TV/VCR Capture Software

[ronchi]

I have a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1800 card on 8.10. The card appears to be recognized by Ubuntu. However, I'm having trouble getting anything out of the card at all. I'm aware of MythTV and Mythbuntu (the latter of which didn't find the card). However, I don't need all those capabilities/complexities. Instead, all that I want to do is capture the video/sound coming out of a VCR and a DVR and put those files into something that I can burn into a DVD.

Is there a software application (or better yet a good website with instructions)? I would be happy just to have the VCR conversion as there are many family films that I want to digitize.

FYI, the results of dmesg | grep tv are:
[ 15.731642] tveeprom 2-0050: Hauppauge model 78521, rev C1E9, serial# 4876695
[ 15.731645] tveeprom 2-0050: MAC address is 00-0D-FE-4A-69-97
[ 15.731648] tveeprom 2-0050: tuner model is Philips 18271_8295 (idx 149, type 54)
[ 15.731651] tveeprom 2-0050: TV standards NTSC(M) ATSC/DVB Digital (eeprom 0x88)
[ 15.731654] tveeprom 2-0050: audio processor is CX23887 (idx 42)
[ 15.731656] tveeprom 2-0050: decoder processor is CX23887 (idx 37)
[ 15.731658] tveeprom 2-0050: has radio

[ronchi]

By the way, if you were going to suggest Zapping (the TV Viewer software for Gnome), it gives a segmentation fault on startup on 8.10 (amd64).

[Macintosh SE]

Did you verify that the card works by testing:

cat /dev/video0 > test.mpg

Do control-C to stop recording, and open the file. If it plays TV, the card works.

Once you have verified this, you can use a simple shell script that I wrote to capture from VHS tapes (I have done this before using a PVR-150 MCE TV tuner):

# SHELL SCRIPT FOR VCR-TO-DVD CONVERSION
#!/bin/bash
printf "%s\n" "< VHS copier > "
ivtv-tune -c 3
printf "ENTER to begin recording, ctrl-C to stop"
read ENTER
DATE=`date +%I%M%p`
echo "Recording started at $DATE "
cat /dev/video0 > /media/Television/VHS/VHS_$DATE.mpg

Paste this into your text editor and save it as something like vcr.sh. To run it from your home directory, type in a terminal window:

bash vcr.sh

This shell script assumes that your VCR is connected via coax cable to your TV tuner, and set to output on channel 3.

I've also written another shell script for scheduling TV recordings like a DVR. If you want, I'll post the code for it here.

[ronchi]

I set the output for the VCR to Channel 3. Still no joy on the card. The test.mpg file was large enough, but none of the players (KPlayer, mplayer, etc.) could read the file. The error messages were along the lines of "Couldn't determine stream".

[Macintosh SE]

That's odd. What does your .ivtv-tune file (a hidden file in your home folder) look like?

[ronchi]

There is no .ivtv-tune file. Incidentally, I already have the latest version if ivtv-utils installed.

[Macintosh SE]

There is no .ivtv-tune file. Incidentally, I already have the latest version if ivtv-utils installed.

That's bizarre. This could be your problem. Try using mine:

device /dev/video0
freqtable us-cable

Paste this into your text editor and save it as .ivtv-tune in your home directory. It specifies the device and channel frequency table to use.

[ronchi]

I added the code to the ~/.ivtv-tune file. Still no luck after a cat /dev/video0 > test.mpg

Here is the output from KPlayer...

MPlayer 1.0rc2-4.3.2 (C) 2000-2007 MPlayer Team
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3600+ (Family: 15, Model: 107, Stepping: 1)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 1 3DNow2: 1 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
Terminal type `unknown' is not defined.
Playing /home/ronc/test.mpg.
ID_VIDEO_ID=0
Exiting... (End of file)

[ronchi]

For extra diagnostic information, here are some partial results from lspci:

05:00.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. Device 8880 (rev 0f)
07:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV43 [GeForce 6600] (rev a2)


I've read several threads that point out problems between the Hauppauge cards and nVidia cards. Could this be part of the problem.

Secondly, do I need to download/compile/install v4l-dvb? Most of the v4l options in Synaptic have already been installed.

Do I need the cx18 driver installed?

[ronchi]

Okay, I think many of my problems were the result of using a 64-bit version of Ubuntu. I dual booted the box by adding a new partition and installed a 32-bit version of 8.10 onto that. Installed all the software (including v4l) and now get (for dmesg | grep tv), the following:

[ 16.671941] tveeprom 2-0050: Hauppauge model 78521, rev C1E9, serial# 4876695
[ 16.671945] tveeprom 2-0050: MAC address is 00-0D-FE-4A-69-97
[ 16.671948] tveeprom 2-0050: tuner model is Philips 18271_8295 (idx 149, type 54)
[ 16.671951] tveeprom 2-0050: TV standards NTSC(M) ATSC/DVB Digital (eeprom 0x88)
[ 16.671954] tveeprom 2-0050: audio processor is CX23887 (idx 42)
[ 16.671957] tveeprom 2-0050: decoder processor is CX23887 (idx 37)
[ 16.671960] tveeprom 2-0050: has radio
[ 28.596034] bttv: driver version 0.9.17 loaded
[ 28.596043] bttv: using 8 buffers with 2080k (520 pages) each for capture
[ 28.679582] ivtv: Start initialization, version 1.4.0
[ 28.679634] ivtv: End initialization


Zapper works (on the 32-bit system. However, still no joy. Upon startup, Zapper comes up with a few error messages ("Cannot restore previous mode"; and "Cannot state capturing: /build/buildd/zapping-0.10~cvs6/src/tveng25.c:map_xbuffers:2578: ioctl VIDIOC_REQBUFS failed: 0, Success"). I've Googled around, but haven't found this same error message anywhere. Strange...

The PC is able to see/utilize the card via Vista (Ultimate), so I know the card works. The problem with Vista is that the WinTV utility is not stable. It has trouble recording programs longer than about 25 minutes.