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Linux Box As Digital VCR
Janus Daniels writes: "Kuro5hin has a story about how to use Linux tools to capture any video to a hard drive, edit it, and then copy it to the long term media of your choice."
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I've been working on a similar project, but using a headless box. It has a TV tuner in it, and runs Linux 2.2.18, with the latest V4l drivers. The trick is, that an extremely clever person put this little program together vcr. This program lets you record any video4linux stream straight into any format supported by avifile to disk. Consequence? I now have a skeleton of a web interface that is based on tvguide, that I can select shows from, and have this program automatically record them, straight into low motion DivX, which is really good quality (arguably better than Tivo's MPEG-2) If there is interest, I'll complete and release the project. I can then watch the recorded show on any box on my network, or even the box connected to my TV. It'd probably be cooler to have a TV out card, and watch it right on my TV, and even have a TV interface, but let's walk before we run :)
ill reply anyway. I cant speak for windows but i have done this on my macs for many many years.
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
Linux vs MPAA! -mikeeusa-
Kuro5hin story reposted to Slashdot! (MLP)
Dog Bites Man! (Culture)
Why Rusty Rulez! (Op-Ed)
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
And who says this will be used for purposes of defeating copy protection? I've been lusting after a digital video editing package for a long time...a VERY long time...and this seems like just the ticket, and at the right price.
Don't automatically assume or assert the worst possible usage for innovation. You only wind up making the status quo harder to break past.
Just my two cents' worth...donate the change to your company coffee fund. And feel free to moderate down as flamebait at will...I know I would.
All the world's an analog stage, and digital circuits play only bit parts.
Can you say FSCKTV??
This thing would ROCK with a cable TV descrabler, (for educational purposes of course).
Just what I need. Instructions on how to turn my $2000 Linux box into a $100 VCR.
Anyone play around with hardware MPEG2 encoding? I like the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR (different than the regular WinTV), but it looks like this thing is Windows only :( I'd like to be able to capture and record stuff directly to MPEG2. Anyone know about any Linux drivers for this one? The regular WinTV works with video4linux, but this one apparently does not.
I understand the guys at LinuxTV have drivers for a particular board with the Visiontech KFir chip but I've never seen this board anywhere...
I'm praying to god that this is a troll. If not, here's my response:
;-)), so maybe we should just outlaw books since they can be used for illegal purposes.
The ability to copy digital video DOES NOT IMPLY PIRATING you CLOSE MINDED BAFOON! Macintoshes can do this already. Do you associate THEM with pirating?!?! What if you happen to have a digital video recorder or some such device and which to easily copy its contents to your harddrive?
Copying digital video to your harddrive WILL NEVER BE ILLEGAL. Copying specially COPYPROTECTED digital video will be, probably. A humungous difference.
Also, I'm not completely sure that seeing an OS as good for pirating will hurt your business with consumers. It may make companies more wary but I'd think it would actually attract users.
Also, yes, linux CAN rip DVD's. Both legally and illegally. This is not wrong. If you want an impotent OS that can't do anything illegal even if you wanted to than go to Win98. You'll be too busy rebooting to notice how much it sucks though.
No one here is "'Hacking' devices for illegal purposes", we are just hacking devices. Hacking is not wrong. This is not wrong. It COULD be used for things that are wrong. I could also beat you to death with one of my Neal Stephenson books, which sounds pretty good right now (probably the effect of playing all those video games
Justin Dubs
Alas, alack... One of the only reasons keeping me from switching completely over to Linux running Gnome and Wine is the fact that my video capture device just doesn't cut the mustard under linux.
It's not an appropriate card for gaming, but I have another card for that in the same machine. It even outperforms newer video capture devices in terms of quality and capture stability. Better yet, it works pefectly on a machine as slow as a P1 133. (A 3dfx 3500 TV card has problems with synchronization on anything slower than a p3 550)
Unfortuneately, this problem is pretty standard across the board. Matrox is unwilling to support this card on newer OS's (Linux or Win2k) and Linux drivers just don't exist. Unfortuneately, I'm an artist and don't have anywhere near the coding skills necessary to craft my own. I doubt anyone else could because of this line I found in a Matrox email post: "Matrox has evaluated the required resources to produce a "black-box" for Linux to enable the use of the non-Matrox components. Unfortunately we concluded that many man months would be required and we cannot assign such resources to this project."
Older, yet servicable hardware is getting more and more support on linux, but because of crap like this, it's still lacking in a big way.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
just my two cents' worth...donate the change to your company coffee fund. And feel free to moderate down as flamebait at will...I know I would.
You would? You would moderate this down as flamebait? Then why did you write it?
I know this is off-topic but I'm really getting tired of these little messages to the moderators. Let your statement stand for itself without disclaimers. And please tell me that's not your sig.
I don't mean to be overly harsh, but I've just seen these messages tagged on to otherwise insightful comments too many times. And since this particular thread--the one where I vent steam about bad posting etiquette--will never be on topic, now is as good of a time as any.
Yes, but how to automate this whole process?
I've been usig a program called vcr with limited results, as my processor is too slow for realtime compression...
It's not an appropriate card for gaming, but I have another card for that in the same machine. It even outperforms newer video capture devices in terms of quality and capture stability. Better yet, it works pefectly on a machine as slow as a P1 133. (A 3dfx 3500 TV card has problems with synchronization on anything slower than a p3 550)
Unfortuneately, this problem is pretty standard across the board. Matrox is unwilling to support this card on newer OS's (Linux or Win2k) and Linux drivers just don't exist. Unfortuneately, I'm an artist and don't have anywhere near the coding skills necessary to craft my own. I doubt anyone else could because of this line I found in a Matrox email post: "Matrox has evaluated the required resources to produce a "black-box" for Linux to enable the use of the non-Matrox components. Unfortunately we concluded that many man months would be required and we cannot assign such resources to this project."
Older, yet servicable hardware is getting more and more support on linux, but because of crap like this, it's still lacking in a big way.
This is the same debait in my mind as to why Napster was wrong but FreeNet was right. Napster was specifically designed to trade illegal MP3's regardless of the lies the creater spews out to cover his ass. Freenet was designed as a generic way of trading files. All files. Random files. There is nothing illegal about that.
I find it absurd that a program that has no illegal intent, but COULD be used illegal could possibly be viewed negatively. You shouldn't have to limit your program to make it legal.
Is fdisk illegal? I could use it to wipe out your harddrive. Or a companies harddrive. Just throw it on a bootdisk and go computer to computer rebooting off the disk and wiping harddrives. That would be illegal use of the software. Should fdisk have been designed to make those kinds of things impossible? I don't think so. What's the difference?
Justin Dubs
This is off-topic so shoot me. I submitted the story to slashdot but somehow I don't think they will post it.
Slashdot has silently added more ads at the bottom - taking a sizable portion of the screen. This in an apparent attempt to counter the top ad's fatal flaw - most people scroll down to read the discussion and miss it. Also, it seems that slashdot has abandoned the ethic of posting only nerd interest related ads.
Another .com bust in the works?
You can't really root a mac, can you?
Really, the echoing of Kuro5hin on Slashdot is getting rediculous. Slashdot is not Kuro5hin, some of us have already discussed this a week ago.
(To all you Slashdot readers: this is a joke, you probably won't get it, but some of you will)
oh, yeah ?
check there, works for me.
You don't need to.
A little girl that walks by your system has the same privilages as you, it's administrator, and can inflict the same damages.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
not true at all.
OS 9 changed that
try again.
correction, under all final OS versions of the MacOS currently out, you cannot get root access remotely without applications such as Timbuktu
please define "real security"
hmmm, how about firewire support, USB support, plug and play operability, and an intuitive file structure and naming convention?
but what exactly can you do with that DVD burner? http://www.toad.com/gnu/whatswrong.html
read the part about the Burner.
Scary, huh?
Boycott the MPAA (see below)
Get involved
It's the 21st Century Do you know what your government is doing
There is actually a similar solution for windows...its called SnapStream PVS...and its pretty incredible...full web config/viewing/acess...only downside is it only reacords to AVI or WindowsMedia. Oh well... Try it (I beta tested for them): www.snapstream.com
--matt Cowger
Never respond to a troll lest ye become a troll yourself.
Let's repeat, shall we?
Never resp0nD t0 4 tR0lL l35T y3 b3C0m3 4 tR0lL y0uR5eLf. 0H 5h1T 1v3 b3CoM3 4 tR0lL!!! g0D d4mN3D n1Gg3RzzZ!! fUcK1nG k1K3 f4Gg0TzZ!!!
TRoLL.
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue62/silva.html
I can't wait for my tuner card to get here.
All your dangifiknow are belong to us.
How is this news? Any box running most any platform can do this. zeven the most plebian of WinTel boxes can do it with a cable-ready video cards and a program akin to Premiere. Why is it that existing technologies ported over to Linux always gets the geek populace to spurt in glorious, simultaneous orgasm? So you can stream and capture Real Sex 4456 from your dorm, big deal. It's not making you any better off, dork.
----- nikBONADDIO | www.lockjaw.net
You just described a *BSD.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
Can someone mark this as redundant if the EXACT SAME THING can be found in the comments on the Kuro5hin article?
"And real life has warts and smelly feet" -- Paul Jaquays, id Software
I have a hacked 40Gig ReplayTV(they go upto 160 gig now) which is more than enough for my needs. The dedicated device handles all the channel aggregation(cable/sat), scheduling conflicts, space management. It has channel guides which exactly match my locale and also provides many other features(web interface, theme based recording, ...) Most importantly it's never in the middle of a reboot when I want to record something nor does it ever slow down my computer while it's recording. See my web site for more details:
http://www.slip.net/~gmd/index.html
B.t.w. I'm just about to release 0.3 of the software, which includes a Gtk based interface.
- Unfortuneately, this problem is pretty standard across the board. Matrox is unwilling to support this card on newer OS's (Linux or Win2k) and Linux drivers just don't exist
Wait a minute... so where exactly are you saying the source of the problem is?[...]
Older, yet servicable hardware is getting more and more support on linux, but because of crap like this, it's still lacking in a big way.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
If you happen to read both groups, great. Still, this isn't K5 and a post shouldn't be judged as redundant just because the person decided to post it to two different message boards.
I love going down to the elementary school, watching all the kids jump and shout, but they dont know I'm using blanks.
Today, a spokesman for the MPAA has announced an impending lawsuit against 'Linux' for alleged conspiracy to commit copyright infringement on a mass scale.
"It seems that malicious video pirates have created a tool used solely for pirating movies," stated the spokesman, who wished for his name not to be released. "Using this 'Linux', which can be altered at will to pirate anything, they are able to convert video, including copyrighted movies, into an easily reproduced digital format."
"We have to nip this in the bud," he added. "Since copying video infringes on our copyrights somehow, we're going to sue them."
When asked about the legitimacy of people wishing to archive things such as home movies, he replied, "We're working to copyright those, too. 'Video of Child's Third Birthday,' as well as many other motion pictures in a similar style, are originally the works of motion picture executives, somewhere, and thus our intellectual property."
"Besides," he expounded further, "if people go around making their own home movies, it seriously injures our business. They will have no reason to go to theaters and watch the movies that we make. It is a direct threat to our business, one that infringes on our copyrights. Somehow."
"But how will you sue 'Linux'?" someone asked. "Isn't it a widely-used, open-source operating system, not made by a single entity? Who will you sue?"
"Next question," responded the spokesman, who also announced plans to sue "digital formats" and "computers", claiming that they could be devices used in piracy, and thus against their business plans.
you want an impotent OS that can't do anything illegal even if you wanted to than go to Win98." This is not true. When I last ran Windows98, MANY of the operations it performed were illegal. Luckily, soon after the illegal operations were performed, screens of blue showed up and closed everything down, forcing a reboot of all operations.
Looks like these guys have come up with a redimentary opensource tivo: http://www.stanford.edu/~jjd1/opendvr/. Looks like a fun and very promising school project! Aparently they could not solve the realtime encoding problem. S
Actually, on the MPEG 1 front, mp1e has been around for quite a while.
It does real time video/audio capture direct to MPEG 1, at any bitrate, with decent audio sync
and *superb* picture quality at higher bitrates.
*And* it doesn't require major hardware - I use a K6/2 475 and it rarely jumps above 20% CPU while capturing.
It is, however, rather difficult to find. (Check the V4L mailing lists).
I'm *no* coding wizard (not by a long stretch), but looking at the source this guy has done some amazing optimization (and large chunks of inline MMX assembler).
At least here in germany digital TV (using the afaik worldwide standard DVB - digital video broadcast) is gaining popularity.
You can already buy PCI-Cards for the reception of digital TV (arround $200-250). A Linux Video Disc Recorder for the storage of the digital MPEG2 stream from the satellite is available too.
It has all the features a decent satellite receiver needs and nice recording features. You want to record that weekly show? No problem. Or that other daily show? Cut out the commercials? Using a second card: Start recording when the movie starts, and make a break whenever you like, playing back the still recording stream when you return from your kitchen or whereever you have gone to.
For the software (under the GPL) see http://www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr/
In the new issue of the german ct is an excellent and detailed article about the topic
There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't.
You're a cheating git, Synpax./ 1/31/18749/1930
:-) please :-) )
Any time I am permitted to moderate I'll mod you down for the points that belong to outlyer who wrote that comment on the kuro5hin pages.
Screw meta-moderation, I have 28 Karma to spare.
(This will be modded down by -3 to -1 off-topic, but I don't care. Of course - the nice moderators who are just about to mod me down could verify my story by going to http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2001
and searching for 'outlyer', and then they could mod you down instead
FatPhil
-- Real Men Don't Use Porn. -- Morality In Media Billboards
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
The link to vcr: http://www.stack.nl/~brama/vcr/
</shameless plug>
It's at least possible that the same person made both posts. Different boards, different names, same person - it's at least possible.
I think synpax deserves at least the benefit of the doubt - innocent until proven guilty.
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
There is an article at http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue62/silva.html. Which covers recording with any TV card supported by Linux, using realproducer. I couldn't get the audio to record though.
Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
dumbass
--Dg
Well, I have a $100 VCR, about a year old. Current problems:
__________________
IIRC GATOS goal is to become a V4L driver. Just they're not there yet ':)