On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:52:13 +0000 "stevey.eu" alug@stevey.eu allegedly wrote:
It is very much a long shot, but is there anyone out there with any knowledge of copying VHS tapes to a PC for archiving purposes?
I have a fair number that I need to archive sooner rather than later so any guidance would be brilliant.
Steve
I have done this successfully using the aerial out to TV card aerial input and then capturing with mencoder. Script below.
#!/bin/sh # # mencoder script to capture from VHS input through TV card. Produces file encoded in an avi container suitable for later burning to DVD # # $1 = filename # /usr/bin/mencoder tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:input=0:norm=pal:channel=52:chanlist=europe-west:device=/dev/video0:alsa:adevice=hw.1,0:amode=1:audiorate=32000:forceaudio:forcechan=1:buffersize=128 -ovc lavc -lavcopts threads=2:vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=2:trell:v4mv:turbo:autoaspect:vbitrate=2400 -vf pp=lb,harddup -oac mp3lame -lameopts br=128:cbr:mode=0 -ffourcc divx -o $1.avi # # end script
Note - only use "mbd=2:trell" if you have a minimum of a dual core processor and you use the threads=2 option, otherwise you may drop frames or lose synch (see Mplayer online instructions at "14.3.4. Encoding setting examples" of http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML-single/en/MPlayer.html
And if you want "high quality" (of doubtful value if you are recording from a standard VHS using the aerial output) try this (1 hour of tape = 2 - 2.2 Gig of output MPG)
/usr/bin/mencoder -tv norm=PAL:driver=v4l2:width=720:height=576:input=0:channel=52:chanlist=europe-west:device=/dev/video0:alsa:adevice=hw.1,0:amode=1:audiorate=32000:forceaudio:forcechan=1:buffersize=64 tv:// -oac lavc -ovc lavc -of mpeg -mpegopts format=dvd -vf pp=lb/ha/va/dr,hqdn3d,harddup -srate 48000 -af lavcresample=48000 -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg2video:vrc_buf_size=1500:vrc_maxrate=8000:vbitrate=7000:keyint=15:acodec=mp2:abitrate=192:aspect=4/3 -o capture.mpg
You will need to experiment to find free channels on the video card and then set the VHS player to output to that.
Some notes I made for myself which I meant to use in a writeup on my blog (but which I still haven't got around to yet) may be helpful.
--- start notes --
When writing about this, point to: http://forum.videohelp.com/topic307679.html for the mencoder line
and http://www.videohelp.com/tools/ for a list of possibly useful tools.
(and http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=11213&sid=e8dce0202973863690a89... for the debian mencoder line)
and then point to http://www.my-guides.net/en/content/view/75/26/ for info about creating DVD from the files using DeVeDe
1. connect tape player and use RCA to line in on card
2. capture with mencoder line above (to mpeg)
3. load captured mpeg into avidemux to strip out unnecessary crud (eg black lines at the beginning and at the end)
4. save the resultimg file (don't use avidemux to create iso - too complicated
5. import into DeVeDe and convert to iso
6. Use brasero (not K3b) to burn iso to disk
7. point to: http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en/Download for details of mediainfo cli tool for checking codecs etc.
Point to supported hardware at http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Supported_Hardware (mainly about DVB though, not analogue TV
excellent wiki at http://www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/Main_Page
and really good page on recording a stream at http://www.linuxtv.org/v4lwiki/index.php/TV_Recording (compares mencoder with ffmpeg for example)
point to the avidemux wqiki at http://www.avidemux.org/admWiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
---------- end notes
On a side note, anyone happen to have a spare VCR I can loan/purchase? Preferably with S-video output.
Unfortunately I recycled mine when I had converted all my important old tapes to digital format and copied to DVD. You could easily get one from frecycle (which is where I sent mine).
HTH
Mick
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