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XdTV capture problems


klipp
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Mandriva 2006, Kernel s 2.6.12-12 & 2.6.12-24 --Capturing video from a camcorder using S-Video works fine but records the sound from the TV tuner, rather than the sound on the on the Camcorder recording. I'm using both BTTV (Pixelview) and Saa7134 (10 Moons) TV Capture Cards and they both fail the same way (they both work correctly when booted up to Windoz). This is using the latest version of XdTV, which as far as I've been able to tell, is the only Video Capture software that is capable of capturing S-Video under Linux. (other than MythTV). Also if there is any other Video Capture software that WORKS for Linux, I'd sure like to hear about it.

Thanks in advance for any ideas!

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I have a saa7134-based capture card, and I do a lot of video+audio capture from my VCR (I'm converting all my tapes to digital) through the S-Video input.

 

I plugged the tuner sound (I used the on-card connector rather than the card's external audio output) into the soundcard's internal CD slot, and the VCR audio to the soundcard's external line-IN slot.

 

When I want to record TV, I set the record source to CD, and when I want to record VCR, I set the record source to LINE-IN. To this end, I use the gnome-mixer program, or the text-mode "alsamixer" command.

I may soon change the source for TV, though. Indeed, for your information, it seems that latest saa7134 drivers provide kernel modules to get either alsa or oss sound directly from the video device, instead of requiring a specific audio connector.

 

The program I use to do the recording is mencoder. In my experience, any V4L-compliant program is able to record both video and audio. Some, however, are unable to keep video and audio in sync (eg: the old text-mode NuppelVideo recorder).

Choose your program depending on your needs.

 

Yves.

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Thanks for you're response Yves. You are correct in that the latest kernel modules do provide the ability to get either alsa or oss sound directly from the video device, however this is where the problem is, It doesn't seem to work! Thats exactly what I'm trying to accomplish. When I switch from "Video Source" - Televison to "Video Source" S-Video the audio from the Television is turned off, however as soon as I turn on the S-Video source (Camcorder or VCR) the audio from the Television returns rather than the selected S-Video device. (and again this works correctly in Windoz) which makes me think its a problem in the SAA7134 & BTTV modules! But its hard to believe that BOTH modules would have the same identical problem.

My cards do not have a "on card connector" like your's sems to have, so I can't employ you're solution --- I wish they did!

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I'm not sure you understand what I wrote (I was probably not clear enough). Of course you have to select the video source between Television and Composite1, but you also have to select the audio source (recording source) from your audio mixer.

 

As for the absence of internal audio output, it does not really matter if your recordings with TV are OK. There's no sound in Composite or S-Video signals, so recording from an external device has to use some "auxiliary" (CD, line-in, microphone...) input on your soundcard. Be sure to check the record level with a simple tool like "record levels" on the Multimedia/Audio menu.

 

Yves.

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Yes Yves, I understand what you are saying - and agree with you, the difference is I'm trying to make S-video capture work with the xdtv (sucessor to xawtv)program. Using this program there is now way to turn off the sound from TV other than turning "Line" off, or reducing its volume gets rid of the audio from TV, but the program (or drivers)will not allow audio recording from a different audio source (cdrom or mic) irreguardless of how you set the mixer controls. This all works flawlessly (Sob!) using Windoz, only the "audio output" from the TV card connected to "Line in" of the audio card is required. Seems like this same configuraion should work in Linux. I've been using the RPM's for xdtv, so my next step is trying compiling from source and see if that makes a difference.

I want to thank you again for trying to "bail me out" on this problem, I currently accomplish excellent S-Video capture (with sound) using Avview on a ATI "All in Wonder" Rage 128 pro and Mandrake 10.1 and also accomplish the same using Mandriva 2006 with a Hauppague PVR-250 card. This xdtv program looks like it has a lot going for it and I'm determined to figure out how to make it work.

Thanks again!

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I think I remember there was an option to xdtv (well xawdecode at that time...) to enable audio control, and it was enabled by default (so that you hear TV only when xdtv is launched). You may try and disable it.

Besides, if you look into xdtv's config file in your home directory (probably ~/.xdtv), I think there are lines about which devices are controled for sound.

 

Yves.

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It looks like xdtv at the present is only capable of capturing TV video & sound and the option of capturing S-Video video & sound is not viable at this time. There is no option that I could find that would disable TV sound and enable S-Video sound in the .xdtv config file. I've tried to contact the author to get some help on this but have got no response. The program is a 1000% improvment over xawtv for TV viewing and capturing, possibly there will be an upgraded release in the future that will add what sems to be lacking.

Thanks again for you're help Yves. From the lack of responses to this post, I would guess very few people are using this excellent piece of software.

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  • 1 month later...

I've got the same problem with an AVerMedia TVCapture 98 (card=13). I'm using xawtv instead of xdtv, but they're both the same (gonna try xdtv aswell though, if I don't reply to this means the problem is still there).

With source: television... everything's ok.

With source: s-video... image's ok but audio is the one from the corresponding television channel (though very, very quiet, nearly no sound at all).

 

It worked fine before re-installing my gentoo a few months ago. I think I was using kernel 2.6.12 before. Has it got something to do with the new kernel modules? What may I be missing? I think I have it all correctly and I'm stuck with this problem.

Any suggestion?

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