[mdlug] Best Linux rig for capturing frames from analog video?

[gib at juno.com]

You can get a USB web cam from "Microcenter.com" (SouthEast corner of I75 and 14 Mile) for under $10.  Linux has no problem with these cheap cameras.  

If you can come to the next MDLUB meeting (June 8) I'll let you borrow one. Just let me know. 

I've used "Cheese" to record video from one of the cheap USB web cams. It doesn't have any motion detection options.  I suppose you could buy (Microcenter again) a $60 terabyte disk drive to store video recorded continuously. But no guarantee this would work.

I don't know anything about software for video capture but I did a search and found this:
http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/video/articles/119249.aspx

NVRec

Another useful video capture software that is specifically designed for the Linux OS is NVrec. It captures video from several usb webcams and TV tuners that are compatible with V4L1 or V4L2 (Video4Linus programming interface). The software captures audio from several sources including OSS and ALSA. This is strictly a video recorder that outputs in several formats including Quicktime files, AVI, NuppelVideo format, and MPEG-1. One of the main advantages of this software is the audio stretcher feature which inserts the right amount of audio into a file to cover any lag between the audio and video cards.

---------- Original Message ----------
From: David McMillan <skyefire at skyefire.org>
To: MDLUG's Main discussion list <mdlug at mdlug.org>
Subject: [mdlug] Best Linux rig for capturing frames from analog video?
Date: Fri, 24 May 2013 12:35:02 -0400



     I have a new side-project assignment from my bosses (for, you know, 
my copious amounts of spare time).  We have a high-res *analog* video 
camera (NTSC video for the composite input on a TV) left over from 
another project, and we're about to enter a serious build phase for the 
new project.  The bosses want me to connect this camera to a computer 
and capture periodic images that can be stitched together later into a 
time-lapse video of the construction.

     Now, I've done time-lapse before, using images taken using a hacked 
Canon Powershot (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbDwl8Dh1kk), but I've 
never done analog-video framegrabbing with Linux before. So, here's 
where I'm looking for advice:
1:  video capture hardware.  Has to have a Composite (not component!) 
input.  Since I'll probably have to make do with whatever computer I 
find lying about unused, needs to use USB. Frame *rate* isn't vital, but 
image quality is
2:  capture software:  My current thought is that I can probably use 
motion, with motion-triggered capture, to avoid taking tons of useless 
photos at night and during lunch.  But I'm wide open to advice on this.
3:  "Stitching":  I did that YouTube video using mencoder, but it was a 
bit crude.


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