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(Editorial note: This article has been generously contributed by Mandrake
user Roger.)
The emu10k1 drivers still seem buggy. I have yet to upgrade to the latest
& greatest yet though. It only appears to record in 4-way (quadrophonic)
mode but direct playback thru the 'line-in' is much louder & fuller &
is only played on my 2 front speakers. Something isn't right & I'm placing
bets on it's with the drivers.I finally figured out that this is only due to
XAnim improperly playing stereo sound. Nothing big as it was recorded
correctly.
If your having problems getting sound to record using the sblive card
(line-in), use the console utility called '/usr/bin/record' to troubleshoot.
It comes complete with a nice console 'rec monitor'. Use kmix to choose the
'record channel' by ticking the red dot below the 'line' channel (or use the
'Aumix' because it shows exact values, but is harder to navigate).
Beware: executing '/usr/bin/record' at the same time you record video thru
xawtv, may cause your system to lock solid :-)
Beware: If your getting distorted sound (as if a volume control is too
high), check the 'rec mon' volume settings. I had to set mine to something
like 20% while watching the '/usr/bin/record' output. Do a few test recordings
with xawtv to review your settings while using both the 'line' & 'rec mon'
slide bars to adjust the volume. Also, click 'file > save settings' each
time you get them to your liking. Save them once. Save them many times :)
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Lol. Took me 4 hours to figure out there's more 'drop down applets' on the
record menu, select 'MOVIE DRIVER'. You can't tell initially it's a 'drop down
applet, but it is! WOW! just look, you can also choose avi or even JPEG/jfif
formats! Also, there other 'drop down applets' for 'video format:' &
'audio format'. You need to mouse-over these to find that there are such
applets.
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I can actively capture at 15 fps without frame drops or getting:
rate: queuing frame twice (1)
When I do hit '18fps' I do tend to get one or 2 of the above frame drops,
but my CPU usage on both CPU's never exceeds 30%. If I capture without
compression, CPU usage never really exceeds 15% on both. Most of my problems
appear to have been hard drive related. I've spent several days now just
moving my hard drives around and adding a Promise Ultra100 IDE add-in card.
Also, moved the hard drives so that my two harddrives with o/s system files
reside on ide2 and my drive for capturing video resides on ide3 (a seperate
IDE channel). You can also monitor your hard drive transfer speeds by using
something like '/usr/bin/gkrellm' and performing a cp <a large file> to
another hard drive.
Somebody also mentioned something about add-in ide cards only use one
IRQ....soo...dunno. My setup seems to be just fine (for now).
Also, I switched over to my Windows install to routinely check to see what
Pinnaclesys's PCTV Studio software captures at as "default". I then, made note
of these settings and also use them for xawtv.
Capture Size = 352x240 or 176x120 (176x120 for streaming media across
the internet)
Audio = 16-bit Stereo @44.1kHz (or smaller values for streaming media across
the internet)
I also do the same for the Tmpgenc program that I use for AVI to MPEG
compression:
Video Compression:
352x240 (or 160x112 if streaming media across the internet)
2400 bit rate (or 1150 bit rate. Use with below audio compression to achieve
an overall 1/2 filesize result you would get by compressing only to "352x240
& 16 bit Stereo @44.1kHz)
Audio Compression:
16-bit Stereo @44.1kHz
256 kb/sec (or 192 kb/sec for a smaller file size. Can reduce the audio file
size by half)
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Xawtv shows extreme potential now. 6 Months ago, I saw it as an app that
would only crash my box. It would be nice to see 'record monitoring' feedback
in 'widget' graphics as i noted above.
What we really need now is a good compression program such as the excellent
Tmpgenc which is further defined in the "Additional Information" section of
this article. On this SMP box, it can compress video in a phenomenal little
amount of time! Something like 2 minutes to compress ~600MB (can't remember
the exact original AVI file size) to a 78MB MPEG file. If I set the settings
for a better compression, I could minimize it to a mere ~38MB. The author has
already published a FAQ stating that he has no plans for a Linux version due
to having only Windows experience.
Additional Information
The following are some of the more well-known video tools for
linux.
Avifile allows for better
compression on-the-fly while capturing. The last time I tested Avifile was
about 6 months ago which is a long time in “Code Life”! And just
peaking at the site's news setion proves 2 months or steady activity. http://avifile.sourceforge.net/
VCR which allows one to use
avifile to record remotely. VCR is a text-console only program. http://www.stack.
nl/~brama/vcr/
Linux Motion Video – Just
did a recent search & this looks like a good centralized location for
relavant information. http://www.linuxvideo.com/
I'm going to be looking for a nice 'RECMON utility' ...something that looks
like creatives win32 sblive tools.
I found out about the following three Win32 utilities from the
Pinnaclysys Web Board. They were stated to be better then the Studio PCTV
software, and I tend to agree also.
VirtualDub (Win32, GNU License) It
can do some nifty stuff. I use VirtualDub to edit, cut & paste the avi's
together, etc. I use this for editing my video. As of yet, I have yet to get
any other video editing tool working with my bt848 card. If you know how to
get them working, let me know.
You can find this on http://www.sourceforge.net/</
P>
Tmpgenc (Win32, Free due to still
being Beta). It takes a complete .avi file and converts it to a .mpg and
really does a nice job too!. VERY NICE!!!
Avi_io_file (Win32,
trial only). Is stated to be the best video capturer software for Windows.
Dunno how good it is, my trial ran out before i could use it :( I've posted it
here for the heck of it as many users have mentioned it's "The
Best".
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