minds, anyway. :p
The command you ran along with any error messages you got are always good ideas. ;)
phlipant
11-26-2008, 09:55 AM
Maybe it would help to explain exactly how they "don't work"? Since none of us can read minds, anyway. :p
The command you ran along with any error messages you got are always good ideas. ;)
Additional information really does help. I am curious, as to, what you really have under the hood. Could you give us the output to lspci and lsmod. In addition, ls -l /dev/vid* would be helpful as well.
Pepse
11-26-2008, 01:24 PM
Okay, here goes:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P PCI to AGP Controller (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev c2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB (ICH5) SATA Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV31 [GeForce FX 5600XT] (rev a1)
02:01.0 Multimedia audio controller: Yamaha Corporation YMF-754 [DS-1E Audio Controller]
02:02.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 02)
02:02.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 02)
02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) integrated LAN Controller (rev 02)
ls -l /dev/vid*
crw-rw----+ 1 root video 81, 0 2008-11-26 10:31 /dev/video0
Later. Pepse.
phlipant
11-27-2008, 01:51 PM
check out this post http://www.yeraze.com/article.php/20060721110952288
This fellow has a similar problem and suggests using the v4l driver in Mythtvsetup.
Pepse
11-27-2008, 03:32 PM
After reading that link/post are you saying that even though I am trying to run Freevo that I should somewhere/somehow switch to the V4L driver??
REMEMBER I am NOT running mythtv.
Pepse.
bwkaz
11-28-2008, 11:03 AM
So... what doesn't work with the transcode command now?
Pepse
11-28-2008, 04:50 PM
Okay, I think I/we gotta figure out what the heck I am suppose to be doing. After going over the first post of yours I am "thinking" I am to use a command line PVR? But as I recall the commands given didn't work. Am I correct in saying that XAWTV does NOT record?
Now after reviewing what I posted on the 26th does it look like I should be able to record something? What command am I suppose to use in transcode?
If all else fails maybe we could try to figure out what I am missing to get Freevo to run.
Pepse.
bwkaz
11-30-2008, 01:21 PM
Okay, I think I/we gotta figure out what the heck I am suppose to be doing. After going over the first post of yours I am "thinking" I am to use a command line PVR? Well... sort of. The transcode command that I posted is not a PVR by itself. What transcode does is translate the encoding (...get it? ;)) of video and/or audio files. But because it does that, it's really good at getting data out of one video format (...say, video4linux) and into another (say, MPEG2 for a DVD).
I used it to encode the V4L data as an XviD file so I could watch it later (it was run from cron to do the timing), but at least using something like this, your drive shouldn't be running a lot when transcode isn't running. :)
But as I recall the commands given didn't work. How? I'm assuming you got an error? What error?
Am I correct in saying that XAWTV does NOT record? Yes... although I'm not sure how that's relevant? Using xawtv was just a test to see whether transcode should work; they are not part of the same type of setup or something like that.
What command am I suppose to use in transcode? There is no such thing as a "command to run" in transcode. Just run the huge command I posted (making the appropriate substitutions) and see if that records anything that you can use. :)
If all else fails maybe we could try to figure out what I am missing to get Freevo to run. Yeah, maybe. It'd probably be simpler to use (if it works), anyway. I figured that since transcode was more low level (it's just reading from the device, changing the format, and writing to a file), it may be a better test of what isn't working.
Pepse
11-30-2008, 03:30 PM
Okay, here is what happened when I pasted the transcode command from your first post:
Did you forget to substitute for all the parameters between angle brackets?
Otherwise, the output that you posted makes no sense at all... ;)
Pepse
12-03-2008, 01:10 AM
Ah, I see what you mean. I didn't see the "blahblah.avi" and whatever else. So, what do I actually use for a command?
Boy did I bite on this one:D .
Pepse.
cybertron
12-04-2008, 02:22 PM
You'll need to replace all of the <something> parts with the "something" specified. Probably a good idea to replace the filename too.;) That's all I see that you should need to change.
bwkaz
12-04-2008, 11:44 PM
You'll need to replace all of the <something> parts with the "something" specified. Probably a good idea to replace the filename too.;) That's all I see that you should need to change. Possibly also /dev/video0 and /dev/dsp as well, but that will depend on how many video-in (and sound) cards you have. :)
But that should be it, yes.
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