Wanna turn your computer into a tivo?

dcstimm · Guru Joined: 19 Jun 2002 Posts: 321

first grab a Wintv go Hauppauge bt8*8 tv card ($35) or any other.
then configure it to watch tv.

emerge vcr

then

Here is a example:

vcr -g /dev/video0 -c 'divx ;-) low-motion' -v -p 38 -F 30 -q 100 -m mono -b 64 -t 32m tv-show.avi

-g is to set the device (my wintv card is /dev/video0)

-c 'divx ;-) low-motion' is the video setting

-v is for verbose

-p 38 is the channel to record

-F 30 is the frame rate

-q 100 is quality and its set to 100 which is best

-m is to set mono or stereo

-b 64 is the bitrate for the mp3 audio (64 is perfect for mono audio and 128 and higher is good for stereo)

-t 32 is the timmer, I have it set for 32min

and last is the file I am saving it to, which is tv-show.avi

Hope this shows you how easy it is.

Plus you can stick vcr in your cron tab to record tv while you are away.

Enjoy

rac · Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2002 3:22 am Post subject:

An excellent candidate for the new Multimedia forum.
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dcstimm · Guru Joined: 19 Jun 2002 Posts: 321

ugg i hate when stuff gets moved..

This got burryed behind a whole bunch of old threads that people responded to.. ugg.

mglauche · Posted: Mon Aug 19, 2002 8:38 pm Post subject:

vcr does not like my gcc-3.1.1 system:

voidzero · Bodhisattva Joined: 21 Jul 2002 Posts: 265 Location: Grnn

Upgrade to gcc 3.2

Coogee · Apprentice Joined: 23 Apr 2002 Posts: 184 Location: E.U.

I tried it, but the resulting picture is upside down and looks like a mirror image?!?
Also there is no sound during playback. But I could hear the TV sound during recording.
Any idea what's wrong?
Btw: XawTV works perfectly and it is also an Hauppauge (pronunciation?) WinTV card with an BT8?? chip.

Craigo · Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2002 11:27 am Post subject:

I'm seriously considering doing this since I have got a wintv card (8T848AKPF) when bought with a second hand machine. However, I'm not too sure about the subtitles (since I'm hard of hearing).

However, I should give this a go in the near future.

-/Craigo/-

JHuizingh · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Jul 2002 Posts: 100

How processor intensive is this task. I have an old P166 that I might be interested in doing this with. Could it handle it?

If it's too slow, could I buy a hardware encoder or something that could make it work?

mindows · n00b Joined: 01 Aug 2002 Posts: 33

wouldn't my harddrive fill up by the time i come back?

how does it know when to stop? i tried out ati wonder tv pci card for a few days on my linux machine, but it kept hard freezing my machine. i don't think it was kwintv or xawtv that was freezing.. i had to move it to a w2k machine

JHuizingh · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 05 Jul 2002 Posts: 100

the "-t 32m" argument tells it to record for 32 minutes

Xafloc · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 48 Location: Wisconsin

Hey, I can get the vcr program to record, but the audio is not so godo (although it works well in xawtv), and the picture is upside down and inverted.

Any thoughts as to why that is? Hauppage bt878 chipset.

Thanks,

Darren
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line72 · Apprentice Joined: 13 Jun 2002 Posts: 212

I'm having the exact same problem as Xafloc. I couldn't find anything on vcr's website

/Line72

Chickpea · l33t Joined: 03 Jun 2002 Posts: 846 Location: Vancouver WA

http://www.stack.nl/~brama/vcr/

Xafloc · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 48 Location: Wisconsin

So I installed webvcr, and modified the program to print out the actual vcr command they use to generate, and I used that to test vcr. I still get an upside down picture

Here is the line I ran:

vcr -g /dev/video0 --codec 'divx ;-)

low-motion' --audiomode stereo --framerate 29.97 --quality 100 --source Television --quality 100 --audiobitrate 128 -p '2' --rectime 30s test2.avi
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MaHejn · n00b Joined: 04 Jul 2002 Posts: 70

i am using a hauppauge winTV and VCR is recording upside-down. any ideas how to fix this problem?

greetings, Mahejn

Xafloc · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 48 Location: Wisconsin

I can solve the upside problem when playing with mplayer by using the flip option as mentioned earlier (this thread maybe). However, I get a high pitched squeal in the recording, but not when audio is playing back.

I was thinking it was the input line from teh card to the sound card, but I cannot be sure, as I have moved the input gain down to 30% with no luck. Any thoughts as to what might be causing this. Again, when it is recording, it sounds fine to my ears.

Darren
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http://www.nod.to
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Xafloc · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 48 Location: Wisconsin

OK, how many posts can I put up in one day

What audiobitrate, audiomode, attributes, are people setting when recording. This may determine what kind of quality I get on the audio, that may be giving me that high squeal.

Just a thought....
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Xafloc · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2002 Posts: 48 Location: Wisconsin

Would it be worth trying another sound card?
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simcop2387 · Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2002 12:03 am Post subject:

is there anyway to have it do an endless loop record? e.g. just keep the last 10 hours of tv (assuming you play back through a tv out and use that as the channel flipper)

dazol · n00b Joined: 22 Jul 2002 Posts: 11

or to make it easier, you could just get mythtv

www.mythtv.org

Daz

keef · Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2002 6:50 am Post subject:

vcr emerge fails badly here....Gentoo 1.4rc1:

Miker · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2002 Posts: 65 Location: Belgium

Another vcr application I've come accros is freevo on sourceforge. It's mostly written in python so it should appeal to gentoo-folks

Mike

jbeley · n00b Joined: 02 Oct 2002 Posts: 2

the only system i've been able to compile vcr on has been debian/sid using gcc/g++ 2.95...i've tried mandrake cooker...i even tried bring over my binary from debian with no luck ... i wonder if icc can do any better...

Analyser · Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2002 11:38 pm Post subject:

I too have trouble getting vcr to work. main.cc seems to cause lots of trouble:

garciaae · n00b Joined: 08 Oct 2002 Posts: 6

It seems that it doesn't compile properly with gcc 3.22 headers. Is there any easy solution to fix this?

Thanks in advance.