I'm using a Diamond vc500 usb video capture device to capture the output from a VCR. The system sees it as a video device, so I think this ought to work with any brand of usb video capture device. Thanks to B. Pinker who answered this question on Amazon: (link)
After some trial and error to get the video and audio device numbers right, this worked in Fatdog 700b2 and Tahrpup 6.0. Slacko 5.9.3 seems to lack a necessary driver.Will [the Diamond VC500] work in Linux / ubuntu 14.04? Sep 28, 2014
Yes, but with difficulty. The packaged software is worthless. Open VLC and go to > Media > Open Capture Device. Set Video device name: /dev/video1. Set Audio device name: hw:0,1. Set Video standard: NTSC. That should allow you to view the input stream. You may be able to capture/record the input with VLC, but I don't think you will be able to record and view (preview) it live...
There are at least 2 options to record in VLC, neither of which yielded a usable file.
1- press the record button on the VLC gui . This recorded the entire tape to a 60 Gb file which I could neither convert nor play
2- use Media/Open Capture Device/Convert. This stopped recording after a few minutes--possibly because my computer is too slow to keep up.
I finally had success using ffmpeg, but only if the computer was fast enough:
Code: Select all
# ffmpeg -f v4l2 -i /dev/video1 -f alsa -i hw:2,0 -target ntsc-dvd ouptutfile.mpg
On a 1.6 GHz dual-core 32-bit atom processor running Tahrpup (which has avconv instead of ffmpeg but takes the same syntax), it dropped below 30 fps and froze after about 30 min.
To burn the dvd, I used instructions here and here
EDIT: I just found this gui by plinej and updated by Rocket to rip, shrink author & burn videos.
The VC500 comes with Windows software, which worked (XP on the 32-bit atom netbook) for the majority of my VHS tapes. (I have fewer than 600 of them ) Two tapes had too much shaking of the image to bother burning to dvd. Tracking adjustment did not help. When I looked at the same tapes on linux, the image was perfectly stable.
EDIT: corrected typo in ffmpeg command Edited for clarity