Video

From DreamsteepWiki

Jump to: navigation, search

Contents

General Video Resources

  • PVR Personal Video Recorder Links & Information

Free Video Software & Utilities

Open Source & Cross Platform Video Software


Windows Video Software

DScaler Deinterlacer/Scaler (Windows) - http://sourceforge.net/projects/deinterlace/

An application that does scaling/deinterlacing/inverse telecine using a high powered PC and a bt8x8 TV capture card. Essentially, this software converts a PC into a good-quality line doubler/scaler/upconverter machine!


VirtualDub - http://www.virtualdub.com/index

VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.

Video Filters for Avisynth & VirtualDub (Windows) - http://neuron2.net/

VirtualDub Filter Pack (Windows) - http://www.thedeemon.com/VDFilterPack/


AlltoAVI Video Converter Utility - Supports many video formats. http://alltoavi.sourceforge.net/


Avisynth Video post-production utility - http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Main_Page

AviSynth is a powerful tool for video post-production. It provides almost unlimited ways of editing and processing videos. AviSynth works as a frameserver, providing instant editing without the need for temporary files.

SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer) - http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

SUPER is an easy to use and efficient tool for encoding or playing nearly any Multimedia file.


Linux Video Software

Kino Kino is a non-linear DV editor for GNU/Linux. It features excellent integration with IEEE-1394 for capture, VTR control, and recording back to the camera. It captures video to disk in Raw DV and AVI format, in both type-1 DV and type-2 DV (separate audio stream) encodings. - http://www.kinodv.org/


Avidemux A free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities. - http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/


dvgrab dvgrab is great and simple to use a command line tool to capture videos from a DV camcorder. When invoked it will automatically put your camera in play mode, and start storing the videos on your hard disk. Video files will be labeled sequentially, as: `001.avi', `002.avi' and so on.

To install dvgrab, use your distribution preferred installation mechanism (apt, rpm, deb, etc) or refer to the dvgrab webpage.

Capturing videos in four easy steps: 

  1. Create a directory where you want the captured videos to be stored
  2. cd to that directory
  3. Type: dvgrab --buffers 500 and RETURN
  4. Press CTRL-C to stop capturing video

The `--autosplit' option is very useful. It splits scenes according to the timecode. However, that only works when grabbing from a DV camcorder. It will not work when grabbing from a analog/digital converter such as a Canopus ADVC110.


Xvidcap Captures an X-Windows display to individual frames or an MPEG video. - http://xvidcap.sourceforge.net/


MythDora Video capture software. Essentially, this is a MythTV distro that has everything you need to install a PVR onto a computer that has a compatible capture card. This is the easiest way to get MythTV installed because there are no RPMs, etc to worry about. All dependent files are part of the package. MythDora is distributed on a single DVD ISO image, or two CDR ISO images. - http://g-ding.tv/?q=MythDora


Video Hardware

Pinnacle Video Transfer

This is a great stand-alone product to use for capturing video in an H.264 (MPEG-4) format. The quality is quite good and the device is very easy to operate. It is especially useful for capturing from a DVD recorder, video tape source, or a set top box from a cable company.


Pros

  • Simple operation.
  • Flexible - it is compatible with many types of USB storage devices.
  • MPEG-4 is a very compatible format for playback on a variety of devices. The files play in QuickTime player, Windows Media Player, iPod, PSP, PS3, or from any computer that can run VLC Player.
  • Multiple inputs including S-Video, Composite video and stereo audio. (S-Video input is great for maximum analog video capture quality.)
  • Upgradeable firmware.
  • Inexpensive - Less than $100.


Cons

  • No timer function to set up recordings. If it had a timer it would rival almost any solid state consumer video recorder out there. It is certainly possible to devise a simple timer circuit that could interface with the "Mode" and "Rec" switches to start and stop recordings, but this is not for everyone.
  • You cannot playback video files from the device.
  • The interface uses only colored lights to communicate what it is doing, but it is very well-designed, and it is easy to learn what the lights mean.


Pinnacle Video Transfer link.


I usually use an 8 GB flash drive for recording, which allows:

  • 22 hours of record time on Good mode - (Video 320x240 768 kbps video 64 kbps stereo audio 48 KHz ).
  • 11 hours of record time on Better mode - (Video 640x480 1.2 Mbps video 128 kbps stereo audio 48 KHz).
  • 6 hours of record time on Best mode - (Video 720x576 (PAL, SECAM) / 480 (NTSC) 1.5 Mbps video 192 kbps stereo audio 48 KHz ).


It can also record to a PSP, iPod, or USB hard drive.


Tips:

I have found the "Better" mode is the best overall for quality versus record time. In the Better quality mode the firmware applies deinterlacing to the video source, so the image is somewhat smoother for playback. I have also been satisfied with the Best quality mode for playback on a PS3, which uses a deinterlacing filter when set to full screen playback.

The device can also be used to create an MPEG-4 compatible audio file. For example, the audio can be extracted from the video with QuickTime player.


Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE

The video capture card I use is a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-500MCE (Software version 3.1F - 5/8/2007). The Hauppauge family of video cards are popular for homemade PVRs, and they are supported by plentiful drivers. - http://www.hauppauge.com/


HDHomeRun

HDHomeRun™ Networked Digital TV Tuner - http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/hdhomerun.cfm

Setting up Torrents

http://paulstamatiou.com/2006/01/04/how-to-make-a-torrent-with-azureus/


Copying DVDs

General DVD Information:


DVD on Linux:


General DVD Copy Protection Information

K9 Copy can not as of yet circumvent the ArcCos protection since the drive and all its supporting OS drivers are designed to correct read errors.

ArcCos is Sony's attempt to emulate what it has done with PS1 and PS2 games with a DVD movie. The protection scheme is to write defect sectors into a disc and bypass them during play on a DVD player through (for lack of a better term) its structure map. Standard DVD writers/readers compensate and correct the defects when it is ripped onto the drive. If the software you are using does not recognize and write dummy sectors, then you will have a "Cyclic Redundancy Error" that will cause a failed copy.

In order to circumvent this protection, the software used has to control the drive directly; in other words to directly control the read/write operations of the drive by overriding the built in OS driver's control of the hardware. DVD Decrypter is the only software that can be run using wine that will recognize the defect sectors and write dummys so that the Structure remains intact and ignores CRC errors. Furthermore the ArcCos protected disc needs to be ripped into an ISO file so that the structural integrity of the disc can be maintained when it is burned.

Sometimes DVD Decrypter can not accurately read defects in a disc or read the disc itself, this may be due to:

1. Small scratches on the read surface, especially on DVD +/-R discs.

2. The laser has overheated and can not focus on the disc properly.

To overcome both of these problems:

1. Carefully clean the disc with a cleaning paste. DVD data is encoded with more fined tuned laser so do not use anything that will scratch your disc. Toothpaste or some cleaning paste of the same consistency works great. To clean the toothpaste off you can use alcohol.

2. When the laser heats up the read of the disc may become very, very slow or not work altogether. To fix this pause DVD Decrypter for 30 minutes to allow your drive to cool and then resume. You may have to do this a few times depending on your drive. WARNING!: If you are copying a copy (aka DVD+/-R discs) do not allow DVD Decrypter to retry reading a defect more than 10 times as this will cause the laser to focus on a certain spot on the disc too long. This acts like a burn if done too many times and therefore PERMANENTLY ruins the spot on the disc. When the read fails let the drive cool for 30 minutes and try again.

I hope you now understand why I say to use the software mentioned instead of the Linux versions. It is about using what works. You are not being disloyal to Linux if you use a program designed for windows, you are helping Wine get better!

Converting DVDs to Other Video Formats

Mac OS X

  • Mac The Ripper - Decrypts most DVDs so they can be copied.
  • HandBrake - Free DVD converter utility. Currently works best on Mac OS X platform.
  • HandBrake Notes for converting unencrypted DVDs to MP4 files.

Windows

  • DVDFab Platinum - Decrypts DVDs and converts to other video formats. This is the best DVD ripping utility overall for Windows.
  • AoA DVD Ripper - Converts unencrypted DVDs to many other video formats, including Flash (FLV) files.


QuickTime

Retrieved from "http://wiki.dreamsteep.com/Video"
Personal tools