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Multi-Source Video Capture Cards for Unix?
An anonymous reader asks: "I'm curious as to what video capture cards are being used successfully by the linux user base. I need to capture screen shots from 4 video sources and collect the images in a manner that makes them easy to present in a web browser. A 4 input card would be nice! But I could always use a matrix switcher to grab frames from each source periodically. Matrix-Vision has a card - the mvDelta - that seems to work, but alas, they don't sell single units. What's out there? Who's using it? Any suggestions?"
If all the screenshots don't have to be taken at the same time why not use some cheap channel modulators to put the video signal into a coax line similar to cable TV? Then you can capture each channel right after another. If it's for the web it probably doesn't have to be of exceptional quality or be 30 fps. I just bought a STB PCI TV tuner off of eBay for $20 with shipping which I am going to try something similar with.
If you want the absolute best quality and have plenty o' PCI slots, you be'd better off with more cards. BTW, if all you want is to take screenshots don't waste your money on more expensive cards with hardware MJPEG support unless you are running this on a Pentium 133 or something like that. Even then...