For the MaJoStudio, trying to get video from our Sony Handycam video8
into iMovie... we went for a digital camcorder.

<hr />
**6May2003**: another nifty slashdot article.
"Honestly, 720x540 is the minimum acceptable digital analogue of the NTSC spec."
-- <a href="http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=63303&cid=5897227">a comment</a>.


**28Dec2002**: tried a Belkin USB Videobus II
(F5U208-MAC. UPACode: 722868357583
7-22868-35758-3).
"Belkin tech support FAQ":http://web.belkin.com/support/faq_qa.asp?pid=112&cid=1#507
claims it works in OS X, but I couldn't get any picture.
I booted OS 9; it sorta worked, but I sound was
greyed out in the video capture software (even though
I could hear the sound from the tape thru the speakers).

Hmm... "ffmpeg for OS X":http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/8988
2002-12-26 version  0.0.4h

<hr />
**16Nov2002**



This bttv card works pretty well as a "v4l":http://www.exploits.org/v4l/ device.

ffmpeg@@ groks well enough. Hmm... can't seem
to do realtime mpeg encoding at decent size/framerate.

320x240 is the best size I'm gonna get, per
this "linux video tutorial":http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialVideo.html

Hmm... "zapping":http://zapping.sourceforge.net/ looks
interesting: "# Realtime MPEG recording." Well, it
seems to work well as a viewer... now, how to get it
to record? hmm... mpeg plug-in doesn't seem to be part
of DebianPackage:zapping.

Hmm... this "making movies":http://www.netjunki.org/articles/makingmovieswithlinux.html
article describes about what I want to do, except
(1) I'm not using firewire to get the video into
the machine, and (2) to I really have to do that
split/encode/multiples stuff?


hmm... back to mjpegtools...

hmm.. this sorta worked, but it's b/w:

lavrec --software-encoding --input T -g 320x240 game.avi

hmm... trying "dvr":http://dvr.sourceforge.net/ again... I
sure like the interactive configuration, with preview...
bummer... craps out when I say "go", looking for lame
libraries... ok, install that...

"Livid":http://www.au.linuxvideo.org/user/support.html

in #livid, somebody recommended transcode; failed
to build, but I found debian packages...
ooh! cool "diagram of formats/encodings":http://www.theorie.physik.uni-goettingen.de/~ostreich/transcode/html/intro.html#about

Hmm... a "howto":http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/VCR-HOWTO-4.html

another clue from #livid: rmmod bttv && modprobe bttv gbuffers=4

From connolly Mon Feb 7 03:50:46 +0000 2005
From: connolly
Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 03:50:46 +0000
Subject: mencoder opts
Message-ID: <20050207035046+0000@dm93.org>

tried dvr... nope... freevo looks scary... found something that said it uses <a href="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news.html">mplayer</a>'s mencoder as the low level. tried <a href="http://freevo.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/doc/FreevoAptDebian">FreevoAptDebian</a>. installed it from source. Got this working::

 mencoder -tv driver=v4l:input=3:forceaudio:outfmt=i420:norm=ntsc:width=320:height=220  tv:// -vc rawi420  -nosound -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4 -o movie4.avi